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by singwell-is off researching a lot on May 16th, 2007
There is a nice debate going on on http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/advanced/1502-not-i.html
as to whether "not" is an adverb or a particle.
Adverbs are major parts of speech, as are nouns, verbs, adjectives and prepositions.
so: It was not good- "not" is being used as an adverb
Particles, on the other hand, are defined as minor parts of speech, especially short undeclinable ones, like the ones we see attached to phrasal verbs.
so: Who are the cake? Not I/me. "Not" is being used as a particle.
Interesting to follow the debate. I would have just said it was a negater, as that is what I use when teaching LOTE.(Languages Other Than English)
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Comments
Wow, thank you Singwell. Very interesting.
by Jodie44 on May 16th, 2007
I would think even in "Not me", it's an adverb... remember, that's just a sentence fragment, and I think the implied full sentence is "It was not me." or "It is not me.", in which case we can consider it an adverb describing was / is, right? Or maybe I've gotten that wrong. Please correct me if so!
by MvL on August 30th, 2007