Expletive negation (EN) is commonly considered to be a unitary phenomenon cross-linguistically. I will provide empirical arguments to show that in fact EN consists of distinct subtypes and I will propose a twofold partition between weak and strong EN. More specifically, by investigating Italian, I will show that weak EN structures maintain some features typically associated with standard negation (for example, they allow weak-NPIs and n-words) whereas strong EN structures do not, forming a natural class within the EN one. Moreover, I will propose an analysis of a specific case of EN in Italian I dubbed "Surprise Negation Sentences" showing that they are distinct from any other EN clauses and that their proprieties are the result of interaction of independent syntactic principles.