"No" as a modifier at the beginning of the sentence

[lizk89]

LR Bible p. 133.

"No citizen can be denied the right to vote."

If it is possible to explain further, why does the "no" modify the "denied the right to vote."

Thank you!

[Jon Denning]

Hey lizk - thanks for the question. This is a tricky concept for a lot of people (at least at first), because it seems as though the "No" here is describing "citizen" and should negate it ("Citizen" with a slash through it). But consider what it's really saying. The phrase "No citizen will/can/is..." is establishing an exclusive group--citizens--and then telling you about something that will NOT occur/apply to them. So we have our group of citizens, and then we know that NONE of them have a particular characteristic, in this case none of them are denied the right to vote. It's equivalent to me saying that "all citizens CANNOT be denied the right to vote": Citizen --> Can Vote (or Not Denied Vote, or Denied Vote with a slash).

Consider another example that might be a little more accessible, mentally. "No Doctors are Lawyers." What am I really saying here? Well I'm telling you something very specific about Doctors: "If you are a Doctor, you are not a Lawyer." So "Doctor ---> Not Lawyer." And the contrapositive, "Lawyer --> Not Doctor." Literally none of the people in the Doctor group can also be in the Lawyer group. They are exclusive (so you could actually use the handy double-not arrow as well: Doctor <--|--> Lawyer).

And note that I'm NOT saying that non-doctors must be lawyers! That's a mistaken negation and would cause some real trouble if you interpreted my statement that way.

So be careful when you encounter conditional language like the above. All it's doing is establishing two groups/conditions are being separate from one another (exclusive with respect to each other).

I hope that helps!

Jon

[lizk89]

That was helpful.
It`s clicked.

Thanks a ton.