(By Matti Miestamo): "Standard negation can be defined as the basic way (or ways) a language has for negating declarative verbal main clauses. Negative constructions that fall outside standard negation include the negation of existential, copular or non-verbal clauses, the negation of subordinate clauses, and the negation of non-declarative clauses like imperatives (see Chapter 71). These negatives are not taken into account here, but it is of course possible that languages use their standard negation constructions for the negation of these clause types too. ❡
This map shows how symmetric and asymmetric standard negation are distributed among the languages of the world. In symmetric negation the structure of the negative is identical to the structure of the affirmative, except for the presence of the negative marker(s). In asymmetric negation the structure of the negative differs from the structure of the affirmative in various other ways too, i.e. there is asymmetry between affirmation and negation. Affirmative and negative structures can be symmetric or asymmetric in two ways: there can be (a)symmetry either between the affirmative and negative constructions, or between the paradigms that the affirmative and negative constructions form. Symmetric negative constructions do not differ from the corresponding affirmative constructions in any other way than by the presence of the negative marker(s), whereas asymmetric negative constructions show structural differences in comparison to the corresponding affirmative constructions..."