SYNTAX: NEGATION

1. Negation in Catalan is carried out mainly by means of the adverb no. There are two types of negation, as in most languages: absolute and partial.

2. Absolute negation involves the whole sentence and just requires the adverb no used as a proform.

– que vols xocolata? – no.	“do you want some chocolate?” “no, I don’t”.
– que no tens gana? – no.	“aren’t you hungry?” “no, I am not”.

3. Some other formulae can be used in the same way to express negation.

– que t’agrada la xocolata? – en absolut.	“do you like chocolate?” “not at all”.
– que vols anar-te’n? –no, de cap manera.	“do you want to leave?” “no way”.

4. Partial negation is instead used to negate a part of the sentence; the adverb no is place in front of the predicate. From o phonetic standpoint, no is stressed when used as a proform; instead, it is unstressed when used a simple negation adverb in partial negation. In fact, this difference corresponds to the existing in English between no and not.

No’, no puc’ fer’-ho	No, I can’t do it
No’, el cap’ no m’ha dit’ res	No, the boss didn’t tell me anything

(´) marks the stressed words within the sentence.

5. No always precedes the conjugated verb. That means that if the verbal cluster possesses several verbs, no will be placed before the first one:

no hi he pogut parlar (amb ells)	I haven’t been able to talk to them
no estic fent res	I’m doing nothing

6. Negative words require a negative verb, unlike other Romance languages:

ningú no m’agrada	I don’t like anyone/anybody
tampoc no ho entenc	I don’t understand it either

7. There are a series of adverbs and quantifiers that are exclusively used with negative constructions, such as gaire (=much), cap (=no), gens (=at all)

de matemàtiques, no en sé gaire/en matemàtiques, no m’hi entenc gaire	I don’t understand about Maths too much
no ho sé gens	I have no idea
en qüestió de motors, no me n’hi entenc gens	I know nothing about engines

8. Furthermore, a negation can be emphasized by means of the particle pas

no tinc gana	I am not hungry
no tinc pas gana	I am not hungry at all

9. Certain particles always carry a negative value:

ni t’imagines el que m’han regalat	you can’t even imagine what I was given
se’n va anar sense dir cap paraula	he left without saying a single word