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Is there any difference between clauses below?

  1. Wouldn't he help you?
  2. Would he not help you?

I saw the second clause in the PS1 game "Front mission 3". I sometimes think that games are not books and therefore contain errors, so I would like to ask you.

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They are identical in meaning.
Wouldn't he is just a contraction of would he not.
In every day speech a native English speaker would use the contraction, but in a formal situation or written text they may use the longer version, but not necessarily.

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    I agree that they mean the same thing, but I’d say that there is an if-only-subtle shade of difference in feeling. For me anyway, Would he not help you? is a tinge more emphatic and suggests a bit more surprise at his hypothesized unhelpfulness, even a bit of disapproval of it. Maybe that’s because the version with the contraction is much more idiomatic, so going to the trouble of expressing the more complete version suggests a reason... suggests that some distinction is being made.
    – Paul Tanenbaum
    Commented Jul 13 at 13:50
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    ... Yes; the full form is not only more formal but also used to mark surprise.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 13 at 16:06
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    @PaulTanenbaum And I guess separating out the ‘not’ allows you to stress it as needed.  But it may vary depending on dialect.  (For example, I suspect — without evidence — that the uncontracted form would be more common, and thus carry less emphasis, in Scotland than it would in the South of England.)  It may also vary over time.  (I suspect — again, without evidence — that the contraction has become more common over the last century.)
    – gidds
    Commented Jul 14 at 13:15
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    Probably also important to point out to learners: Even though "wouldn't" is a contraction for "would not", we never say "would not he help you?" When "not" is used in questions like this, it's connected with the main verb, not the auxiliary.
    – Barmar
    Commented Jul 14 at 13:51
  • Good point, @Barmar. And that’s so, even though the semantic connection is to the auxiliary: in the full-not version the syntactic connection is to the main verb.
    – Paul Tanenbaum
    Commented Jul 14 at 15:34

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