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How would you say the Negation of following sentences?

  1. She is supposed to be happy.
  2. It is supposed to be hard.
  3. Tomorrow is supposed to be a off day.
  4. He is supposed to be there.
  5. He is supposed to know that.
  6. She is supposed to be able to come to party tomorrow.

I thought that just put "not" between verb to be and supposed, but according to my dictionary, "be not supposed to" expresses the prohibition. However the degree of prohibition is not strong compared with "must not" or "can not". For example,

  • You are not supposed to smoke here.
  • You are not supposed to use it.

These sentences express the "prohibition".

If my dictionary is true, when I say "She is not supposed to be happy", it would not make sense.

How should I say them? For example,

  1. She can't be happy.
  2. It can't be hard.
  3. Tomorrow may not be a off day.
  4. There's no way that he is there.
  5. There's no way that he knows that.
  6. She might be impossible to come to party tomorrow.

Are these correct?

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  • As a learner: does the dictinary say that's the only meaning? Would you add the link to the dictionary? I can't get your question. Why you think it wouldn't make sense? What's unclear here? Can, may, must, and be supposed to can convey different things. For example, She is not supposed to be happy, but she is, so probably she didn't give a damn to you and what you said to her no matter how rude you were.
    – Cardinal
    Commented Jun 6, 2018 at 4:57
  • Can you add the dictionary reference/definition that you mentioned in "according to my dictionary"? I didn't find such a thing in be supposed to do sth. In fact, "You are not supposed to smoke here." does not mean it is prohibited, only that it is expected that you won't.
    – user3169
    Commented Jun 6, 2018 at 5:10
  • For starters, you can definitely say, "She is not supposed to be happy". It just wouldn't make sense outside of a very limited context. Consider how many strange but grammatical things you can say in your own native language that make sense inside something like a novel or a TV show.
    – Andrew
    Commented Jun 6, 2018 at 5:17

1 Answer 1

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Your choice of example is slightly unfortunate since there is an element of expectation involved. Simply using not is correct since

She is supposed to be happy.

describes an expectation you have, in reality she may or may not actually be happy, so the opposite is

She is not supposed to be happy.

which is the negative of your expectation. The expectation is created by using supposed.

It is supposed to be hard. (expectation)
It is not supposed to be hard. (negative expectation)

Tomorrow is supposed to be day off. (expectation)
Tomorrow is not supposed to be day off. (negative expectation)
Tomorrow is not a day off. (certainty)

Saying

You are not supposed to smoke here.

is a negative expectation of something you are not allowed to do, but you would only be told this if you were smoking or about to smoke.

To be forbidden to do something, you would be told

You are not allowed to smoke here.

just as

She is not allowed to be happy.

forbids her from being happy.

Hopefully this helps.

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  • Thank you for replying. In this case, which one is the closer meaning of expectation "anticipation" , "hope", "possibility" or "guess" ?
    – odufs
    Commented Jun 6, 2018 at 9:02

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