On 2010-07-28, at 3:53 PM, Tony DeFazio wrote:

> Can someone explain, please, why we can say "Why don't you like her?" but not "Why do not you like her?" A student asked and I was at a loss for an explanation. 

Zwicky & Pullum (1983) <http://www.stanford.edu/~zwicky/ZPCliticsInfl.pdf> put forth the argument that -N'T, though historically a contraction, has actually become an inflectional ending for auxiliary verbs. That is, they say it's like the past tense -ED or third person -S. This approach is followed in the recently mentioned grammars by Huddleston & Pullum. See the paper linked to above for reasons why -N'T should be considered an inflectional ending (or "clitic" in technical terms).

If -N'T is a negative inflection, and I think it is, then the reason we can say "Why don't you like her?" (or "Why can't you be there" etc.) is because the inflection simply can't be separated from the auxiliary verb. The other question, why you can't say "Why do not you like her?", is a question about adverb placement in general, not just "not". You can't say "Why do never you go there?" "Why do always you say that?" etc.

Best,
Brett

-----------------------
Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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