Scope of negation

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

Scope of negation: what exactly are you denying?

You already know how to say no in Serbian. The lesson “Basic negation” gave you the particle ne before the verb and the fused forms nisam, nemam, neću; “Negative concord” showed that with a ni- word the verb is negated too (Niko ništa ne zna); “Genitive of negation” showed the case that follows nema. They all answered “how do I negate?”. Now for a subtler question: what exactly are you denying?

One and the same ne can cancel a whole statement, or just one word in it while the rest still stands. Compare: Ne radim danas. “I’m not working today”: the work itself is cancelled; Radim, ali ne danas. “I am working, just not today”: only the day is cancelled. The part of a statement that the negation covers is called its scope. In this lesson you will learn to hear it and to choose it: deny one word with a correction introduced by nego, say Ne mislim da..., tell “you don’t have to” from “you mustn’t”, join two denials with niti, and answer with Serbian restraint: Nije loše.

The whole statement or one word

The ordinary negation in Serbian sits with the verb and cancels the whole event at once. But put ne before an adverb, a noun or a phrase with a preposition, and only that piece is cancelled; the rest still stands.

The last two rows show a habit worth copying. In a full sentence Serbian usually keeps the negation on the verb (nisam kupio, nije zvao) and names the part it means with a correction introduced by nego. English does much the same: “I didn’t buy bread, I bought pastries” is everyday speech, while “I bought not bread but pastries” sounds bookish. Right before the word, ne stands in a fragment with no verb (Ne hleb, nego pecivo. “Not bread, pastries”), before a phrase with a preposition, as in the fourth row, and in ne samo “not only”. “Not me, him” is Ne ja, nego on (the lesson “Basic negation”), but with biti the negation is fused as always: “It wasn’t me” is Nisam ja, never “ne sam ja”.

When the verb is there, three things show what the negation is aimed at. First, the correction: if a continuation with nego fits naturally, the negation denies exactly what the correction replaces. Nije došao autobusom, nego taksijem. He didn’t come by bus, he came by taxi. He did arrive; only the bus is denied. Second, word order: Serbian puts new information last (the lesson “Topic & focus”), and with no special stress the negation aims there. Third, stress: the voice picks out the denied word, as in English.

Nisam ja to rekao. I didn’t say that. With the stress on ja, it means someone else did, like English “I didn’t say that”. Where English simply stresses “I”, Serbian has to bring in the pronoun, which it normally drops: you can only stress a word you say, so ja comes right after nisam. A short answer with a correction is Nisam ja, nego Marko. “Not me, Marko”, as in the dialogue of “Topic & focus”.

The correction: nego and već, not ali and a

A correction after a negation comes in two beats: first what is not true, then what is true instead. The second beat is introduced by nego or već. English uses “but” here (“not black but white”), or simply a second clause (“it’s not black, it’s white”).

Here nego and već mean the same and both are correct; nego is more frequent in speech, već slightly more bookish. A description is corrected the same way, with the negation on the verb: Haljina nije plava, nego zelena. The dress isn’t blue, it’s green. The word after nego takes the same case as the one it replaces: Nisam pitao Anu, nego Milicu. “I didn’t ask Ana, I asked Milica.” But keep nego and već firmly apart from ali and a: the jobs differ, even where English says “but” for all of them.

After nego comes what stands instead of the rejected thing; after ali comes what is true in spite of the negation (all the conjunctions are in “Basic coordination”). A does not introduce a “not X, but Y” correction, but when the right thing comes first, a ne “and not” is fine: Sutra idem, a ne danas. “I’m going tomorrow, not today”; Marka volim, a ne Petra (the lesson “Topic & focus”).

The frequent construction ne samo... nego i “not only... but also” rests on the same correction (već i is just as correct): here the first beat does not cancel what is said, it says that this is not all.

Cheat sheet

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Scope of negation: what exactly are you denying?

Scope: what ne crosses out. With the verb, the whole statement; before another word, only that word, often with a correction: nego / već.

The whole statement or one word

In a full sentence ne usually stays with the verb; the target shows in the correction (what nego replaces), the stress and the end of the sentence. “It wasn’t me”: Nisam ja.

The correction: nego / već, not ali or a

• nego / već (već more bookish): replace: Nije student, nego profesor. Haljina nije plava, nego zelena.
• ali: concedes: Nije bogat, ali je srećan. He isn’t rich, but he’s happy.
• a: two facts side by side: Ja radim, a ti spavaš. Right thing first: Sutra idem, a ne danas.
• ne samo... nego i (or već i): Govori ne samo srpski nego i grčki.

svi, uvek, mnogo

Also ne sasvim, ne odmah, ne previše, ne naročito. Avoid the ambiguous Svi nisu došli.

Ne mislim da...

Ne mislim da će doći. I don’t think he’ll come. = Mislim da neće doći, only softer, as in English. Also verovati, činiti se, izgledati, želeti.

• Not with znati, reći, kazati, tvrditi: Ne kažem da je loše. “I’m not saying it’s bad.” Ne znam da li je došao. “I don’t know whether he came.”
• iko, išta never in a plain statement: Ne mislim da je iko primetio.
• Modals: ne moraš “you don’t have to”, ne smeš “you mustn’t”, ne treba “no need, you shouldn’t”, ne možeš “you can’t”, Ne mora da znači. “Not necessarily.”

niti

Softened denials

Nije loše. “good”, Nije baš jeftino. “rather expensive”, Nije mi svejedno. “I care”, Nije to mala stvar. “it matters”, Nije zgoreg pitati. “worth asking”. “Not really”: Ne baš. A soft no: Ne bih rekao., Nije da ne volim, ali...