by Mrs. B on January 12th, 2008
It's a no brainer that "not" is always referred to as an adverb. Look in any dictionary and that becomes clear. However, it cannot be denied that when identifying a part of speech we must look at how it functions in the sentence in which it is being used. In the following sentence, it simply does not work as an adverb and works only as an adjective.
She should have used those gift cards before January 1, 2008 because not one of them now has a balance.
One might argue that the sentence could be changed to read: "...because now one of them has not a balance," but to do so inherently changes the intended meaning of the sentence. As rewritten, only one of the gift cards does not have a balance. Therefore, in this sentence, "not" is modifying the pronoun "one" by telling us "how many" gift cards have a balance and, in this case, zero of them do. "How many, which one, and what kind" all point to a word being a descriptive word, also known as an adjective.
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)
by Nuttsky on May 16th, 2007
Adverb. Modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
by blahblahblah on May 16th, 2007
it is an adverb
by herbcat on February 20th, 2009
Not is an adverb in my opinion.However, please ponder this thought:
My question is for people who consider "cannot" the acceptable way to write "can not." I have always written "can not" as two words. I consider it a helping verb + an adverb that comes before an action verb that follows the word "not." What part of speech then is "cannot" when it is written as one word? Can you make it past tense? (NO! -So how is it correct to write it as one word????)
by Jefe_el_grande on February 2nd, 2010
Referring back to Mrs. B's comment, it does matter how a word is used, to correctly parse it, unfortunately, even in the example she gave, it was still an adverb (because it was modifying an adjective). "For an example of how 'not' can be a noun, just re-read this sentence."
who sang Haal dil ka tune kya kia
by sadiqmiah on December 14th, 2009
| 1 person likes this
Do you think that if the first person singular pronoun were "i" instead of "I", a whole lot of ego issues might vanish?
by Wisdom Tooth wears a COAT of Integrity on December 5th, 2009
| 3 people like this
Do most people (on the internet) need to learn correct spelling & grammar again? (Especially on this site)
by oneday on January 10th, 2010
| 2 people like this
Is it correct to say, "she helped create" or should it be "she helped created"?
by Anonymous on December 16th, 2009
| 1 person likes this
If the word half is used with an action verb like listening or turning is the whole word hyphenated? Like half turning or half listening?
by Anonymous on December 17th, 2009
| 1 person likes this
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Comments
That's a great analysis, and thank you. Makes perfect sense.
by Jodie44 on January 12th, 2008