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I've seen it used a lot in older texts and was curious if it can still be used in modern writing without too many questions. I think in a lot of places it can make sentences much cleaner.

Example:

"He is a man so self evidently righteous that the thought of sin does not pass through his mind." (Traditional negation)

Vs.

"He is a man so self evidently righteous that the thought of sin passes not through his mind." (Inverse negation)

Thanks in advance (:

Yvain
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    This inversion is no longer current; it has been supplanted by do-support and today is employed only for an archaicizing rhetorical effect. – StoneyB on hiatus Feb 16 '18 at 15:48
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    "in a lot of places it can make sentences much cleaner"—It may be fewer words, but it sticks out like a sore thumb to any native speaker (and I would imagine it's the same way for many proficient nonnative speakers too). – Laurel Feb 16 '18 at 15:53
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    @StoneyB: I think not. Dare I say *I hope not!** :) – FumbleFingers Feb 16 '18 at 16:59
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    I think it's essentially the same syntax (avoiding do-support in negation) in *We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.* It's just that in JFK's usage he has a lot of "optional" verbiage between *choose* and *not. But imho it wouldn't have sounded so good with We do not choose...* anyway. – FumbleFingers Feb 16 '18 at 17:07
  • @FumbleFingers Those aren't negations of the verb: they are negations of the implicit complement clause. I do think/wish that X is not true/actualized. – StoneyB on hiatus Feb 16 '18 at 17:08
  • I don't get this. Are you just comparing "The thought does not pass through his mind" to "The though passes not through his mind"? – Chaim Feb 16 '18 at 17:12
  • If so, I think you sometimes hear people move "not" down the sentence in order to stress a parallelism and to avoid a confusion. For example someone might say "He acted not for love but for money." The purpose is to avoid "He did not act for love," which might first be taken to mean that his reason for inaction was love. That's comparable to the example "I think not," which (@StoneyB observes) is not a negation of the verb at all. – Chaim Feb 16 '18 at 17:17
  • @StoneyB They are negations of the complement object of the verb in the question's example, too. The two sentences in fact mean subtly different things. "He is a man so self evidently righteous that the thought of sin does not pass through his mind," means just what it says--that the thought of sin does not pass through his mind. In "[...] passes not through his mind," however, it is suggested (oddly) that the thought of sin passes, except not through his mind. This is why the second usage sounds odd. It doesn't make sense and why the second use case rarely makes sense. – R Mac Feb 16 '18 at 17:27
  • @StoneyB It is acceptable to negate objects that are particularly relevant to the context of the conversation. Sentences like, "I think not," "I expect not," and so on all negate a specific object of the verb, which should be inferred from the conversation's context. – R Mac Feb 16 '18 at 17:30
  • @RMac I think that's what I said; my comment addressed the sentences in FF's first post, not his second, which was not visible to me until after I posted mine). The sentence in his second post uses, as you imply, a constrastive not X but Y construction in which the not again negates something other than the main verb, and which is ungrammatical without the but. – StoneyB on hiatus Feb 16 '18 at 17:46
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    @StoneyB Sometimes I hear Mendelssohn’s English libretto for Elijah from Psalms 121:3 ringing through my head: “He watching over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps.” :) – tchrist Feb 16 '18 at 18:12
  • @tchrist Fersher. 1846? Scriptural story? Bartholomew was pretty much inevitably going to translate the libretto into EModE. – StoneyB on hiatus Feb 16 '18 at 18:35
  • @R Mac: The Devil is always skulking around, making sure that thoughts of sin are kept in circulation (passing or being passed around by mortals of weaker flesh than our hero here). I know we can draw a clear distinction between *not* negating preceding verb (as OP's cite, now always recast using do-support) and negating following clause. But I think OP is wide of the mark calling do-support "traditional" - that's actually the opposite of what really happened. I'm pretty sure do-support mostly gained traction in late Victorian times and early C20, so it's the "modern" construction. – FumbleFingers Feb 17 '18 at 17:48
  • ... passes not through his mind is not correct. It should of course be ... passeth not through his mind. – John Lawler Apr 17 '18 at 23:19

1 Answers1

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You can according to Purdue, but it should not (but not cannot) be done for anything other than comedic affect or as a descriptor/clarifier of a sentence.

Ya boi
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