1(Q) – Unless he finds a job soon, his family will starve.
1(A) – If he doesn’t find a job soon, his family will starve.2(Q) – Unless she leaves now, she will miss the train.
2(A) – If she leaves now, she will not miss the train.3(Q) – Unless you hurry, we will leave you behind.
3(A) – If you hurry, we won’t leave you behind.1st answer put negative/not in front of find, not behind will. (Not every time behind modal verb; why is that?)
2nd answer put negative/not behind will, not in front of leave.
3rd answer put negative/not behind will, not in front of hurry.I want to know where to put not/negative when used in conjunction with if/unless.
Answer
The two ways of ‘negating’ an ‘unless’ sentence are not equivalent.
The Q & A versions of your first example mean the same thing.
“Unless he finds a job soon, his family will starve.”
means that his family will starve if he does not find a job soon. It says nothing about what will happen if he does find a job soon. They may starve, or they may not. You can express that as
“If he doesn’t find a job soon, his family will starve.”
On the other hand:
Unless she leaves now, she will miss the train.
does NOT mean the same as
If she leaves now, she will not miss the train.
The ‘unless’ version only says what will happen if she does not leave now. She may still miss the train if she leaves now.
So of your three examples only in number 1 are the Q and A versions equivalent.
If should be said that people with a poor grasp of formal logic (which is lots of people) will use the ‘wrong’ version.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Leonar Aung , Answer Author : DJClayworth
