この女の人はペンチではなく、ハンマーを使っています。
I believe the sentence means
The woman is using a hammer, not a pliers.
But I couldn't understand ではなく, how is this structure formed?
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2In linguistics, this is sometimes called "metalinguistic negation". "Metalinguistic comparison" is a related concept: 先生というより学者だ ("[He] is more a scholar than a teacher.")– user1478Commented Apr 16, 2017 at 5:00
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1 Answer
- で: The continuative form of the copula だ.
- は: The topic/contrast marker は, which is optional but is usually placed here. では can be contracted to じゃ in casual settings.
- なく: The continuative form of ない.
- (て): なく can be followed by an optional て. In casual conversation て tends to be used, and in formal essays て tends to be dropped.
Put together this literally means "not being ～". Practically this can be used wherever a noun can be used in a sentence, and means "not ～ (but ～)". This can be used with adverbs, too.
- 彼ではなく私がやりました。 ＝ 彼じゃなくて私がやりました。
- 彼は壁を赤くではなく青く塗った。
- ゆっくりではなく、急いで来てください。
