negation - Why can't "do" be left out of "I do not like apples"?



I like apples



is good grammar



I not like apples



is bad grammar. It must be



I do not like apples.



I'm looking for a concise explanation that I can give to an 11 year old learning English. I'm a native speaker but I cannot seem to justify the grammar in any better way that "it is so".



Answer



This is a good question, and I think the answer lies in history. "Do not verb" wasn't always the way things were said. Here's a chart:




The use of periphrastic do in Early Modern English negative declaratives: evidence from the Helsinki Corpus



The "not+V" form was not as popular as the "V+not" form in eModE, but it was a valid way to say things. The form "Do+not+V" came into being after do became used in questions ("Have you any?" vs. "Do you have any?"). "Do+not+V" won out for several reasons:



  • English was switching over from SOV to SVO

  • It was similar to the existing "Aux+not+V"

  • It makes the distinction between object negation and sentence negation clear

    • Example of object negation:

      But she spoke not of a lover only, but of a prince dear to him to whom she spoke
      Cited in the aforementioned paper (E3, CEFICT3B, FICTION, SAMPLE 1).







I also wrote this answer about the Earliest attestation of “does/do/did not + verb”. The information and sources there are also relevant.


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