Negationwhether

Negationwhether is a term used in linguistics to describe the interaction between negation and the complementizer whether in sentences that embed questions. The label combines negation and whether to refer to a family of constructions in which the placement and scope of negation affect how the embedded question is interpreted.

In its basic form, negationwhether concerns how negation relates to an embedded indirect question introduced by whether. For example:

- I do not know whether he will come. Here the negation applies to the proposition inside the embedded clause, and the overall statement expresses doubt about that proposition.

- I do not know whether he will not come. In this case negation appears inside the embedded clause, altering the content of the questioned proposition itself.

Another related pattern is the use of “whether or not” to emphasize that negation or affirmation could apply regardless of the outcome, as in Whether or not he comes, we will start on time. This foregrounds the interaction between negation and the scope of the whether-clause.

Typology and cross-linguistic variation

- English typically uses whether to introduce indirect questions, with negation either inside or outside the embedded clause, affecting scope and meaning.

- Other languages show different patterns of negation with indirect questions, which motivates cross-linguistic studies of negationwhether.

Applications in theory and annotation

- In semantic and syntactic theory, negationwhether helps classify how negation interacts with negation scope and with complementizer clauses.

- In natural language processing, negationwhether features can be used to annotate corpora for negation scope detection and to train parsers on how negation interacts with whether-clauses.

Status

The term is used in some theoretical discussions but is not a universally standardized label. It serves as a descriptive shorthand for studying the interplay between negation and embedded interrogative clauses.