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raewon
Joined: 16 Jun 2009
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 Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 5:23 pm Post subject: question on ending a reply with "cannot" |
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I've just stumbled on a question someone (an English teacher) asked on the net a few years ago. Their question was whether or not "cannot" be used at the end of the sentence in short replies.
For example:
Can you swim?
No, I cannot.
Is that reply grammatically correct, or does "can't" have to be used? If "cannot" is incorrect, I would like to know why.
It seemed an odd question, so I wondered why it was asked. I checked several grammar books and couldn't find any sentences that end in "cannot". (But there also wasn't any note warning against it.)
Thanks for any replies to this one. |
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le-paul
Joined: 07 Apr 2009
Location: dans la chambre
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| Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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I would have thought that cannot would put more emphasis on the negative implication?
However, in real life, I often find that when using an American pronunciation, it often helps for clarity when using 'can not' and the verb begins with a 't' or 'd' etc., to use 'cannot' instead of can't because of the contractions (for example 'I can't talk now' - sounds the same as 'I can talk now'). |
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isitts
Joined: 25 Dec 2008
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 5:34 am Post subject: |
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| le-paul wrote: |
I would have thought that cannot would put more emphasis on the negative implication?
However, in real life, I often find that when using an American pronunciation, it often helps for clarity when using 'can not' and the verb begins with a 't' or 'd' etc., to use 'cannot' instead of can't because of the contractions (for example 'I can't talk now' - sounds the same as 'I can talk now'). |
In "I can talk now", the "a" in "can" is pronounced with a schwa so it doesn't sound the same as "can't", which doesn't have a schwa. Plus, the intonation of those two sentences are different. |
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isitts
Joined: 25 Dec 2008
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 5:41 am Post subject: Re: question on ending a reply with "cannot" |
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| raewon wrote: |
I've just stumbled on a question someone (an English teacher) asked on the net a few years ago. Their question was whether or not "cannot" be used at the end of the sentence in short replies.
For example:
Can you swim?
No, I cannot.
Is that reply grammatically correct, or does "can't" have to be used? If "cannot" is incorrect, I would like to know why. |
They're the same thing. Can't is a contraction of cannot, so....not sure I see the problem. It sounds a little strange (as in, overly formal) to use cannot that way, but le-paul gives a good example of when you might use it. |
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Stain
Joined: 08 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 7:46 am Post subject: |
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| You can use "cannot" and "can't" or "can not" as well at the end of a sentence as these three are acceptable spellings. "Cain't" is out of the question, for the time being. Give it a couple years on that one. |
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raewon
Joined: 16 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Thank you very much for all of the replies - they were all helpful. |
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