LACUS
FORUM
XXX
Language, Thought
and Reality
© 2009 The Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States (lacus).
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NEGATION IN HORTATORY DISCOURSE
Shin Ja J. Hwang
Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics/SIL International
Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by
Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
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hortatory discourse aims at influencing behavior of an addressee, as in sermons
and words of advice. Its intent may be expressed by a performative verb, ‘propose, i.e.
suggest, urge, command’ (Longacre 996:5). Along with narrative, hortatory discourse
is a basic type of discourse, universal to all languages and cultures, and includes four
macro-level elements in its schema: the credibility or authority of the speaker, a problem/situation, the command, and motivation. This study explores the functions of
negation in written hortatory discourse in naturally occurring texts, noting the distribution of negative and positive imperative forms¹.
Much literature studies negation from semantic, logical, morphosyntactic, and
typological perspectives. This paper is from a functional perspective, i.e. the functions of negation in its discourse and pragmatic context. Some functional studies of
negation dealing with narrative and expository discourse have been done and are
reviewed below, but to my knowledge no study has been done on the functions of
negation explicitly in hortatory discourse. Tottie’s book on negation (99), while primarily dealing with variation between forms like not versus no in English conversation and exposition, presents a chapter on the pragmatics of negation. Tottie proposes
rejection and denial as two basic functions of negation. Rejection, which occurs
mainly in dialogues, is not relevant to our study of monologue texts. Of the two types
of denials, i.e. denials of explicitly stated assertions and those of implicit information,
the latter type is most frequent and interesting in a study of written monologue texts.
Pagano’s study (994) on English expository data is exclusively on implicit denials.
She reports four primary functions of negation: denials of background information,
text-processed information, unfulfilled expectations, and contrasts.
Hwang (992b) and Yamada (2003) have studied functions of negation in narrative. With illustrations from narrative texts in English and Korean, Hwang notes that
negation is an explanatory device to tell what did not happen, contrary to expectation
(signaling a break from a frame or a script), based on shared information from the
text, context, or culture. Beyond this basic function are found global functions, such
as marking a turning point in the plot or a high tension point, such as a peak. Yamada’s book applies previous findings to personal experience narratives in Japanese and
reports a variety of both local and global discourse functions. He views contrast as
the basic function of negation, and denial as a universal pragmatic feature, with a
wide range of functions such as marking a problem, a turning point, a high tension
point, or moral evaluation (Yamada 2003:404).
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Shin Ja J. Hwang
Urging that we use ‘real examples in real contexts for meaningful pragmatic studies of negation’, as I do, Jordan (998) argues against the belief that negation is less
important and less informative, and proposes that positive and negative statements
serve different purposes with regard to informational levels. He presents examples of
one-, two-, and three-part structures such as denial and correction, and thesis-concession-rebuttal, using English examples of mostly expository discourse.
Givón (993) points out that negation is a confrontational and challenging speech
act of denial of discourse presupposition. That is, it tries to correct the hearer’s mistaken beliefs. This speech act of denial may be to provide background and explanatory information in narrative and expository discourse as shown in previous studies.
See Grimes’ (975) discussion of negatives in narrative marking a type of non-event,
collateral information. Hwang and Yamada, however, show that some negatives contribute to the foreground in narrative by marking a turning point on the storyline.
This paper shows that the basic function of negation as denial of expectation is
true of background information in hortatory discourse as well. But it claims that negatives contribute to the mainline of exhortation in hortatory discourse in a crucial
way that is not parallel to any other type of discourse². Hortatory discourse employs
command forms³ on its mainline in contrast to narrative and expository types, in
which statements occur on the mainline to make assertions. Procedural discourse of
a simple type, such as a recipe or an instruction, may use imperatives on the mainline
as well, but the function of negation seems to be more restricted, as in a warning in a
procedural step, e.g. Don’t start to cook until the ingredients are well marinated.
Negative imperative constructions may issue a prohibition, urging the avoidance
of undesirable behavior. They sometimes reinforce a positive imperative, as in: Don’t
do X but do Y. A negative-positive pair may actually paraphrase each other. Other
negative imperatives occur by themselves, prohibiting commonly found behavior, as
in do not criticize and do not forget.
The sources for the present discussion are written texts in English and Korean,
from newspaper and magazine advice articles, and two New Testament books of the
Bible⁴. Most of the negatives in our texts are sentential negations, with the scope of
negation an entire clause.
. negation in english advice articles. The first text comes from the Business
section of the Dallas Morning News, carrying the headline ‘Don’t get bit’. In the upper
right-hand corner there is a section with five bulleted points.
()
Guarding against fraud: Here are ways to protect against investment fraud.⁵
[1] • Always check out the investment and the person promoting it.
[2] • Don’t invest in something you don’t understand.
[3] • Take your time learning about the investment.
[4] Don’t be pressured into turning over your money immediately.
[5 ] • If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by
Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
Negation in hortatory discourse
369
[6] • Don’t invest based solely on the recommendation of a member of an
organization or religious or ethnic group to which you belong.
The thesis of this short text is stated in []: Always check out the investment and the
person promoting it. The negative sentence in [2] is a paraphrase of the thesis. [3]–[4]
amplifies the thesis regarding the time factor (take time), and [6] further amplifies
the thesis regarding personal relationship. The generic, common sense statement in
[5] may be viewed as the reason for [6], which gives the second amplifying command
in negative form⁶.
There are two positive imperatives, check out and take your time, and three negative imperatives, don’t invest twice and don’t be pressured. The paraphrase relations
between [] and [2], and between [3] and [4] can be called a negated antonym paraphrase (NAP) in a broad sense⁷. Negatives function here to paraphrase and reinforce
what is given in positive imperative. That is, [2] and [4] do not deny what precedes
them, but say the same things, in a different way, using negatives. These negative sentences, however, may occur on their own without the positive imperative sentences,
in which case they function to deny or warn against careless behavior, i.e. investing in
things that we don’t understand. Note that the negative imperatives may strike the
reader more strongly than the theses in positive. That is, the reader may take more
notice of the paraphrases in negative form. [6] certainly is a strong warning against
the common tendency to trust someone in our own group.
Let us compare the following two extracts, with only positives in (3) and with only
negatives in (4):
(3)
Guarding against fraud: Here are ways to protect against investment fraud.
• Always check out the investment and the person promoting it.
• Take your time learning about the investment.
• If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by
Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
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(2) Thesis: Negated Antonym Paraphrase ¶
Thesis:
[] Always check out the investment and the person promoting
it.
Paraphrase: [2] Don’t invest in something you don’t understand.
Amplification 1: Negated Antonym Paraphrase ¶
Thesis:
[3] Take your time learning about the investment.
Paraphrase: [4] Don’t be pressured into turning over your money immediately.
Amplification 2: Reason ¶
Reason:
[5] If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Thesis:
[6] Don’t invest based solely on the recommendation of a
member of an organization or religious or ethnic group to
which you belong.
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Shin Ja J. Hwang
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(4) Guarding against fraud: Here are ways to protect against investment fraud.
• Don’t invest in something you don’t understand.
• Don’t be pressured into turning over your money immediately.
• Don’t invest based solely on the recommendation of a member of an organization or religious or ethnic group to which you belong.
Even without considering the third point in each group, which are not paraphrases,
negative imperatives may be more weighty and informative. A similar point is made
in Jordan (998:706–7) about a negative statement. In certain contexts, as in The captain was NOT drunk last night, he states that ‘a clear negative statement had much
more power than the positive, because it implied that the positive (the captain’s
drunkenness) is the usual or normal situation’, and that it ‘contains more information’.
The negative imperatives in our text may similarly have ‘more power’.
The investment article itself appears on two pages and includes both positive and
negative imperatives as well as negative statements. The introductory part is in (5).
(5)
Don’t get bit: Con artists are always looking for an opportunity to strike.
Common sense says that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is… Common sense isn’t your only tool. The securities board and other
regulators offer ways to check out those who are soliciting your money.
The headline in negative Don’t get bit, which is certainly eye-catching, is followed by
a sentence about con artists to present the problem. The imperative title is more like
a motivation for this hortatory text than a command, i.e. ‘To not get bit in the current
situation with con artists, do as in the following commands’. The second sentence
starting with common sense, Common sense isn’t your only tool, is in the negative,
since the first sentence might imply that common sense suffices. The first sentence
is a concession to the second in negative, which denies a possible inference that it is
the only tool. The semantics of negation commonly involves denial of expectation, i.e.
frustrated expectation of many varieties, as in this case.
In the body of this article, there are five negative imperatives (don’t buy, don’t be
taken, don’t let, don’t hesitate, never invest) and eight positives (make sure, ask, watch,
watch out, check, make sure, find out, ask). There is an additional negative in an ifclause (if you don’t understand) and two more in an explanation near the end (Just
because an investment is registered with state regulators doesn’t mean you won’t lose
money in it). The explanation is followed by the final positive imperative sentence,
Just ask Enron Corp. shareholders, which is not a command to act but a rhetorical
command to make a point by adding a well-known case.
Similar examples of negative antonym-like paraphrases are found in an article on
health, ‘I am afraid I have bad news… Twelve steps to handle a disturbing diagnosis’.
The steps are not contingent upon previous ones, as is the case with procedural discourse; rather, they give advice whose steps are only roughly temporally organized.
Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by
Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
Negation in hortatory discourse
371
The negative imperative occurs before the positive in (6)b, and in the other four the
paraphrases are in a positive-negative order.
The remaining seven steps have commands only in the positive; and in one there are
two positive imperatives: Make hurried doctors listen… Remember that some of the
best physicians are the worst communicators.
In this text, the ratio of negative-positive commands is : in main steps as stated
above, 8:24 in sub points, and 9:35 total.
Not all main points in advice may be a command. In a text discussing how to teach
children positive self-image through fitness, one of the six main points is in a negative statement, Parents aren’t the only adults that influence their children. It is immediately followed by a positive command as in other points: Set the ‘no diet-talk’ rule
mentioned above for all adults that are around your children. Two points in a positive
command are followed by a negative command.
(7) a. Establish a ‘no diet-talk’ rule.
When your children are nearby, DON’T talk about dieting or how fat you
feel!
b. Teach your children to include physical activity as part of their daily routine.
But don’t force them to exercise.
The negative command in (7)a explains the rule, with capital letters for DON’T and
an exclamation mark. So the negative command here is not just paraphrasing the positive but supplying necessary information to carry out this first main point. The second
pair in (7)b, coupled with the conjunction But, is a case of denial. After a command,
it denies implicit expectation regarding the extent of exercise. It illustrates a typical
function of negation, of the concession-denial type, involving frustrated expectation
between two sentences.
In this section we have noted from three English articles that negative imperatives
crucially contribute to the mainline of exhortation. A negative imperative may occur
by itself or in a pair with a positive imperative to reinforce the advice, by paraphrasing
or amplifying, or to deny expectations that may arise from the positive sentence.
Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by
Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
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(6) a. Start building your team.
Don’t try to get through this battle alone.
b. Don’t let a gung-ho doctor rush you…
Whenever possible, take a few days… to ponder all your options
c. Invest 40 bucks in a microcassette tape recorder.…
Don’t even think about trying to write while you’re listening to a doctor talk
d. Tap two brains.
Don’t hesitate to get a second opinion–and don’t feel uneasy about telling
e. Get educated, not distraught.
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Shin Ja J. Hwang
2. negation in a korean advice article. In the hortatory text called ‘The working
Person’ with twenty-eight sentences (see Hwang 992a for full text and discussion),
only one overt imperative, which is positive, occurs, and that in the very last sentence.
Thus there is no negative imperative, but negative statements occur throughout the
text. A long expository section presents a situation/problem in []–[2] describing
two types of people, those who work and those who meddle and create work. In
describing working people in [3]–[8], two sentences show NAP with the second one
in the negative: ‘They devote mind and body to their work’ [4] and ‘They do not meddle with other’s work’ [5]. In the much longer section concerning meddlers ([9]–[2])
two sentences are related in paraphrase, with the first one in negative: ‘Thankfully, I
regard that the number of such people is not high’ [8] and ‘They are the minority’
[9]. What is interesting is that three sentences with negatives ([2]–[4]) occur in a
row, perhaps to highlight the negative characteristics of this undesirable group: ‘If
things don’t fit their minds even a little, they complain right away. They cannot feel
satisfaction in their work. When the work does not come out well, they think the
responsibility lies not with them but lies with others’. This is analogous to the occurrence in narrative of negatives in a cluster at the peak or high point of tension; but
with only one example, and only in Korean, we can only speculate that it is a possibility in hortatory discourse as well.
The motivation section ([22]–[26]) switches from expository to hortatory, and the
deontic modal should occurs twice in ([22]–[23]), stating that ‘there should be many
working people’. Then another point is made after a concession in two negative statements: ‘Although the world is not perfect, those who work hard feel the value of life’.
(8) Concession: Amplification ¶
Thesis:
[24] The world is not perfect.
Amplification: [25] The society in which we live, the place we work, and the
country we belong to are not perfect…
Thesis: [26] But those who are devoted to work feel the value of life …
The concession stated in the negative makes the thesis in [26] much stronger; that is,
their feeling toward life is not due to perfect situations. While the negation involving
a concession-denial would have negation in the denial part (a common function of
negation), as in (7)b, [24]–[26] in (8) show that negation may occur in the concession
part with the thesis in positive. This Korean hortatory text does not contain negative
imperatives, but our analysis shows that negative statements may also have a reinforcing function by paraphrasing and adding a concession, with a possible function of
marking a high tension point when several negatives occur in a cluster.
3. negation in biblical texts. Two texts are chosen to study how negatives function in New Testament hortatory texts,  John and Colossians, for which discourselevel analyses are available. Longacre’s analysis shows that  John is a hortatory text
because overt command forms are basic to the text, although only 9% of main clause
Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by
Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
Negation in hortatory discourse
373
verbs are command forms, i.e. ‘imperatives, hortatives (‘let us love’), jussives (‘let him
love his brother also’), and ‘ought’ forms’ (Longacre 992:278). While these forms
are used for the main exhortations, there are also forms of mitigation in grammatical subordination or subjunctive verb forms, such as a purpose clause (‘so that you
may not sin’ in 2:) and conditional clause (‘if we confess our sins’ in :9). For ease of
discussion, our analysis is based on the NIV in English. Six negative command forms
occur in  John:
The first command form in the book occurs in 2:5 as a negative imperative prohibiting us from behaving normatively by loving the world. In Koine Greek, 3:2 is a verbless sentence, ‘Not like Cain, who belonged to…’, but is more naturally translated both
in English and Korean with a negative imperative verb. In 3:3, the imperative is not to
direct us to a correct, proposed behavior, but is a kind of rhetorical device to draw our
attention. In 4: the verbs are negated antonyms roughly, not believe and test, with the
negative imperative occurring first. The not-but pattern, which expresses a contrast at
a glance, is really functioning as a paraphrase at a deeper level. The same pattern in
3:8 might seem to represent a contrast with two pairs of opposition:
(0)
Let us not love
but (let us love)
with words or tongue
with actions and in truth
The verb love is used with negation in the first clause, and the positive form of the
same verb is gapped in the second and the two with-phrases are in opposition. At a
much deeper level of meaning, however, we argue that the two are saying the same
thing and similar in content. This is especially true in a polarized world with only two
possibilities, either ‘with words or tongue’ or ‘with actions and in truth’. Don’t love
with X but love with Y, which is the opposite of X.
There are eleven positive command forms: six imperatives (including one cohortative let us form), in ()a (overleaf), and five with deontic modals, should, ought, and
must, in ()b. Comparing ()a with (9), we can see that there are six each of the positive and negative forms.
Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by
Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
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(9) 2:5 Do not love the world or anything in the world.
3:7 do not let anyone lead you astray.
3:2 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his
brother.
3:3 Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.
3:8 let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
4: do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from
God, because many false prophets have gone out in the world.
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Shin Ja J. Hwang
() a. 2:24
2:27
2:28
4:
4:7
5:2
b. 3:
3:6
4:
4:2
5:6
See that what you have heard… remains in you.
remain in him.
Continue in him
but test the spirits
Dear friends, let us love one another;
Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.
we should love one another.
And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
we also ought to love one another
Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
If anyone sees…, he should pray and God will give him life.
 John prominently uses polarized concepts such as love and hate, light and dark,
along with negation, to present examples of contrast at the intersentential level, as in
(2), in which the thesis is elaborated on further in v., marked as Thesis' ⁸.
(2) Thesis:
2:9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is
still in the darkness.
Contrast: 2:0 Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.
Thesis': 2: But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks
around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going,
because the darkness has blinded him.
In (3), a contrast between two groups of people is made in positive-negative statements, after We are from God in 4:6a:
(3) Thesis: 4:6b and whoever knows God listens to us,
Contrast: 4:6c but whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
 John, in the Revised Version of the Korean Bible, reveals similar patterns of usage
and frequency of negative and positive commands. Korean includes three more positive forms than the NIV. The rhetorical imperative po-la ‘see-imp’ in 3: mirrors the
Greek imperative verb idete ‘see’, which is removed in the NIV but retained in the NASV,
which is known to be a more literal translation. The pro-verb ha-ca ‘do-let’s’, added in
3:8 (‘let us not love with words or tongue but Ø with actions and in truth’), is required
in verb-final Korean while it is gapped in head-initial Greek and English. Finally, in
5:6, what is expressed in the NIV as should pray is given as kuha-la ‘seek-imp’ which
is more natural after a long conditional clause. The Korean deontic modals used correspond to English ones.
In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, there are far more positive command forms
than negative ones, in contrast to  John, in which there are six of each. The ratio
in Colossians is 33:5, or 34:5 when we combine one occurrence of deontic modal
Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by
Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
Negation in hortatory discourse
375
must in 3:8. As expected, command forms do not occur in the preliminary sections of setting, problem, and credibility of author, but they occur in exhortation
and motivation sections (2:6-4:6) as well as in the final greetings (4:7–8)⁹. The first
imperative is found in 2:6 So then, …continue to live in him, and the next one in 2:8 is
positive in command but with a negative component, both in Greek and NIV: See to it
that no one takes you captive. Some versions translate this as a negative imperative, e.g.
Don’t let anyone fool you in CEV. The final imperative in 4:8 Remember my chains (in
NIV and Greek) is translated as Do not forget (in TEV and CEV). No doubt negative
imperative is chosen for impact. The five negative imperatives are as follows:¹⁰
2:6
2:8
3:9
3:9
3:2
Therefore do not let anyone judge you
Do not let anyone… disqualify you
Do not lie to each other
do not be harsh with them
do not embitter your children
We do not find the NAP in negative-positive pairs we see in  John, except for one
possible NAP in 3:9: Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. The
two commands are not exact paraphrases of each other, but we can assume that
the two behaviors, loving and not being harsh, go together and that they form loose
paraphrases.
The imperative verb set in 3:2 is gapped in the second part: Set your minds on things
above, not on earthly things. This verse is translated in Korean with paired positive
and negative imperative verbs which occur at the end of each clause: ‘set’ and ‘do not
set’. Is this a case of contrast? There are two opposed pairs, one pair in verbs and the
other in locative phrases. But the whole sentence sounds more like a paraphrase at
a deeper level. If we consider the two behaviors ‘setting your minds on things above’
and ‘setting your minds on earthly things’ to be the only possible alternatives, negating one would result in the same behavior.
In 3:8–4:, imperatives occur with vocatives for different groups of people.
(5) 3:8
3:9
3:20
3:20
3:22
4:
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.
Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.
Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.
Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; …
Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair…
The two that are negative (do not be harsh in 3:9 as a loose paraphrase of love, as
discussed above, and do not embitter your children in 3:2 without a positive imperative) seem to refer to more specific behaviors, possibly showing more delimitation in
the case of negative imperatives.
Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by
Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
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(4)
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Shin Ja J. Hwang
4. conclusion. From several naturally occurring texts, we have noticed that at the
global level of an entire text, negation functions to mark the mainline of hortatory
discourse, prohibiting behaviors that are commonly expected in the background of
text and culture. This prevalent function of momentous negation, I believe, is unique
to hortatory discourse. There is also the possibility of marking a high tension point
with the multiple occurrence of negatives. In the Korean text, the problem section
contains three statements in a row with negatives, possibly heightening tension.
At the local level of paragraph context, negation is frequently used to paraphrase
a positive sentence. Such paraphrases involving negated antonyms function to
strengthen a positive command or statement. There are numerous examples of this
type in both English and Korean texts and in Biblical texts. Perhaps the most prevalent use of negation (in a variety of discourse types) is for frustrated expectation or
concession, such that when p occurs q is expected—textually, contextually, or culturally—but q doesn’t occur and something else, a surrogate, occurs instead. Hence the
use of negation to deny that q occurred. The third type of relationship is contrast,
which is what Yamada considers to be the basic function of negation. When two
referents are involved as subjects, contrast is clear, as in she likes coffee, but he doesn’t
and in (2)–(3). In second-person imperatives, the addressee is the subject, and what
might seem to be a contrast turns out to be a paraphrase with the same subject referent you, as in (0). In summary, negation in hortatory discourse shows a variety of
functions in local and global contexts, and indeed one may claim it to have more
power in its use, given the element of expectation that is frustrated and denied.
¹
I express my thanks to Les Bruce, Marlin Leaders, and Bill Merrifield for their comments
on earlier versions of the paper. The term hortatory does not refer to a particular grammatical form in this paper but to a type of discourse, which has values of [+ Agent orientation], [– Contingent temporal succession], and [+ Projection]. See Longacre (996, chapter
) for detailed discussion of discourse typology.
²
Not all hortatory texts make use of negation in such a way. Some texts feature negation
more heavily while others may include no example of negation.
³
The ‘command forms’—sometimes shortened to ‘commands’—refer to a broader category
than second-person imperatives and include cohortatives (let us go), jussives (let him go),
and ought forms (Longacre 992:278). In this paper the term command is sometimes used
interchangeably with imperative. Thus ‘a positive command’ is a shorthand expression for
‘a command or directive expressed by an affirmative imperative sentence’. Command as a
macro-level unit of hortatory discourse may include a variety of directives such as ordering, requesting, advising, and suggesting (Hamblin 987).
⁴
To observe different patterns of use and distribution, three English texts and two books of
the Bible are studied. As for Korean, only one hortatory text is studied, and further study
is needed encompassing a wide range of texts. The standard abbreviations are used to refer
to English versions of the Bible: NIV for New International Version, CEV for Contemporary English Version, TEV for Today’s English Version, and NASV for New American
Standard Version.
Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by
Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
Negation in hortatory discourse
377
Sentence numbers are added in brackets for ease of reference. Positive imperative verbs
are underlined and negative forms are boldfaced throughout the paper.
⁶
Depending on the role [5] plays in the overall structure, alternative analyses are possible,
but I believe this analysis is plausible for our purposes and illustrates the functions of
negation. As the only indicative mood within a stream of imperatives, [5] may be viewed
as a reason for or a comment on [3]–[4], [2]–[4], or even the whole text.
⁷
Longacre (996:78) describes NAP as ‘one of the closest possible varieties of paraphrase’
with examples like poor and not rich, and short and not tall.
⁸
The intersentential or paragraph analyses in (2)–(3) are taken from Longacre (983).
⁹
See Alaichamy (999) for discourse analysis of Colossians.
¹⁰ Three negative imperatives embedded in a question in 2:2 are not included here: why…
do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’
REFERENCES
Alaichamy, Shalom. 999. Discourse structure and hortatory information in Colossians. MA thesis, University of Texas at Arlington.
Givón, Talmy. 993. English grammar. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Grimes, Joseph E. 975. The thread of discourse. The Hague: Mouton.
Hamblin, C.L. 987. Imperatives. New York: Blackwell.
Hwang, Shin Ja J. 992a. Analyzing a hortatory text with special attention to particle, wave, and field. lacus forum 8:33–46.
—. 992b. The functions of negation in narration. Language in context: Essays
for Robert E. Longacre, ed. by Shin Ja J. Hwang & William Merrifield, 32–37. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Jordan, Michael P. 998. The power of negation in English: Text, context and relevance. Journal of pragmatics 29:705–52.
Longacre, Robert E. 983. Exhortation and mitigation in First John. Selected technical articles related to translation 9. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
—. 992. Towards an exegesis of  John based on the discourse analysis of the
Greek text. Linguistics and New Testament interpretation: Essays on discourse
analysis, ed. by David A. Black, 27–86. Nashville: Broadman.
—. 996. The grammar of discourse, 2nd ed. New York: Plenum.
Pagano, Adriana. 994. Negatives in written text. Advances in written text analysis,
ed. by M. Coulthard, 250–65. London: Routledge.
Tottie, Gunnel. 99. Negation in English speech and writing: A study in variation.
San Diego: Academic Press.
Yamada, Masamichi. 2003. The pragmatics of negation: Its functions in narrative.
Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.

Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by
Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
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⁵