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Article published In:
Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 28:2 (2018) ► pp.373–395

Negation in narrative

Why say what didn’t happen?

| Saarland University

Negation in narrative has been described primarily as a resource for expressing evaluation, and secondarily in its role in establishing orientation, but this article investigates a range of ways negated statements can contribute directly to complicating action. Negation works through presupposition in the rhetorical figure of paralipsis with phrases like “to say nothing of.” Reporting “I don’t see how she got in” presupposes that she got in. Semantic double negation in phrases like “never fail to” contributes to the complicating action. Idiomatic negatives like “didn’t go out” and negatives matching expectations like “didn’t go to sleep” mirror positive actions in the narrative model. Constructions coupling main clause negation with a positive embedded clause produce statements entailing actions in the chain of events, as in “I couldn’t face going back.” Taken together, these constructions provide powerful resources for contributing positively to the dynamic narrative model with negative statements.

Keywords: negation, evaluation, complicating action, orientation, paralipsis, presupposition
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Negative versus positive
    • Negation inherently weaker
    • Negation more difficult
    • Negation and denial
  • Species of (non-narrative) negation in storytelling
    • Global negation ranges over a whole narrative or section of it
    • Negation in subordinate functions
    • Exculpation
  • Negation in orientation and evaluation versus action
  • Negation at the outset
  • Negated statements as narrative clauses: How to say something positive by saying something negative
    • Paralipsis and presupposition
    • Constructions positive via double negation
    • Standard idioms in negation
    • Negative for positive due to expectations
    • When saying not entails positive action
  • Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 19 October 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.17028.nor
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