Negation in the German-Ukrainian Language Comparison

Undertaken in the present paper is a comparative analysis of negation in German and Ukrainian. Negation is considered as a linguistic universal that can have universal features in at least four fields: morphological, semantic, syntactic and prosodic. The means which are responsible for expressing negation can be identified morphologically in each language. However, the morphological marking of negation can lead to an incorrect interpretation of its semantics because morphologically negation can exist where semantically it does not belong and vice versa. Negation is a semantic operation that turns a false statement into a true one and inverse. Syntactically, in the structure of each negated sentence in German and Ukrainian as well as in any other natural language, a special position for negation can be assumed from which the predicate and its arguments are subjected to negation. The intonational emphasis on negation can change its scope and release a contrasting or focusing negation in both languages which are examined. It is crucial to make a distinction between negation as a semantic operation and negation as a linguistic act with three types contradiction, refusal and rejection.