International audience This chapter investigates the interplay between negation and alternatives, one of the richest areas of investigation for the semantics-pragmatics interface, with important insights into how meaning is compositionally calculated and the role of context in this process. It explores the focus-sensitivity of negation and the role of syntactic factors in determining the scope of negation with respect to focused elements. The semantic effects produced by the interaction between negation and focus alternatives are approached by discussing two empirical domains (i) focus-sensitive particles and (ii) focused and non-focused negative polarity items.