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(1) He is leaving not just the institute, but also mathematics.

(2) He is not leaving just the institute, but also mathematics.

Does the second sentence imply that he is not going to leave any of them, so he is staying? At first glance they have the same meaning for me.

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  • don't you need not only as a format in not only... but also...?
    – Maulik V
    Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 10:56
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    @MaulikV: A native speaker corrected the second (mine) to the first.
    – mosceo
    Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 10:58
  • I also agree with the answers other people gave,but one thing I want to mention considering the above comment of OP.I think in conversation your first sentence is ok,with a pause before "not". Like this "He is leaving,...not just the institute, but also mathematics". I think other than that, there is no possibility of your first sentence to be correct.Every language follows some word arrangements,and thanks to grammar it's been possible for non-native speakers to understand the language.If you say "I not boy a",it doesn't mean anything unless and until you change it to its correct arrangement.
    – Man_From_India
    Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 12:13
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    @Man_From_India The first sentence is grammatical. I agree with your point that grammar is important, but if the grammar you've learned rules out sentence #1, then it is in need of some slight revision. The structure is as follows: "He is leaving [ not just the institute, but also mathematics ]" Here, the negator not is not attached to a verb; if it were, it would have to be attached to the auxiliary is. We don't say "He walks not", but "He doesn't walk" because negators don't attach to lexical verbs. But "He walks [ not to the store, but to his home ]" is okay.
    – user230
    Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 12:37

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The second sentence seems to me merely a slightly more difficult to parse version of the first. It doesn't imply he's not leaving when it has the 'just' and 'but' conjunction. Without 'but...', maybe it could be made to mean he's not leaving. But that phrase makes it clear he's leaving, just takes a few milliseconds longer to figure out what.

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I think the format goes like ...

....not only X, but also Y OR ...not just X, but also Y

Here, in this format, X and Y are usually grammatically parallel.

...not only X (noun), but also Y (noun) OR ...not only X (verb), but also Y (verb)

Examples -

He is not only a doctor (X), *but also a player (Y): X and Y both are nouns.
He was not just eating (X), but also crying (Y): X and Y both are verbs.

But then that's not the issue in first sentence. In the second case if 'Y' is noun, 'X' should be the noun as well and your second sentence makes the verb 'leaving' as 'X'.

He is leaving not just the institute (X), but also mathematics (Y) - X and Y both are nouns
He is not leaving (X) just the institute, but also mathematics (Y) - X is verb and Y is noun. Note that the placement of only/just is also not with not what the general format says.

Does the second sentence imply that he is not going to leave any of them, so he is staying? - No, it does not mean that.

Both the sentences mean the same (that he's leaving both - the institute and mathematics) and anyone would understand that but still, I'd prefer...

He's leaving not just the institute, but also mathematics.

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