I was learning "そうだ" and came across these two sentences:

> あの人は行きそうにない。
>
> あの人は行きそうではない。（もう、行っているよ。）

The article says the first sentence simply means "that person doesn't seem to
go", while the second sentence has the implication that "that person has
already gone". My question is why the second sentence has this implication.

Thanks in advance

**Edit: Sorry everyone, I misunderstood the article. The second sentence
doesn't have that implication. It depends on context. This question will be
deleted soon.**
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2020-06-12T17:37:43.097
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2020-06-15T23:14:20.623
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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"そうにない" versus "そうではない", the negative form of "そうだ"
Well, it's true that そうではない has a usage that you showed, but I don't think it
is the main use case of that expression.

The real difference between those two is in the focus of negation. Verb + そう
can be roughly translated as "(likely) about to V", where そうではない negates the
whole phrase ("not [about to V]"), while そうにない the mood part only ("not
likely" or "not about to'").

In actual examples:

>   1. 攻めてきそうにない
>   2. 攻めてきそうではない
>

When you are a scout watching the enemy camp, you can say both way. #1 means
that you have some confidence that they are not ready to perform an attack, so
that you can relax guard, at least for a good while. However, #2 means that
you are still not sure whether they are ready to attack; maybe they could
attack us in any time, just not immediate (in a moment).

Now, this case:

> あの人は行きそうではない。（もう、行っているよ。）

is as if saying "That person is not (even) _about to_ leave. (S/he's _already_
left!)". This is a quite special and rhetorical context.

Due to the specific time-bound meaning, ～そうにない is only usable when following a
verb, and not adjective. See the @snailplane's answer to [Confusion about
“Seemingly not ～”](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/1701/7810).
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2020-06-13T03:38:24.180
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