
Clausal negation refers to simple negation of a full clause. The language uses a different construction for negative clauses from that in affirmative clauses. That is, one does not simply “addâ€ a negative morpheme. Finnish is an example: <i><b>e-n</b> syö-nyt omena-a</i> ‘<b>Neg-1sg</b> eat-PTCP apple.PART’ for ‘I didn’t eat an apple’ (Dryer 2008). Notice that the negative auxiliary takes subject agreement, normally reserved for verbs, and the main verb is in the form of a participle. <br><br>

English is another example. To negate the affirmative clause <i>He eats apples</i>, it is not enough to simply add a negative morpheme. Rather, an auxiliary <i>do</i> takes subject-verb agreement, a negative morpheme is added, and the main verb is in the infinitive form, as in <i>He does not eat apples</i>. See Miestamo (2008).

<br><br><b>References</b><br>
Dryer, Matthew S. 2008. Negative Morphemes.
In Haspelmath et al. (2008), chapter 112. Available online at <a href=â€http://wals.info/feature/112â€> http://wals.info/feature/112</a href>. <br>
Miestamo, Matti. 2008. Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation.
In Haspelmath et al. (2008), chapter 113. Available online at <a href=â€http://wals.info/feature/113â€> http://wals.info/feature/113</a href>. 
