Comparing negation in logic programming and in Prolog

We compare here two uses of negation -- in logic programming and in Prolog. As in Prolog negation is defined by means of meta-programming facilities and the cut operator, this requires a careful reexamination of the assumptions about the underlying syntax and a precise definition of the computational processes involved. After taking care of these matters we establish a formal result showing an equivalence in appropriate sense between these two uses of negation. This result allows us to argue about correctness of various known Prolog programs which use negation by reasoning about the corresponding general logic programs.