Yonatan Zunger (zunger) wrote,
Yonatan Zunger
zunger

Random English question

Question for all you native (and fluent) speakers out there, especially language geeks:

I generally don't split infinitives in English. There's one case that I'm stuck on, though, because I'm not sure if there's another way to indicate the difference I have in mind: "not to do X" versus "to not do X." The former implies that X is not done, but possibly through inattention or accident; the latter, a usage borrowed mostly from the speech habits of computer scientists, implies that the not doing of X is a primary objective of one's actions.

Is there a more correct way to say this? It feels clunky every time I say it.

(What brought this to mind was a news article about the Clintons' married life, where they say that Mr. Clinton "has told friends that his No. 1 priority is not to cause her any trouble." When I read that, it seemed that "not" was modifying "is" rather than "cause," which would suggest that his next line ought to be "It's to make sure other people do! Wahahahaha!")
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    Help
  • 24 comments

faerieloch

May 23 2006, 21:07:49 UTC 9 years ago

I think a few years ago the OED declared it no longer incorrect to split your infinitives. In your above example, however, "not" negates the action, whatever it is. So "not to cause trouble" and "to not cause trouble" do actually mean the same thing, I think, we just parse it differently. "not" after a verb puts the action in the negative whereas putting it after the "to" makes it a positive action in our brains. However, they both mean he's going to avoid causing trouble.

zunger

May 23 2006, 21:24:51 UTC 9 years ago

I think there really is a parse error in "is not to cause trouble," since (to cause trouble) is a verbal phrase, so the "not" is left to modify "is." The best advantage of "is to not cause trouble" is that it mangles the verbal phrase badly enough that nobody mistakenly parses it as an atomic object. :)

faerieloch

May 23 2006, 23:28:41 UTC 9 years ago

Oh dear, now I'm think of how you would diagram/graph this sentence.... Can verbal phrases not be modified?

zunger

May 24 2006, 00:17:29 UTC 9 years ago

Hmm. They can; the question is whether the more natural parenthesization is "(my purpose) is (not to cause trouble)" or "(my purpose) (is not) (to cause trouble)."

In general, English admits a number of parenthesization ambiguities which have to be resolved by context; one of my favorites is the Society of Black Physics Students. That one can't be resolved (AFAICT) without non-grammar inputs. The "cause trouble" example seems simpler; it looks like a case of assigning probabilistic weights to two different bindings, and finding that one binding (the "is not" one) is more likely in English as a whole than the other. So a case for natural misunderstanding.