Negation (linguistics)

In linguistics and grammar, affirmative and negative are terms of opposite meaning which may be applied to statements, verb phrases, clauses, and some other utterances. Essentially an affirmative (positive) form is used to express the validity or truth of a basic assertion, while a negative form expresses its falsity. Examples are the sentences "Jane is here" and "Jane is not here"; the first is affirmative, while the second is negative.