Learn English – The correct usage of ‘Not only’ in the beginning of a negative sentence

grammargrammaticality

Am I using Not only . . . but also correctly?

Not only have these conditions been not prepared in developed countries, but developing countries also have not accepted them.
Not only have not these conditions been prepared in developed countries, but also have developing countries not accepted them.
Not only have these conditions not been prepared in developed countries, but (also) in developing countries.

Could you tell me which sentence is correct, where the right location of not in the above examples is, and whether we can ignore the verb after but also like example 3?

In the end, do you have any better idea for writing the mentioned example less casually?

Best Answer

Regarding your primary question of the position of 'not' following a sentence that starts with 'Not only..', the third option seems correct. Because, the verb to be negated is 'been prepared' and therefore, the position of 'not' would be right before it.

But I have my doubts whether the 'Not only..but also' sentence structure is the right choice to convey the meaning you wish to convey.

Something like...

These conditions have neither been prepared in developed countries, nor been accepted in developing countries

...feels much less complex, but conveys pretty much the same meaning as far as I understand

Edit : And as @nonchip said, omitting the 'also' doesn't seem to be good idea.

Related Solutions

Learn English – Using “And” at the beginning of a sentence

Small children have a particular writing style that teachers often mark as wrong.

We had a field trip. And we went to the zoo. And we saw monkeys. And they were funny. And then we went home. And the bus was noisy.

Nobody thinks that's a well-written story. So the teacher circles all the "And"s and says "don't start a sentence with and". But somehow we all internalize that as a rule for all of life — which it isn't.

Learn English – Which elements can be omitted from the “not only … but also” construction

The basic rule is that the matter following not only should parallel the matter following but also--the two should play the same syntactic role in the sentence.

So this is clumsy:

 This not only    allows you to maintain a uniform visual style, 
      but also    ______ ___ to introduce new developers to your codebase.

To introduce is not parallel with allows you. But you may easily clean this up by moving not only

 This allows you not only    to maintain a uniform visual style, 
                 but also    to introduce new developers to your codebase.

Your other examples are a little harder to illustrate, because a) the inversion you employ when not only launches the sentence has to go away in the but also piece, and b) the also has to move; but the principle is the same:

Not only should you        be able to speak, 
but      you should also   be able to write.

Note that you can drop the but in this case. You can see the pattern more clearly without the inversion:

You should not only   be able to speak,
           but also   be able to write.
      OR
You should be able not only   to speak,
                   but also   to write.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Learn English – Using “And” at the beginning of a sentence

Learn English – Which elements can be omitted from the “not only … but also” construction

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