 What sort of operation is negation? In the Categories and De Interpretatione, Aristotle partitions indicative-mood declarative sentences into affirmation and negation/denial (apophasis from apophanein “deny, say no”), which respectively affirm or deny something about something (De Int. 17a25). As a mode of predication, the predicate denial of Aristotelian term logic, while resulting in wide-scope negation opposed in truth value to the corresponding affirmative, is syntactically distinct from the unary “it is not the case that” connective of Stoic and Fregean logic.