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Is this sentence grammatically correct?

He doesn't only like football but also likes tennis.

and if it's wrong, why so?

Specifically, is there any problem with omitting the subject in the second clause?

Also, is there any problem with the verb form likes?

Yay
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Willizsack
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  • Hi Willizsack!Welcome to ELU!

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     – Araucaria - Him Feb 15 '16 at 20:38
  • The conjunction reduction issue is a duplicate query. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 22 '16 at 16:07

6 Answers6

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I would rephrase the sentence as

He likes not only football but also tennis

in the style of the first of the examples here. This rephrasing avoids repeating the verb after but also if it is the same verb that came before the not only (compare with the second example in the link, where there are two different verbs).

Note that here the not only... but also... construction is used to amplify the object of the sentence, which essentially is of the form "He likes THIS". That's why it is not necessary to repeat neither the verb "like" nor the subject "he" inside the object.

Octania
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  • okay thanks for your help so even if i rephrased the sentence as "he doesn't only like football,but also tennis" is still wrong right? – Willizsack Feb 15 '16 at 17:54
  • I think so, though people would still understand the meaning. – Octania Feb 15 '16 at 18:09
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    Also think about the context, you are trying to make a positive assertion so keep the intent of the sentence positive. 'Doesn't' is somewhat negative and is also somewhat clumsy to say, reading is easier if it's also easier to say out loud. Good cues when analysing your sentence structure. – Lazarus Feb 15 '16 at 18:28
  • Thanks but in our textbooks it says it's okay to use it as a matter of fact we have to use it – Willizsack Feb 15 '16 at 20:39
6

Analyzing : "He doesn't only like football but also likes tennis."

Normal usage is "not only X but also Y", but here "not" is getting merged with "does" , the usage looks odd.
More-over, "only like" refers to "like" , not "football", so using "tennis" later looks odd.

"He not only likes football but also excels in it."
Here, we have the normal usage of "not only X but also Y" & "likes" goes along with "excels", both in terms of football.

When you want to state that he likes football & tennis, then try this:
"He likes not only football but also tennis."
Here, "football" goes along with "tennis".

Reference :
The Cambridge Grammar Of The English Language :
https://archive.org/stream/TheCambridgeGrammarOfTheEnglishLanguage/The%20Cambridge%20grammar%20of%20the%20English%20language#page/n1327/mode/2up
Here, the common format of "not only X but also Y" is stated, with some possible variations.

Prem
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    +1, especially for discussing nicely how “only” in “only like” refers to “like”! All oddness of merging “does” with “not” aside, could the OP avoid the “only like” issue and still merge the “not” (which in a comment s/he says has to be done) by simply flipping “only” and “like,” (or “love,” especially in an ill-chosen, yet emphatic response to an angry spouse’s accusation that the other spouse loves only football)?: “[Dear,]You’re wrong! I don’t love only football, but tennis as well!” – Papa Poule Feb 22 '16 at 16:32
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    @PapaPoule , thanks for your encouragement ! When somebody is communicating within family, then he is allowed to make mistakes, because the listener usually knows what is he trying to say. In your case, the wife knows what the guy is saying & might get more angry ! But I feel the formation is odd. I would use "I don’t love only football" when somebody claims that "I do not love all physical sports" ; I want to say that I love all other physical sports, but "I don’t love only football". If I had to say that "I love football & tennis", I would state "I love not only football but also tennis". – Prem Feb 22 '16 at 16:49
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    This is a nice answer. I suggest that you add a citation from The Cambridge Grammar Of The English Language (pp. 1314-1315) and maybe do a bit of adjustment so that you win the bounty, since the person who's offered the bounty is "Looking for an answer drawing from credible and/or official sources". I don't think another answer needs posting. – Færd Feb 25 '16 at 09:38
  • @Fard , thanks for the reference ! I will add it now. – Prem Feb 25 '16 at 11:47
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    Apparently we missed the example "Complete power doesn't only corrupt, but it also..." in the middle of the page 1315. You may wanna edit again. Sorry if I misled you. – Færd Feb 25 '16 at 14:03
  • @Fard , I do not think that changes my answer in a Drastic way ; the example is Described as the case where "negation is associated syntactically with DO rather than with ONLY". In this current question , the negation is syntactically associated with ONLY. I will leave that as "further reading" for the interested. – Prem Feb 25 '16 at 15:41
  • That's true, but you did say that "here 'not' is getting merged with 'does', the usage looks odd", which is not (syntactically) odd by itself. Other examples can be found among these search results, and also among these. – Færd Feb 25 '16 at 16:32
  • I am not claiming that "does not only" is wrong or odd ; I am only claiming that "doesn't only" looks odd (but still not incorrect). I checked your web search for "does not only" "but also" returns 1,500,000 results & a web search changed to "doesn't only" "but also" returns only 7,500 results, indicating a rarer usage or a perception of "looks odd to me". – Prem Feb 25 '16 at 16:54
2

Yes, there is something wrong with this sentence, and it does have to do with omitting the subject in the second clause. "But" is a coordinate conjunction which (like "and" and "or") connects phrases of the same type. It can connect two sentences, two verb phrases, or two of various other things. In your example, since the subject of the second clause is omitted, "but" must be connecting two verb phrases.

Now, coordinate constructions have a peculiar property, discovered and investigated by John Ross, which he called the Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC). As McCawley phrases it, it requires both parts of a coordinate structure to be treated equally by any grammatical process. I think that is what has gone wrong in your example: the first verb phrase of the two that are connected with "but" is not treated the same way as the second one.

The "s" at the end of "likes" expresses the present tense of the verb, of course, and although in the second verb phrase, it appears at the end of the verb where it belongs, in the first verb phrase it is missing. The "s" present ending in the first verb phrase had to be moved to the left, because of the "not", and the auxiliary verb "do" was added to carry the tense.

The CSC does not allow this, because the "s" was moved away from the verb of the first verb phrase, but the same thing did not happen to the corresponding verb of the second verb phrase.

This was a difficult example, and I hope I got it right.

Greg Lee
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  • "CSC... requires both parts of a coordinate structure to be treated equally by any grammatical process". So, CSC doesn't allow you to say: "He didn't come, but he called", because one sentence is negative and the other isn't? – Færd Feb 18 '16 at 11:00
  • @Fard, no, there is no grammatical process involved with your example -- simply two coordinated sentences with different composition. If you start with "He couldn't afford caviar, but he loved it", and make this into a relative clause by relativizing "caviar" in one conjunct but not the other, you'll see the CSC at work: *"the caviar which he couldn't afford but he loved it". – Greg Lee Feb 18 '16 at 12:53
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    John Lawler discusses conjunction reduction: 'All English clauses have subjects. However, the subjects of clauses are often deleted, by various rules, if they are predictable from context ... With true conjoined clauses, any material that's repeated in all clauses may be deleted from all but the first clause. ... "Worcester is a very sought after porcelain, and [it] is regarded as the finest of the period by many experts." '// 'He likes football, but really loves tennis.' is fine. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 22 '16 at 16:06
  • @EdwinAshworth, The Lawler discussion you point to is mistaken, because it discusses conjunction reduction as though it were simply a deletion which reduces a structure -- actually the structure is rearranged so as to obey the rule that only like categories are conjoined. Since John is a fan of McCawley's book, and McCawley goes to great pains to establish how this works, I can only think that he was trying to abbreviate here. But it's wrong, and that account makes it impossible to understand an example like the one under discussion. – Greg Lee Feb 22 '16 at 21:58
  • He is obviously using a different definition. His article at I-verb-and-am-rest of sentence spells out his position clearly. He includes: 'This sentence is an example of Conjunction Reduction, the syntactic rule that deletes repeated material in conjoined clauses, for example

    Bill washed the dishes and Bill swept the floor. ➝ Bill washed the dishes and swept the floor. Bill washed the dishes and Bill dried the dishes. ➝ Bill washed and dried the dishes.' ...

     – Edwin Ashworth Feb 22 '16 at 22:52
  • 'which may produce some distress to those who require more grammatical parallelism between conjoined verbs.' [though I think he is referring to an even bigger lack of parallelism in the first instance]. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 22 '16 at 22:58
  • @EdwinAshworth, I disagree with that answer, also. It's not a matter of definition. Conjunction reduction does not delete a repeated subject, and there is no rule that does this. Instead, what happens is that the subject of conjoined sentences is extracted from the coordinate structure and is adjoined at the left. It's an extraction, not a deletion. – Greg Lee Feb 22 '16 at 23:12
  • But you'd agree that 'John likes football and loves cricket' is acceptable, no matter how the omission of 'John' / 'he' is analysed? – Edwin Ashworth Feb 22 '16 at 23:18
  • @EdwinAshworth, I read the abstract you refer to. It's wrong, too. It's a pity I can't get you to read McCawley's account in TSPE. It gives a correct account with evidence. – Greg Lee Feb 22 '16 at 23:18
  • I've read the extract. And I've read part of an article purporting to show that all these 'omissions' (gapping etc) are actually indistinguishable. But you haven't answered my last question. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 22 '16 at 23:19
  • @EdwinAshworth, Yes, of course that example is fine. But the important point here is its structure. The sentence has subject "John" and a VP consisting of two VPs connected by "and". The main VP is a coordinate structure, and thus is subject to the CSC. – Greg Lee Feb 22 '16 at 23:26
  • Have you asked John Lawler why he apparently has a different interpretation? – Edwin Ashworth Feb 23 '16 at 00:15
  • @EdwinAshworth, No, I haven't. I doubt that he has a different interpretation. I think he's been careless with some of his earlier answers. – Greg Lee Feb 23 '16 at 00:48
  • @EdwinAshworth, McCawley's discussion can be found on line. It begins on page 273 here: https://books.google.co.in/books?id=k6-C5AWWqjQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=conjunction+reduction+mccawley+Phenomena&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwirrJy62ozLAhUFXhoKHTxaAUEQ6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=conjunction%20reduction%20mccawley%20Phenomena&f=false – Greg Lee Feb 23 '16 at 13:46
  • You want me to read it again? There are different approaches to understanding coordination (including McCawley's) mentioned in The Semantics of Coordination_Ewald Lang, but sadly the whole text is not available online. Yes, McCawley is good, but that doesn't mean that he's got to be totally correct. (& I believe JL knew him) – Edwin Ashworth Feb 23 '16 at 22:11
  • @EdwinAshworth, yes. I want you to read it again. Just the few pages starting on p. 273 laying out the argument for the structural nature of conjunction reduction. It's all there, I know, since I just re-read it on line. Look at the evidence. – Greg Lee Feb 24 '16 at 02:35
  • But I want you to look at a whole wealth of alternative analyses (often post-McCawley). – Edwin Ashworth Feb 24 '16 at 09:46
  • @EdwinAshworth, Why should I bother? If you have evidence for an alternative, or there is something wrong with the evidence McCawley gives, bring it forth! I and other syntacticians go by evidence, not popularity or recency of publication. This is science, not gossip. – Greg Lee Feb 24 '16 at 14:24
  • Returning to OP, I'd agree that 'He doesn't only like football but also likes tennis' is unacceptable, and that McCawley's analysis might be argued to give an explanation as to why. But 'He doesn't only like football, but he also likes tennis' sounds equally unacceptable to my ears. I'd want a semicolon and no 'but'. The 'not only ... but also' construction perhaps doesn't work with do-support. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 24 '16 at 21:00
  • @EdwinAshworth, Notice that in the proposed answer from DAVE, the version you dislike equally is proposed as an improvement. – Greg Lee Feb 24 '16 at 21:38
  • And I certainly find 'He doesn't only play football but he also likes to watch it on TV' totally acceptable. The position of 'only' is also a factor in this complicated case. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 24 '16 at 22:44
  • I assume this Wikipedia article is not too fanciful when it claims: 'Coordination is one of the most studied fields in theoretical syntax, but despite decades of intensive examination, theoretical accounts differ significantly and there is no consensus about the best analysis.' What worries me most about the significant contributors to ELU is their assumption (or at least their giving of that impression) that the analysis they quote is indisputable. At least J Lawler does at times mention when he is aware of lack of any consensus. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 25 '16 at 13:32
  • @EdwinAshworth, I'd be happy to discuss with you reasons for or against specific analyses. I've looked up the references you given me, and so far, I've seen nothing with any merit. I don't care about consensus. The Wikipedia article you have just referred me to does not mention the issue of the derived structure produced by conjunction reduction, so why did you refer to it? It's not relevant. I believe you are capable of critical thought. – Greg Lee Feb 25 '16 at 14:14
  • As a non-professional-linguist, I'm not able to access many of the relevant articles discussing the merits and demerits of various approaches. I am aware that a lot of even the most fundamental terminology ('word', 'sentence', 'direct object' ...) is not used the same way by all linguists. And I'm aware that models are often 'refined' by introducing secondary arguments to explain inconsistencies, or adopted in spite of introducing real problems, when other groups of linguists are not in favour of particular facets (hence all the different 'grammars'). I wish people would add the occasional – Edwin Ashworth Feb 25 '16 at 20:05
  • 'According to the Ab grammar of X, Y and Z, ...' You have, admittedly, cited Ross and McCawley here. But J Lawler gets as far as 'Some grammarians ...'; a truly balanced approach, with 'On the other hand ...' is what I think ELU needs. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 25 '16 at 20:17
  • As a layman, I find statements such as 'Theoretical accounts of coordination vary in major respects. For instance, constituency- and dependency-based approaches to coordination differ significantly, and derivational and representational systems are also likely to disagree on many aspects of how coordination should be explained, derivl. accounts, for instance, being more likely to assume transformational mechanisms to "rectify" non-constituent conjuncts (e.g. conjunction reduction and RNR, as mentioned above).' [[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_(linguistics)] disturbing. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 25 '16 at 20:32
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    @EdwinAshworth I understand that fundamental disagreements, lack of consensus, confusion of terminology, are disturbing. I'm sorry that there is no standard view in sight. But that's the way it is. A difference between laymen and pros is that pros deal better with confusion and can work around some disagreements. For instance, I haven't believed in transformations for decades, but I can understand McCawley's proposals and translate to my own views. – Greg Lee Feb 25 '16 at 22:05
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – Matt E. Эллен Mar 22 '16 at 09:58
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When using a correlative conjunction, both clauses have to be parallel. That means you have to use them before two nouns, two adjectives, two verbs etc.

When we look at the sentence

He doesn't only like football but also likes tennis.

we see that the verb is 'like' and the two nouns are 'Football' and 'Tennis'. If we go by the above mentioned rule, it implies that when 'not only' is followed by the verb 'like', 'but also' will be followed immediately by another 'verb' describing the same subject 'football' and not another subject, as in this case, tennis. With two different nouns and the common verb 'like', 'not only...but also' is to be used immediately before the nouns. So, the correct sentence would be:

He likes not only football but also tennis.

Reference 1

Reference 2

thokiro
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You asked if there was something grammatically wrong with your phrasing - the answer is no. Some people are suggesting you may choose the more traditional:

"He likes not only football but also tennis",

but it's boring, and the word "not only" sound disgusting to my ears. Yours, while non-traditional, actually pops out more, and reads better. You repeat the word "likes" which actually sounds better because it emphasizes how much he likes both sports.

I say, keep it the way it is.

PS- you asked about the verb form "likes". To me, it's a sexy five letter word that is very under used.

a53-416
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To stick to the proposed form, I would also rephrase it like this : "He doesn't only like football but also tennis."

Or : "He doesn't only like football but he also likes tennis".

Beside grammar concepts, the reason is because if you skip the middle he, in colloquial speech, then there is no need to keep likes which would be a 2nd verb for the same subject, first word of the sentence, when you want to be direct.

DAVE
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