Meaning of Negation
Simple grammatical negation of a clause in principle has the effect of converting a proposition to its logical negation – replacing an assertion that something is the case by an assertion that it is not the case.
In some cases, however, particularly when a particular modality is expressed, the semantic effect of negation may be somewhat different. For example, in English, the meaning of "you must not go" is not in fact the exact negation of that of "you must go" – this would be expressed as "you don't have to go" or "you needn't go". The negation "must not" has a stronger meaning (the effect is to apply the logical negation to the following infinitive rather than to the full clause with must). For more details and other similar cases, see the relevant sections of English modal verbs.
In some cases, by way of irony, an affirmative statement may be intended to have the meaning of the corresponding negative, or vice versa. For examples see antiphrasis and sarcasm.
For the use of double negations or similar as understatements ("not unappealing", "not bad", etc.) see litotes.
Read more about this topic: Negation (linguistics)
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