Tag Questions "is he not"
"He is happy, isn't he?"
If you did not use the contraction isn't he, in the question above, would the correct sentence be:
- "He is happy, is he not?"
- "He is happy, is not he?"
Sentence #1 seems to have to have same meaning as the above question but does not become the subject complement of he? Is #2 the grammatical equivalent albeit archaic or uncommon in modern English?
Solution 1:
In my part of England (Yorkshire) we sometimes use "is he not?", but not as a tag question as in your example.
"Is not he" is a definite no-no.
The reason is that you are looking at a tag question, so you have the subject-verb inversion, but contractions such as isn't or wasn't can't invert.
Solution 2:
The sentence "He is happy, is he not? is grammatically correct, although rather infrequent in usage.
Perhaps, the only similar tag question which you are likely to find in everyday situations is the one which presents the verb to be in the first person singular (for example, "I am pretty, am I not?", as "aren't I? may sound a bit awkward).
Your second example is on the contrary not acceptable.
As Roaring Fish said before me, you do not change the structure verb-subject in a question, so the negative "not" needs to come after the subject if it is separated from the verb form, whereas it comes before the subject when it is contracted.