From a ghost story (which I think has informal speech):

> ドアノブをまわすと鍵は掛かっていなかったので彼女はそのまま中に入っていった

**Questions:**

  1. The verb まわす is spoken in the present tense, despite the rest of the sentence's verbs being in the past tense. Is this to draw emphasis to this part of the sentence?

  2. Why is the logical clause

> 掛かっていなかったので

getting nominalized with the ので, instead of putting いる in its て negative form

> ドアノブをまわすと鍵は **掛かっていなくて** 彼女はそのまま中に入っていった

Would this alternative form be equivalent to the one above, which instead uses
ので?
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2022-09-05T19:13:15.133
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question
て-form
Understanding 「ドアノブをまわすと鍵は掛かっていなかったので彼女はそのまま中に入っていった」
The sentence connects two clauses, ドアノブをまわすと鍵は掛かっていなかった and 彼女はそのまま中に入っていった,
with ので. If you have to split ので into の and で (which I wouldn’t particularly
recommend), this の is not a nominalizer. Rather, it is what is called the
explanatory-の. If you have already learned `〜のです` or `〜んです`, ので is best
understood as the conjunctive form of that.

The part that precedes ので describes a situation or circumstance of which what
is stated in the main clause (which follows ので) is a consequence. It’s like
“since” in English, except, of course, the part that would follow “since”
needs to put before ので, not after. If you don’t want to swap the word order in
your head, you could see ので as “so” or “therefore”.

> 鍵は掛かっていなかったので、彼女はそのまま中に入っていった。  
>  Since the door was unlocked, she proceeded inside.  
>  (The door was unlocked, and therefore, she proceeded inside.)

ドアノブをまわすと follows the pattern of `[V present affirmative plain form]-と`. The
tense before と in this construction is always the present. If the main clause
(which follows と) is also in the present tense, the sentence indicates that
performing the action of `V` (i.e. the verb before と) automatically or
naturally leads to the situation described in the main clause.

> ドアノブをまわすとドアが開く。  
>  Turn the knob, and the door will open (as a natural result of it).  
>  (If you turn the knob, the door will open.)

When the main clause is in the past tense, as in your sentence (with
掛かっていなかった), the sentence indicates that performing the action of `V` led to
the finding out, by the subject of `V`, of the situation described in the main
clause, as an immediate consequence.

> ドアノブをまわすと鍵は掛かっていなかった。  
>  She turned the knob and (found out as a result) the door was unlocked.

The whole sentence may be translated this way.

> ドアノブをまわすと鍵は掛かっていなかったので、彼女はそのまま中に入っていった。  
>  Since the door was unlocked when she tried turning the knob, she proceeded
> inside.

As for the difference between ので and て, the former is explicit about the
causal relationship while the latter may only imply it. Your rephrased
sentence with て sounds awkward. She was able to proceed precisely because the
door was unlocked. The sentence sounds more natural with ので making this causal
relationship clear.

て would sound more natural if the main clause simply provided an additional
description of the situation, rather than stating what it permitted her to do
as a result.

> ドアノブをまわすと鍵は掛かっていなくて、ドアはすぐに開いた。  
>  The door was unlocked when she tried turning the knob, and it opened with
> no difficulty.

Actually, this sounds a bit colloquial. In written language, I might say
掛かっておらず. But this is a totally different topic.
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answer