Abstract In an English sentence with negative structure, when it is isolated, there appears more than one interpretation or meaning，which contributes to the ambiguity in an English negative structure, one of the English ambiguous structures. The causes of this ambiguity are various. A new light is shed on how to correctly comprehend such ambiguous sentences by three aspects including scope of negation, transferred negation and negative transformation. With the knowledge of the structure and the phenomenon, one can get the actual meaning and avoid ambiguity and errors in both understanding and expression. 61417

Keywords: negative structure； ambiguity； scope of negation；transferred negation；negative transformation. 

摘要在含有否定结构的英语句中，如果是一个孤立的句子，往往会令读者觉得含有多种理解或者多种意义。这就导致了英语否定结构中常出现歧义现象，这种否定结构即是英语歧义结构之一。造成这种歧义现象的原因不尽相同。本文从否定范围，否定转移和否定转换三个方面入手，试图为正确理解否定歧义句提供一种新的思路。了解这种结构和现象，就能知道这种结构的正确意义，从而避免歧义，避免理解和表达的错误。

关键词：否定结构，歧义，否定范围， 否定转移，否定转换

Contents

1. Introduction1

2. Literature Review1

3. The Causes of Ambiguity  2

3.1 Ambiguity by Scope of Negation.2

3.2 Ambiguity by Transferred Negation4

3.3 Ambiguity by Negative Transformation.6

4. Disambiguation.8

5. The Illumination of this study on the translation of English negative structure.10

6. Conclusion.12

Works Cited.14

1. Introduction 

As we know, the affirmative and negative structures are two main sentence structures in  both English and Chinese. In English the negative structures are very complex in meaning, as the negative structures may not express the negative meaning. The English negative structures are the sentences or phrases that have the negative words or negative meaning unit. Generally speaking, it can be classified into seven categories according to the usage and effect of the negatives:1.Complete negative structure 2.Partial negative structure 3.Double negative structure 4.Continuous negative structure 5.Implicit negative structure 6.Transferred negative structure 7.Other special cases. Because of different ways employed to present such a structure, a negative sentence may cause some problems, especially those of misunderstanding and ambiguity in translation. Ambiguity is a very common phenomenon in English. As Kempson (1979) indicates, there might be two or more than two meanings for words and sentences. It is also defined by Leech (1983) as a language item with two or more than two cognitive meanings. According to Yang Junyan (2000), if a phrase or sentence has two or more than two grammatical or semantic relations, structural ambiguity occurs. This phenomenon is referred as ambiguity. As Empson (1987), who is an English linguist, says, ambiguity is associated with phonetics, vocabulary, syntax and grammar, so it will bring many linguistic problems and difficulties, which will hinder our comprehension and communication. Here are listed three main factors that lead to the ambiguity in English negative structure.

2. Literature Review

A lot of researchers both from abroad, such as, Mackay, 1965; Gorfein, 1989; Kooij, 1971; Zwicky and Saddock, 1975, and domestic, such as Ma Bosen, 1995; Zhou Shuqing, 1996; Xu Subo, 1999; Yu Jingbo,2001; Qiu Shude, 1998, etc., have carried out various researches about ambiguity, but there are still lack of sufficient concern about ambiguity derived from English negative structure, which is related to the most common and important negator in English, namely, not.