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

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:43 PM -0400 6/27/11, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>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

Yes, back then--or in poetry, a few centuries beyond then--just about
any fronted adverb or prepositional phrase could trigger inversion

Oft have I sighed for him who hears me not      [Campion, c. 1610]
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold.     [Keats, 1816]

But it's gradually become associated with negative adverbials.

LH

>
>On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 1:30 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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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?
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  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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