# Grammar: Negative/positive verb order **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 19, 2003, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-negative-positive-verb-order/196282 "2003-08-19T20:44:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Azi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Azi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Azi)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-negative-positive-verb-order/196282/1 "2003-08-19T20:44:57Z")
I was just in an argument over the “correct” way to say a sentence. I feel both are equally correct grammatically. The other person insisted “I don’t” is the only proper way to say it because “you’re not supposed to correlate a positive guesture with a negative proposition.” Here are the two sentences: I believe you cannot speak English. I don’t believe you can speak English. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-negative-positive-verb-order/196282/2 "2003-08-19T21:48:19Z")
AFAIK they’re both fine. The second sounds more natural to me, though techincally it could imply that you have no opinion either way. ---
**Author:** ![Azi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Azi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Azi)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-negative-positive-verb-order/196282/3 "2003-08-20T00:20:36Z")
Well, I apologise for replying to my own thread. I checked around and thought about it a bit. I see no such rules in any texts. The two seem perfectly correct, with slightly different meanings. At least to me and one other person (Shade). The first one is more assertive saying I actually believe it to be true. The second is more uncertain, or possibly no opinion at all as you said, Shade. I think it is just your certainty, politeness, or how you feel like saying it (the way that feels natural.) So, I’ll leave it as that. Again, sorry about answering my own question. ---
**Author:** ![Z\_Al](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/41988e/32.png) [@Z\_Al](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Z_Al)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-negative-positive-verb-order/196282/4 "2003-08-20T03:33:30Z")
Yep, both are technically correct, just different meanings. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-negative-positive-verb-order/196282/5 "2003-08-20T03:46:00Z")
This phenomenon is called “negative raising.” It’s been discussed a lot in linguistics papers on English grammar. The question of which form is correct doesn’t even make sense. They’re both used frequently in written and spoken English, although they may have slightly different meanings. Google on “negative raising” and you’ll find a lot of webpages about it. Here’s one: [http://www.bartleby.com/68/65/4965.html](http://www.bartleby.com/68/65/4965.html) You might also want to look at the section entitled Negative Raising (pages 595 to 604) in _The Syntactic Phenomena of English_ by James D. McCawley. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-negative-positive-verb-order/196282/6 "2003-08-20T07:10:23Z")
Good one, Wendell. I didn’t realise there was a real answer! ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-negative-positive-verb-order/196282/7 "2003-08-20T07:21:13Z")
As everyone else has said, they are both correct, each with a different meaning. One makes an assertion that can be proved / disproved and the other does not. “I believe you cannot speak English” parses as “I hold a belief that you do not have the ability to speak English,” whereas “I don’t believe you can speak English” comes out as “I don’t hold a belief that you can speak English, but I do not assert that you cannot.” ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-negative-positive-verb-order/196282/8 "2003-08-20T08:14:20Z")
Well, as Wendell’s link says, “I don’t believe…” should mean what you say (and in a discussion on philosophy I would use it to make exactly that distinction), but colloquially everyone uses it to mean the same as the first. BTW, Bambi H, cool name 🙂