Hey Chris! When used like this, you can think of 並 as a negative version of 眞的 - "really not". 最近老師們佈置的作業並沒有很多，所以我過得相當輕鬆。 Recently (my) teachers haven't set much homework, so I've had it pretty easy. 我上個禮拜去了一趟湖南，然而我並不是很喜歡。 I went to Hunan last week, but I really didn't like it that much. 現在下的雨並沒有很大，而且操場上的雨水也並沒有很多 It's really not raining that heavily at the moment, and there really isn't much lying water on the running track either. 我覺得這個課程對你的漢語進步並不會提供大的幫助。 I think this course won't really help you improve your Chinese that much. Laurence

can be used before the privative to strenthen the negative for instance 我并不爱他，我不爱他，the emotion expressed by the former is more intense.

An adverb, used to deny a negative tone in front of a negative word。 其实他并不糊涂。 所谓团结并非一团和气

meaning "contrary to expected"