Negative Raising: Ek dink nie ... nie

There is a subtle pattern that separates fluent Afrikaans from merely correct Afrikaans: when you doubt or deny what someone else thinks, knows, or expects, the negative usually lands on the main verb — even though, logically, it belongs to the subordinate clause. Ek dink nie hy kom nie literally reads I don't think he is coming, but it means I think he is not coming. The negation has climbed up out of the clause where it semantically belongs. English does exactly the same thing (I don't think he's coming), so the instinct transfers — but Afrikaans wraps the whole structure in its characteristic stacked nie … nie, and that is where learners stumble. This page explains the mechanics and the idiom.

What "negative raising" means

In a sentence like I think he is not coming, the negation logically modifies coming — you are forming a belief about a non-event. But speakers of English and Afrikaans alike prefer to lift the negative onto the matrix verb (think) and say I don't think he is coming. The meaning is unchanged; the negative has simply raised from the lower clause to the higher one.

This is not a quirk of one verb. A specific family of "opinion" and "expectation" verbs licenses the climb — most reliably dink (think), glo (believe), and verwag (expect). With these verbs, negating the main clause is read as negating the embedded one.

The stacked nie … nie

Here is what makes the Afrikaans version harder than the English one. Afrikaans negation normally closes with a sentence-final nie (the "double negative" that is not really a double negative — see the negation overview). In a negative-raising sentence, that closing nie sits at the very end of the whole construction, after the embedded clause. So you get a nie near the matrix verb and a nie closing the sentence, with the subordinate clause sandwiched between them:

Ek dink nie [ hy kom ] nie.

The first nie marks the negation; the second nie closes it off, exactly as Afrikaans negation always does. The subordinate clause lives inside the bracket. This is why a learner who is comfortable with simple Ek werk nie can still freeze on Ek dink nie hy kom nie — there appear to be two negatives, but the sentence is singly negative. The closing nie is grammatical bookkeeping, not a second denial.

With and without dat

The embedded clause can appear with or without the complementiser dat (that). Both are correct; the dat-less version is lighter and more conversational, while dat is a touch more formal or explicit.

Watch the word order shift that dat triggers: in the dat-clause the verb goes to the end (dat hy kom, dat sy weet — here the verb is already final, but with an object you would see it clearly: Ek dink nie dat hy die boek gelees het nie). Without dat, the embedded clause keeps main-clause order. Either way, the closing nie still parks at the very end.

Why raised negation is the natural choice

You can negate the embedded clause directly — Ek dink hy kom nie — and it is grammatical. But it sounds heavier and slightly more emphatic, as if you are reporting a positive thought about a negative fact. The raised version is the unmarked, idiomatic default. There is a pragmatic logic to this: lifting the negation to the matrix verb softens the assertion. I don't think he's coming is gentler and more tentative than the blunt I think he is not coming — you are hedging your own belief rather than flatly predicting his absence. Afrikaans shares this softening instinct, which is why dink nie and glo nie are so common in ordinary speech.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• With dink, glo, and verwag, the negative raises to the main clause: Ek dink nie hy kom nie = I think he is not coming.
• The construction is wrapped in the standard Afrikaans nie … nie: one nie by the matrix verb, one nie closing the entire sentence — it is singly negative despite looking double.
• The embedded clause may take dat or not; dat triggers verb-final order inside the clause, but the closing nie still goes at the very end.
• The raised version is the idiomatic default and softens the assertion; the unraised Ek dink hy kom nie is grammatical but heavier.
• Negative raising does not apply to factive verbs like weet or besef — with those the negation keeps its literal place.
• For negation inside subordinate clauses generally, see negation in subordinate clauses; for how thoughts and speech are embedded, see reported speech.