Comment by lelanthran
5 hours ago
Depends where the stress is.
"They are some vendors, not all vendors" is natural.
"They are vendors, not all vendors"is equally natural.
Written without stress indicators, most dialog can sound unnatural.
5 hours ago
Depends where the stress is.
"They are some vendors, not all vendors" is natural.
"They are vendors, not all vendors"is equally natural.
Written without stress indicators, most dialog can sound unnatural.
> "They are vendors, not all vendors" is equally natural.
No it isn't. For example, I am a native speaker, and I have no idea what you wanted that sentence to say. There is no available contrast between the emphasized words, leaving me mystified as to why they're both emphasized.
Looking up through the context, I think what you want is "They are vendors, but they aren't all vendors." That's still not a felicitous way to express it; you'd be better off with "They are vendors, but they aren't every vendor." (Because "They aren't all vendors" is most naturally interpreted to mean "not all of them are vendors", with all as an adverb, as opposed to "not all vendors are one of them", with all as a determiner.)