Negation

• Any sentence structure can be used.
• The sentence can be negated through a negative head shake (shaking your head right to left) or by using a negative sign (NOT/DON’T, CAN’T, WON’T, DON’T-WANT, DON’T-KNOW).
• NO is not typically used in a sentence. It is generally used to answer a yes/no question while other negative signs are used in sentences.
• The negative sign comes before the verb or the sentence can be set up as a Topic, Comment sentence and the negative sign used in the comment.
• Non-manuals: Must use the non-manuals for the sentence structure. It is good practice to use the negative head shake, but is not always necessary.
• Examples:
  • I can’t go tonight.
    • TONIGHT, ME GO, CAN’T.
  • I wasn’t able to finish the project.
    • PROJECT ME FINISH? NOT.
  • I haven’t been to Paris yet.
    • ME NOT-YET VISIT PARIS?
• Notice that the ASL gloss is all capitalized (to represent signs), has punctuation (matching the sentence structure) at the end, has dashes between the letters that are fingerspelled, and has a dash between the two words used in English to represent one sign in ASL.
• The English is written with only the first letter capitalized and there is punctuation (matching the sentence structure) at the end.