Why use ‘still more’ when the sentence’s grammatical form is positive, but ‘still less’ when negative?
i quote https://usage_en.en-academic.com/3072/still_less
The principles, much more the practice, need a good deal of scrutiny. I didn't even see him, still less talk to him.
Much more (or still more) is used when the grammatical form of the sentence is positive, and much less (or still less) when it is negative. Uncertainty arises when the form is positive but the sense is negative, as with adjectives in un- and words like difficult. In the sentence
It is difficult to establish all the facts, much less to reach a conclusion
much more is strictly needed, not much less, but the result is awkward and an alternative such as let alone is often preferred.]
How can Syntactic Theory explain the paragraph above? Why must still more be ‘used, when the grammatical form of the sentence is positive’ and still less when negative?
Why can’t still less work for both + and ― grammatical forms?
Why can’t we swap still more and still less in the above paragraph, so that we use still less when the sentence’s grammatical form is +, and “still more* when ―?
This quirk happens in French too.
(Il est/C'est) difficile de pardonner, et encore plus d'oublier.
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