old english?

[lisa***]

good day everyone!

i want to know the grammar rule behind this sentence:

" I not only lost all my money --I also lost my passport."

WHy not just
" I did not only lose my money--i also lost my passport." ?

Where can i possibly find more examples like the fomer?
is it safe to say that such sentence can be considered old english?


thank you!
more power! :0

[JJM Ballantyne]

Well, in my opinion, both your examples are acceptable in English:

I not only lost all my money - I also lost my passport.

I did not only lose my money - I also lost my passport.

The latter example with "did+lose" simply seems more emphatic though I'd suggest the following variation might be more common:

I didn't just lose [all] my money - I lost my passport too!

What do you mean by "old English"? I hope not "Old English," the ancestor of modern English. Old English is an entirely separate language from modern English. It's like comparing Late Latin to Portuguese.

So perhaps you meant old-fashioned English?

All of the examples above are in perfectly acceptable modern English.

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by lisa***

I want to know the grammar rule behind this sentence:

"I not only lost all my money --I also lost my passport."

In addition, "not only . . . also" is a correlative pair; e.g., either . . . or / neither . . . nor. Notice that "not only" and "also" share the same structural position:

I not only lost . . . , I also lost . . . .

"not only" and "lost" function as adverbs. Adverbs, as you know, have freedom to move around the sentence, like this,

Not only did I lose . . . , I also lost . . . .
Not only did I lose this, I lost that, also.

Notice "did". It carries past tense; that's why "lost" changes to its base form "lose". "did" is inserted because "not" needs a verb to modify. If we don't move "not" away from its verb, then "did" in not required. The following "did" is redundant:

I did not only lose . . . , I also lost . . . .

"not" modifies the verb "lose", so "did" isn't required. It's added for emphasis, as JJM mentions.