Affirmation and Negation

Affirmation and negation are the ways that grammar encodes negative and positive polarity in verb phrases, clauses, or other utterances. Essentially an affirmative (positive) form is used to express the validity or truth of a basic assertion, while a negative form expresses its falsity.

Affirmative and Negative Response
Special affirmative and negative words (particles) are often found in responses to questions, and sometimes to other assertions by way of agreement or disagreement. In English, these are yes and no respectively.

The affirmative and negative words of my language are si ("yes") and no ("no").

Affirmation
A way a verb is affirmed is by writing out the action by itself. Here is an example sentence: Ego sapio esso. "I know that." The sentence implies that the subject knows, so a specific affirmative word is not essential.

A second way a verb is affirmed is by adding the word si before the verb. For example: Ego si sapio esso. The closest English translation would be: "I affirmatively know that". By adding the affirmative word before the verb, it emphasizes that the subject is affirmatively doing the action.

Other examples: Isso sto uno simio. "It is a monkey." Ego si sto feriando. "I am (affirmatively) wounded."

Negation
The way a verb is negated is by adding the word no before the verb. For example: Ego no sapio esso. "I do not know that.'' By adding the negative word before the verb, it explains that the subject is not doing the action.

Other Examples: Isso no sto uno simio. "It is not a monkey." Ego no sto feriando. "I am not wounded."