Potential extra spin on the "Questions split the subject and aux" approach (and apologies if someone's already said this -- I'm losing track of the thread). I'm adapting it from Halliday, but if there are parts that don't work, blame me -- I don't have the book handy, and am going on memory.
In your average statement, you can negate the auxiliary that carries the tense (the "finite marker"), and you can negate the predicate (among other things). The contracted version is a negation of the finite, so "Bjorn isn't reading that book" has a negated finite, while "Bjorn's not reading that book" has a negated predicate. The contraction vs. non-contraction distinction is thus marking a difference in what's being negated. In a lot of cases, the distinction may not have much direct bearing on the truth-value of the statement in traditional terms, but it shows up interestingly in tag questions: "Bjorn's not reading that book, is he?" sounds more awkward (to me at least) than does "Bjorn isn't reading that book, is he?"
Questions usually have the finite before the subject, so whether you're negating the finite or the predicate determines whether the negative comes before or after the Subject. When it's before the Subject, in an interrogative it thus has to be a finite-negator, and hence sounds odd unless contracted. So, "Why doesn't S V O" is the usual for a negated finite, with "Why does S not V O" being the equivalent for the negated predicate.
--- Bill Spruiell
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Craig Hancock
Sent: Sun 8/1/2010 11:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: question about negative contractions
Herb,
I agree that we may not need this level of distinction outside of
linguistics classes. But I wonder how you might advise countering the
notion that people are being lazy when they don't pronounce things
"properly" when they speak. I think it might help to say that there is
a more or less "scientific" explanation for it, but how might we water
that down without being inaccurate?
Craig
>
Brett,
>
> I suspect you misspoke below when you wrote "for reasons why -N'T should
> be considered an inflectional ending (or "clitic" in technical terms)."
> The point of Zwicky&Pullum's argument is that inflectional endings and
> clitics aren't the same thing, and "n't" is an inflectional ending, not a
> clitic.
>
> Clitic is a useful category in grammatical analysis, although it's not
> easy to define. Contrasting clitics with inflectional endings is one
> thing. Defining clitics across languages or even across English is a
> little harder. Roughly speaking, on a scale of how bound they are and what
> they bind to, affixes are the most bound and words the least, hence
> Bloomfield's definition of "word" as a "minimal free form." Clitics sit
> between affixes and words. They are bound to grammatical categories, like
> NP, not to roots or stems as affixes are. Unstressed words like "the,"
> "and," prepositions, "that" as a subordinating conjunctions, etc. behave
> like clitics rather than words.
>
> While the affix/clitic/word distinction is important in grammatical
> analysis, I doubt that it has much of a place in teaching grammar in high
> school or college.
>
> Herb
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brett Reynolds
> Sent: Saturday, July 31, 2010 7:56 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: question about negative contractions
> Importance: Low
>
> 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 [log in to unmask]
>
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