Positive Rhetoric: Affirmative Sentences
www.thoughtco.com › affirmative-sentence-grammarJun 08, 2020 · These phrases all contain the affirmative word or phrase and its opposite, a negative word or phrase. "To be or not to be," a famous phrase from Act 3, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's play, "Hamlet," finds the title character pondering whether he should exist (which would be affirmative) or not exist (which would be negative). In the second example, you could say: "He is lucky," which would be an affirmative statement, or "He is unlucky," which would be a negative statement.