Those pesky negatives (revisited)

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:23 PM -0400 8/10/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>Wilson,
>
>We got different notions of 'right.' That's OK, but it's also the
>case that I was not be idiomatic in my "translation." I also very
>infrequently use to+not+v, but I am not so unfond of it as you appear
>to be.
>
>dInIs
>
and FWIW there are 10,100 google hits on "tried to not", a more or
less randomly chosen sequence with an infinitive split by "not", so
dInIs's decision to not rule out this construction seems widely
shared.  On the other hand, there are also 6910 hits attesting the
"was not be" he invokes above, and that one really does strike me as
a little over the top.  Oh well.

larry