Grammaticality – Can ‘Are Not We All?’ Replace ‘Aren’t We All?’

contraction-vs-full-formgrammaticalitynegation

  1. Because "aren't" translates to "are not" I pose the question, can you use both interchangeably (in the context of "aren't we all?")? "Are not" sounds very grammatically incorrect in this situation.

  2. Can you say "you need not go there" as opposed to "you needn't go there"?

Basically, I thought you can say "you need not" instead of "you needn't" but that you can't say "are not" instead of "aren't" (in the context I've provided) because I've never heard the second.
My friend believes that if you can use one example interchangeably, you can use the other as well.

So,

  1. Can you use example '1' interchangeably?
  2. Can you use example '2' interchangeably?

Best Answer

  1. No, you can't say "are not we all?". It is ungrammatical, as you suggest.
  2. Yes, you can say either "you need not go there" or "you needn't go there".

The reasons have to do with negative contractions and the fact that they count as a single auxiliary verb. Only one auxiliary verb may be inverted by Subject-Auxiliary Inversion, which is required by Question-Formation. This may be a contracted verb like isn't or don't, inverted with the subject as a unit. If the not is not contracted, on the other hand, then it stays where it is, after the Subject.

Thus these sentences (the "Q" means "Apply Question-Formation")

  • We are not all here. ==Q==> Are we not all here?
  • We aren't all here. ==Q==> Aren't we all here?

follow the rule for subject-auxiliary inversion, but these don't, and are therefore ungrammatical:

  • *Are not we all here?
  • *Need not you do that?

In the case of (2), there's no inversion, because it's not a question, so the contraction can be unpacked at will.

Summary: Contractions are only optional in their original position. If they're moved, they're frozen.

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