CHAPTER XXVII.

THE SYNTAX OF THE NEGATIVE.

s. 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 praefigi 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.

s. 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:-- {496}

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_.

s. 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. _Duae aut plures negativae apud Graecos 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_.

s. 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 aetherial stream, Whose fountain who (_no one_) shall tell?

_Paradise Lost._

s. 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.

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"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."

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