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  • "He neither texted me nor did he call me".
  • "He neither texted me nor called me".
  • "He neither texted me nor he called me".

Could you please tell me which one is grammatically correct? I believe all three are correct (according to my own understanding)

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  • 4
    The first two are OK, the third is bad.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Jul 16 at 22:20
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    Will you add why you think each is correct? I agree with Michael Harvey's comment, but would like to know how you derived the third one. By the way, I think the second one is the most common usage for a native English speaker.
    – Peter Jennings
    Commented Jul 17 at 0:29
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    They're all either invalid or clunky. He neither texted nor called me. Most people wouldn't repeat me. Google Books has far more written instances of didn't text or call me than didn't text me or call me.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jul 17 at 2:12
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    The third is ungrammatical.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jul 17 at 7:50
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    If you want to repeat he it's normal to use inversion e.g. He neither texted me nor did he call me. Repetition is unnecessary here, but might be used for emphasis (bang your chest every time you say me).
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jul 17 at 21:49

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Stylistically speaking, since the neither occurs immediately after the sentence’s subject, it is in the position where one (prototypically) expects to find a verb phrase. For that reason, each of the alternatives completing the neither construction should itself be a verb phrase. So

He neither texted me nor called me

would be the preferred option. In general, forms like neither A nor B call for parallelism: whichever syntactic form A takes, B’s should be the same.

As far as grammaticality is concerned, though, the first of your three is also unobjectionable, whereas your third is out of bounds.

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