Why Do “Yes” and “No” Seem Switched in Responses to Negative Questions?

These are actually the original meanings of yes and no. English originally had a four-way system of affirmative and negative responses, which has collapsed into two: >While Modern English has a two-form system of yes and no for affirmatives and negatives, earlier forms of English had a four-form system, comprising the words yea, nay, yes, and no. Yes contradicts a negatively formulated question, No affirms it; Yea affirms a positively formulated question, Nay contradicts it. >Will they not go? — Yes, they will. Will they not go? — No, they will not. Will they go? — Yea, they will. Will they go? — Nay, they will not. (from wikipedia)

>Then he was asked: "But you don't want to save one?" He responded: "Yes," meaning "No, I don't want to save one." That doesn't sound natural to me. Negative questions are a weird area in English. The thing is that you *can't* really respond to them with a simple "Yes". With the dog example, I would say "no" to confirm the assumption behind the question - "No, I do not want to save one". If I wanted to *refute* the assumption behind the question (i.e. I *did* want to save one) I would say "I do" rather than simply "yes".

What your describing makes sense and does happen , and you are right it's not what is taught (at least not at lower levels) because answering this way leaves doubt about the meaning. If you were to answer "correct" instead of "yes" that gives clarity that yes or no don't. While what is taught is how to "fully" answer because that's what learners struggle with and giving just yes or no as an answer doesn't help a learner learn anything (nor does it demonstrate they understand the question). So the best short answer to negative questions to ensure clarity would be "correct"/"incorrect" but knowing how to agree and restate builds and demonstrates more skill and so it is desired in teaching. Example: "Are you not going to eat dinner?" Disagree: "No, I am." / "Yes, I am." / "I will" / "Yes, I am going to eat dinner." Vs. Agree: "No, I'm not" / "Yes, exactly" / "correct" / "No, I'm not going to eat dinner"

It's true because there are two ways to interpret such questions. One interpretation is more common in casual conversation, while the second is more formal. You can also use non-verbal cues like tone of voice and facial expression to make your meaning clear.

If you think that's confusing, wait till you investigate the phrase "yeah, no"

The usage you quoted seems very very unnatural to me. Native speakers very rarely respond to a negative question with a bare "yes", as it is ambiguous. The three other combinations (positive-positive, positive-negative, and negative-negative) can be answered with a plain "yes", "no", or "no", respectively. Negative-positive questions usually have to be answered with a verbal tag (which of course is also an option for the other three types). The verb tag *can* be preceded by a "yes", but the question can't be answered with a simple "yes". Strangely, it can also sometimes be preceded by a "no". 1. +/+ "Do you want another one?" "Yes" *or* "I do" *or* "Yes, I do". 2. +/- "Do you want another one?" "No" *or* "I don't" *or* "No, I don't". 3. -/- "So you don't want another one?" "No" *or* "I don't" *or* "No, I don't". 4. -/+ "So you don't want other one?" "I do!" *or* "Yes, I do!" (sometimes "No, I do!"), but never "yes".

Negative questions or questions that imply an opposite are usually ambiguous enough to warrant clarification. I almost always respond to them with something like "yes, i do" or "no, i don't mind"

Not helpful, but [here’s a short clip](https://youtu.be/x02enMJDeKM?si=YCYGeP7q8PsSpbYK) from the movie *Clue*. It’s based on the idea of yes meaning no

The ambiguity here means that people will actually often have to ask the other person to clarify? A: “But you don’t want to save one?” B: “Yes” A: “yes as in you don’t want to save one, or yes as in you do want to save one?”

Answering "yes" to a negative question is ambiguous in English. You'll often hear exchanges like this: "Do you not want to come with us?" "Yes." "Yes you do, or yes you don't?" It's so confusing that we sometimes use it for comedy.

Just wait til you tackle “Do you mind if…” questions. Like “Do you mind if I come in?” Logically, “no” should mean it’s okay to come in and “yes” should mean it’s not. But 9/10 you’ll find the reverse. The only time you see it used technically correctly is when someone is saying the do mind and are being a jerk about it to make the person feel stupid for misunderstanding.

I’d say that in general negative questions are hard to answer with one word in English. A lot of the time you’d answer with something like “no, I don’t want to save one” to make it clear whether or not you’re agreeing/disagreeing

Yeah…. In cases where it’s unclear you need the longer answer of “yes I do,” or “no, I don’t.” “You don’t want to eat the salad?” “No,” or “No, I don’t” are good if you don’t want to eat it. “Yes I do,” is a good answer if you do want to eat it.

In native English, replies to negative questions as, grammatically speaking, ambiguous - unlike languages which have separate words or patterns of speech for positive or negative questions. In normal speech, they are resolved by context and if I were a non-native speaker, I would never answer them yes or no. For example:  "But you don't want to save one?" - answer "Not really" or "No, I'm not" Depending on your native language, I can imagine it sounding flipped sometimes but outside textbooks, yes or no answers are very rare. I would never have answered "But you don't want to save one?" with "yes" regardless of which meaning I was going for.

Not a teacher, but a native speaker. >"But you don't want to save one?" He responded: "Yes," meaning "No, I don't want to save one." and >"So you're not going to eat dinner?" "Yes." (Meaning: I'm not going to eat dinner.) are confusing as hell. I honestly have no idea whether they're technically correct, but that's not how anyone I've ever met uses the language. In everyday usage, questions like that, regardless of actual phrasing, get internally translated into their simplest form, and then that question gets answered. So "But you don't want to save one?" becomes "Do you want to save one?" and "So you're not going to eat dinner?" becomes "Are you going to eat dinner?" If you're planning to eat, you say yes; if you're not, you say no. Using "No" to answer in the affirmative or "Yes" to answer in the negative is just a great way to be misunderstood. **Please note that I am not a linguistic psychologist and have absolutely no idea whether this description is a psychologically valid explanation of how our brains process language, but it is a useful way of thinking of it in terms of how the language gets used.