CHAPTER XXVII.
THE SYNTAX OF THE NEGATIVE.
[§ 624]. When the verb is in the infinitive mood, the negative precedes it.—Not to advance is to retreat.
When the verb is not in the infinitive mood, the negative follows it.—He advanced not. I cannot.
This rule is absolute. It only seems to precede the verb in such expressions as I do not advance, I cannot advance, I have not advanced, &c. However, the words do, can, and have, are no infinitives; and it consequently follows them. The word advance is an infinitive, and it consequently precedes it. Wallis's rule makes an equivalent statement, although differently. "Adverbium negandi not (non) verbo postponitur (nempe auxiliari primo si adsit; aut si non adsit auxiliare, verbo principali): aliis tamen orationis partibus præfigi solet."—P. 113.
That the negative is rarely used, except with an auxiliary, in other words, that the presence of a negative converts a simple form like it burneth not into the circumlocution it does not burn, is a fact in the practice of the English language. The syntax is the same in either expression.
[§ 625]. What may be called the distribution of the negative is pretty regular in English. Thus, when the word not comes between an indicative, imperative, or subjunctive mood and an infinitive verb, it almost always is taken with the word which it follows—I can not eat may mean either I can—not eat (i.e., I can abstain), or I can not—eat (i.e., I am unable to eat); but, as stated above, it almost always has the latter signification.
But not always. In Byron's "Deformed Transformed" we find the following lines:—
Clay! not dead but soulless,
Though no mortal man would choose thee,
An immortal no less
Deigns not to refuse thee.
Here not to refuse=to accept; and is probably a Grecism. To not refuse would, perhaps, be better.
The next expression is still more foreign to the English idiom:—
For not to have been dipped in Lethe's lake
Could save the son of Thetis from to die.
Here not is to be taken with could.
[§ 626]. In the present English, two negatives make an affirmative. I have not not seen him=I have seen him. In Greek this was not the case. Duæ aut plures negativæ apud Græcos vehementius negant is a well-known rule. The Anglo-Saxon idiom differed from the English and coincided with the Greek. The French negative is only apparently double; words like point, pas, mean not not, but at all. Je ne parle pas = I not speak at all, not I not speak no.
[§ 627]. Questions of appeal.—All questions imply want of information; want of information may then imply doubt; doubt, perplexity; and perplexity the absence of an alternative. In this way, what are called, by Mr. Arnold,[[67]] questions of appeal, are, practically speaking, negatives. What should I do? when asked in extreme perplexity, means that nothing can well be done. In the following passage we have the presence of a question instead of a negative:—
Or hear'st thou (cluis, Lat.) rather pure ætherial stream,
Whose fountain who (no one) shall tell?
Paradise Lost.
[§ 628]. The following extract from the Philological Museum (vol. ii.) illustrates a curious and minute distinction, which the author shows to have been current when Wicliffe wrote, but which was becoming obsolete when Sir Thomas More wrote. It is an extract from that writer against Tyndall.
"I would not here note by the way that Tyndall here translateth no for nay, for it is but a trifle and mistaking of the Englishe worde: saving that ye shoulde see that he whych in two so plain Englishe wordes, and so common as in naye and no can not tell when he should take the one and when the tother, is not for translating into Englishe a man very mete. For the use of these two wordes in aunswering a question is this. No aunswereth the question framed by the affirmative. As for ensample if a manne should aske Tindall himselfe: ys an heretike meete to translate Holy Scripture into Englishe? lo to thys question if he will aunswere trew Englishe, he must aunswere nay and not no. But and if the question be asked hym thus lo: is not an heretike mete to translate Holy Scripture into Englishe? To this question if he will aunswere trewe Englishe, he must aunswere no and not nay. And a lyke difference is there betwene these two adverbs ye and yes. For if the question bee framed unto Tindall by the affirmative in thys fashion. If an heretique falsely translate the New Testament into Englishe, to make his false heresyes seem the word of Godde, be his bokes worthy to be burned? To this questyon asked in thys wyse, yf he will aunswere true Englishe, he must aunswere ye and not yes. But now if the question be asked him thus lo; by the negative. If an heretike falsely translate the Newe Testament into Englishe to make his false heresyes seme the word of God, be not hys bokes well worthy to be burned? To thys question in thys fashion framed if he will aunswere trewe Englishe he may not aunswere ye but he must answere yes, and say yes marry be they, bothe the translation and the translatour, and al that wyll hold wyth them."