 (Note that Parsons (1984) refers to the claim that denying \(A\) is always the same as asserting \(\osim A\) as the “Equivalence Thesis.”) There is, however, no clear syntactic restriction on speech acts of denial, as denials can be realized not only by assertions of negated sentences but, for example, also by means of irony. Moreover, whereas negated sentences can be embedded into compound sentences, speech acts cannot be constituents of other speech acts. Therefore, if it is held that to deny is to assert a negation, the idea is that acts of denial can be analyzed as assertions of (propositions expressed by) negated sentences. It may, for instance, be held that it is revealing to understand denials of \(A\) as assertions of \(© A\), for some contrary-forming negation operator \(©\).