XX0 Analytic negation

Xiao S129 MFTE XX0 child of NEG_ALL

Definition

Negation using “not” or contracted “n’t” (e.g., “he did not go”, “she can’t see”).

Parent

NEG_ALL

Detection Rules

Default analytic negation rule. Refines RB.

cql[word={words}]
Word list (2 items)
not n't

Requires: word

Refines: RB

mfte

cql[word={words}]
Word list (2 items)
not n't

Requires: word

Refines: RB

pybiber

cql[word={words}]
Word list (2 items)
not n't

Requires: word

⚠ Same em-dash blob artifact as [[CONT]]: pybiber’s n’t_\S* regex matches inside garbled compound tokens (seriousMightn’t, hemightn’t), overcounting by 2. Token-level pyclef=49 is correct; pybiber=51 is a bug.

Normalization

Per finite_verbs

Examples

Why don’t you believe me?

Source: le_foll_2024

There is no way that’s happening any time soon.

Source: le_foll_2024

Nor am I.

Source: le_foll_2024

Sources

  • biber_1988 — Biber, Douglas (1988) : Variation across Speech and Writing
  • mfte — Le Foll, Elen & Shakir, Muhammad (2023/2025) : Multi-Feature Tagger of English (MFTE) — Python version
  • pybiber — Brown, David West & Reinhart, Alex (2026) : pybiber — Python package for linguistic feature extraction and Multi-Dimensional Analysis
  • xiao_2009 — Xiao, Richard (2009) : Multidimensional analysis and the study of world Englishes
  • grieve_2023 — Grieve, Jack (2023) : Register variation explains stylometric authorship analysis

Notes

D1 loading .78 (involved). MFTE merges with synthetic negation (XXSYN). Analytic negation is the dominant form in modern English.

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