Not
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Contents
[hide]negation
form
- not or n't
adverb
Negations of this sort are considered to be adverbs by almost all dictionaries, like the words yes and no. Some Indo-European examples:
- nicht (Germ.)
- non (Lat.)
- pas (Fr.)
- nje (не) (Russ.)
predeterminer
Some deny the existence of determiners (articles, demonstratives, quantifiers), so the idea that a grammatical class such as predeterminers should exist is not always welcomed easily, especially by those who teach what is known in France as la grammaire scolaire.
- Not a one
- Not everybody
- not some time later (6m examples at Google, not a few of which are difficult to evaluate grammatically)
- not a few of which
- not the least of which
In any case, it is clear that the boundaries between adverbs and determination in the noun phrase (particularly deictic determination: today, tomorrow, this, that) are relatively fuzzy. At least four of the examples would clearly seem to be noun phrases.