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Negating Statements

lovejeb0729lovejeb0729 Alum Member
edited July 2023 in Logical Reasoning 123 karma

I need help negating statements that look the same but appear to be negated in different ways.

  1. "The leopard magpie moth does not have the speed or the agility to escape from any of its potential predators" (PT80 S1 Q5)

Negated: "The leopard magpie moth does have the speed or the agility to escape from some of its potential predators"

2.

"The proposed legislation is not made up of a set of statements some of which are overly specific and some of which are overly vague" (PT80 S2 Q18)

Negated: "The proposed legislation is made up of a set of statements some of which are overly specific and some of which are overly vague"

How come for the former statement, the "any" is changed to "some" while in the latter statement, the "some" does not change?"

Thanks in advance!

Comments

  • 1stWorldProblems1stWorldProblems Live Member
    655 karma

    First negation:
    The leopard magpie moth DOES NOT have the speed or the agility to escape from ANY of its potential predators" - DOES NOT, is negated as DOES, but the ANY, in context of the rest of this sentence, reads (for me at least) as ''NONE', so the original sentence states that 'the leopard magpie escapes from non-of its predators', and the negation of 'none' is 'some', kinda like the opposite of none is some. It's a bit like the negation of 'nobody' is SOMEbody right? You would't negate 'nobody' as 'EVERYbody.
    Second negation:
    "The proposed legislation IS NOT made up of a set of statements some of which are overly specific and some of which are overly vague" - the only thing you need to negate in this sentence is 'IS NOT', basically ISN'T = IS, and the rest of that statement is negated with it.

  • naticorteronaticortero Alum Member
    edited July 2023 10 karma

    In the first sentence, "The leopard magpie moth DOES NOT have the speed or the agility to escape from ANY of its potential predators". The ANY would transform into SOME because it is not the opposite of the word ANY that we are looking for, it is the negation which is NOT ANY which could be some. Therefore, that's why the first sentence would be changed into "The leopard magpie moth does have the speed or the agility to escape from SOME (not any) of its potential predators."

    In the second sentence, as Rae said, the "some" is a little vague so it would then stay the same and the only thing that would change would be the IS NOT to IS.

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