"Not once but twice" triggers subj-aux inversion?

[Dan Goncharoff]

It's OK to be positive. The Bible tells me so.

Psalm 106:43
Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and
were brought low for their iniquity.

DanG


On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 1:30 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Not once but twice" triggers subj-aux inversion?
>
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>
> At 12:41 PM -0400 6/27/11, Neal Whitman wrote:
> >>From Charles Krauthammer's column yesterday:
> >
> >"Not once but twice (Afghanistan and then Iraq) did Bush seek and receive
> >congressional authorization, as his father did for the Gulf War."
> >
> >Why the subject-auxiliary inversion? With "Not once" I get it, but not
> with
> >"Not once but twice," which isn't a negation of the main verb.
> >
> >Further discussion and additional attestations on the blog:
> >http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/not-once-but-twice/
> >
> Interesting, Neal.  I share your judgments and your puzzlement about
> the (evident) possibility of inversion with "not once but twice",
> although I would differ from one of your comments in the blog:  "Not
> only" + inverted clausal complement (your example is "Not only should
> you say thanks in person; you should also send a thank-you note")
> does *not* involve negative inversion.   I've argued for this claim
> partly on the basis that it introduces a veridical environment ("not
> only p but q" entails p) but mostly on linguistic grounds.  In
> particular, no negative polarity items are possible within its scope:
>
> Not only should you (*ever) say thanks in person...
> Not only have I (*ever) eaten (*any) shrimp, I've eaten squid.
>
> In fact, "not only" clauses host positive rather than negative
> polarity items.  One of my minimal pairs (in a 2000 article on this)
> was
>
> Not only does she already love someone else, but she's also married.
> *Not only does she love anyone else yet, but she's also married.
>
> In this respect, "not only" differs radically from "only" itself,
> which *is* negative in meaning and thus licenses both negative
> polarity items and (when fronted) inversion:
>
> Only then/in Japanese restaurants would I ever eat any jellyfish.
> Only if you begged me would I lift a finger to help you.
> Only God could ever make a tree.
>
> Instead, the inversion with "not only" is related to that in other
> cases of backgrounded clauses in correlative constructions, as in:
>
> No sooner had she spoken than down the chimney tumbled two feet from
> which the flesh had rotted.  [from _Scary Stories to Tell in the
> Dark_]
> So tall is he that he can dunk without leaving his feet.
>
> LH
>
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