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Negation of "There Are People Who Wear Glasses"

  Tags: Syntax
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Monox D. I-Fly
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 Message 1 of 9
28 October 2015 at 6:39pm | IP Logged 
Today in my workplace, my QC asked me what's the negation of "There are people who wear glasses". According to me, mathematically it should be "There is no people who wear glasses", because:

"There are people who wear glasses" = "Some people who wear glasses"
Its negation becomes "All people don't wear glasses" which means "There is no people who wear glasses"

However, she said that linguistically the negation should be "There are people who don't wear glasses"

Which one is correct?
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rapp
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 Message 2 of 9
28 October 2015 at 7:49pm | IP Logged 
It depends on how strict you are being when you ask for the "negation" of the sentence. Strictly speaking, I would phrase the negation as "There are no people who wear glasses."

Her sentence is grammatically correct, but is not really a negation of the original sentence, because both her sentence and the original one can be true at the same time.

The only error in your sentence is that "is" requires a singular noun. So "There is no person who wears glasses" would be correct grammatically, and would be a proper negation of the original sentence.
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Monox D. I-Fly
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 Message 3 of 9
29 October 2015 at 12:44am | IP Logged 
Well, the sentence was originally in Indonesian, so I am sorry for any grammatical error.
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SallImSayin
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 Message 4 of 9
26 January 2016 at 4:07am | IP Logged 
I'd say, "There are people who don't wear glasses". My buds (we're all native
speakers..from Midwest, East, South regions)said the same. That's what comes and sounds
most naturally.

If I were to say it the other way, I'd say, "There is no one who wears glasses" but I
can't imagine saying it like that.

Edited by SallImSayin on 26 January 2016 at 4:08am

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Monox D. I-Fly
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 Message 5 of 9
26 January 2016 at 1:50pm | IP Logged 
So far, rapp's explanation has been satisfactory.
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luke
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 Message 6 of 9
29 January 2016 at 2:25am | IP Logged 
I think your teacher is correct.

Original: There are people who wear glasses.
Negation: There are people who don't wear glasses.

It's the sensible, common, correct negation.
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Monox D. I-Fly
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 Message 7 of 9
30 January 2016 at 2:42pm | IP Logged 
Nope, because both of them can be true at the same time, thus they can't be negating each other.
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luke
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 Message 8 of 9
02 February 2016 at 3:01am | IP Logged 
It's a linguistic exercise, not a logic problem.


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