PastNegative

The past negative is a grammatical form used to express that a past action or state did not occur. It is a category found in many languages and is usually formed with a negator together with a past tense marker or auxiliary. In English, the past negative is typically built with an auxiliary plus not, often using do-support for most verbs.

In English, simple past negative uses did not followed by the base form of the main verb: I did not go to the store, she did not see him. Contractions are common: I didn’t go, she didn’t see him. With the verb be as the main verb, the past negative takes was not or were not (often wasn’t or weren’t): He was not happy, they weren’t ready. For perfect tenses, the structure is had not followed by the past participle: I had not finished. For continuous forms, was not being or were not being + present participle: She was not sleeping, they were not arriving yet.

Across languages, past negative expresses negation in the past but its formation varies. Some languages place a negation particle before the verb (for example, no or ne, combined with a past-tense form), while others use dedicated auxiliary constructions or affixes. Language-specific nuances include contraction patterns, double negation tendencies in informal speech, and differences in the interaction with aspect (simple, perfect, continuous).

See also: negation, past tense, auxiliary verbs, language-specific negation patterns.