Hey guys!

I’m doing a paper on the evolution of negation in Latin and I need some help. Could native speakers of Italian, Spanish and/or Portuguese translate these two short sentences for me, please?

1. Nobody does anything.
2. Nobody goes anywhere.

The idea is to prove that, while in Latin (like in English), we only use one negative element, in some Romance languages we can have more than one negation… For example, in Romanian it’s: “Nimeni NU face Nimic” and “Nimeni NU merge Niciunde”.

THANK YOU!!!

Italian: Nessuno fa niente
Nessuno va da nessuna parte.

Grazie mille, Monica!

So we have two nagative elements, but the verb itself is not negated, right? :)

So, would “Nessuno NON fa niente” and “Nessuno NON va da nessuna parte” be incorrect? Or would they meant the opposite?

Thanks again!

You can ’t have the double negative on the verb if the subject is Nessuno at the beginning, but you could have said also

Non fa niente nessuno
Non va da nessuna parte nessuno but the first sentences are the ones usually used and more correct.

Somebody correct if I am wrong, it happens sometimes!!!

Thank you! It’s all very, very useful! :)

Monica, what you say is perfect!

Sandra…. if the subject is another one, we use the double negation even in the SVO form.
Io non ho visto nessuno. (I saw no one)
Io non ho fatto nulla. (I did nothing)
Non ho mangiato niente. (I ate nothing…. I implied the subject here, we can do it in Italian!)

Thanks Marina and Marzia!!!! You’re helping me a lot here!

Now…. Spanish and/or Portuguese, anyone?

Marzia, another question:

So, would “Nessuno non ha mangiato niente” be incorrect?

Is it possible to have more than two negative elements in a sentence in Italian?

Because in Romanian we can have an unlimited number of negative items:

Nimeni NU merge Niciodata Nicaieri cu Nimeni.
Nobody ever goes anywhere with anyone.

No, if you use nessuno then the verb must be positive. By using the sentence as you have written it, it means that everybody ate something!!!
Only if you use another subject you can sai Io non ho mangiato niente. (double negative),

No, if you use nessuno then the verb must be positive. By using the sentence as you have written it, it means that everybody ate something!!!
Only if you use another subject you can sai Io non ho mangiato niente. (double negative),

Hmmm…. I didn’t study grammar in such a deep way, but I think….
We can use 3 negations, in the structure that Monica used.
Non va da nessuna parte nessuno
But not putting “non” right after “Nessuno”, “Nulla”, “Niente” as you ask.

Non ha mangiato niente nessuno OK
Nessuno non ha mangiato niente NO

Another example, without triple negation.
Nessuno mi capisce (Nobody understands me)
= Non mi capisce nessuno (only the focus is different, more on the verb than on "nessuno")
Tu non mi capisci (You don’t understand me)

If somebody knows the reason because you cannot use “non” after “nessuno”…. I’d be very curious to know it! :)

I think because it is already a negative word in itself, i will look into my italian grammar and let you know for sure. ciao

Ciao Sandra,

This is a controversial and quite complicated aspect of Italian in particular. Advance learners still have problems with it!

AW, Native speakers would never make such a sentence because using “nessuno/nobody” in such a sentence would be abnormal/innatural in Italian.

Thus, native speakers rather turn the sentence into " frase impersonale" (with no person/pronoun stated): " non si fa niente/non si va da nessuna parte".

About “Nessuno NON fa niente” and “Nessuno NON va da nessuna parte”:

They are incorrect and actually the mean nothing. Maybe, a very imaginative native speaker knowing the speaker is a foreigner unable to speak Italian very well would try hard to interprete it and think in the very end that … you’re meaning right the opposite:D

Katia

P.S. Of course, Italian syntax is quite peculiar and as for all languages we shouldn’t translate into Italian to have correct and natural sentences but try to think in the language of Dante;-)

Katia…. “Non si fa niente” is a double negation to my eyes…. Even if the sentence is without the negative pronoun…. Or did you intend two negative words in a row?
Unluckily I don’t know Latin, and don’t know how negations work there.
Sorry to bother, but I don’t want to drive Sandra confused.

As a translator, I wanted to explain that we can’t literally translate those English sentences (using "nobody") into Italian without sounding innatural because we have a different syntax. So, I showed the way we translate such a sentence into Italian.

Actually, to tell her more we need someone knowing both Latin and Italian very very well and speaking good English …. and I don’t remember any Latin:-(

In Latin, two negations are actually affirmative. Moreover, there is a very strict priority rule about which word in a sentence should be made negative: conjunction first, then pronoun, then verb (am I correct, Sandra?). If all these parts of the sentence can’t be made negative, then you use “non”. So it is very very different from Italian, and very tricky too!!! I can’t remember how many times I wrote “ut nemo” instead of “ne quisquam” in a final clause, when I was a high school student!!!! :-)

Thank you Marina for your prompt help and useful information !

I am sure Sandra will appreciate :-)

Sandra,
Portuguese:
1. Ninguem não faz nada.
2. Ninguem não vai a lugar nenhum (or “ninguem sai”)

>The idea is to prove that, while in Latin (like in English), we only use one negative element, in some Romance languages >>we can have more than one

Right, the “no-no’s” are acceptable in Portuguese. : )

Wow, this is REALLY great! Thank you all so much!!!!

Angela – Thank you!!! So we can have three negative elements and the meaning is still that of a simple negation, right?

Another short question for you: would the sencence: “Nobody ever goes anywhere with anyone.” have negative elements in all positions? I.e., is is there a limit to the number of negative elements you can have in a Portuguese sentence? Thanks!

Marina – You’re absolutely right! But what you say is totally true only in Classical Latin; vulgar Latin (and even spoken Latin) are full of cases of two or more negative elements that mean a single negation. There are many cases taken from Plautus and Ennius (Archaic Latin), Petronius (sub-standard Latin), and even Cicero himself!!! (one in a letter to his brother – familiar register, and one in an oration). So in “real” Latin two negations didn’t always mean affirmation.

The rule that you mention is very interesting, and, even if I never found it in any of the grammar books I used, seems to be very exact. Could you please point me to a grammar book, so that I can quote it?

Monica, Marzia, Katia – You’re not confusing me, actually you’re proving that the difference between “double negation” and “negative concord” is confusing even to native speakers.

“Negative concord” is a fancy linguistic term applied to those languages who admit/require the use of multiple negative elements in a single sentence – those elements do not cancel each other, and the meaning is still negative.

“Double negation” is used, in linguistics and logics, for a sentence where a negative element is used precisely in order to cancel the meaning of another negation. The sentence is in this case an affirmation. (Duplex negatio est affirmatio, like the Latin saying goes). So languages in which two negative elements result in an affirmation are called “non-negative concord languages”.

Now, English and Latin are non-negative concord languages. But the Romance languages do have negative concord (to a greater or lesser degree, as this discussion showed), so how did it appear there? On the other hand, Old English was a negative-concord language, how come Modern English is not? The evolution is exactly the opposite! This is the problem I’m addressing in my paper, and, if you want, I can tell you the conclusion I reached…. (or I can let you guess for yourselves!) Clue – look at what I answered to Marina…. :)

Thanks Sandra, I didn’t know the existence of negative concord! And always used double negation to address two negations in the same sentence…. both if they were a double concord, as in Italian, or cancelling each other, as in English!
I learned a new thing! :)
But I will check out if in Italian it’s possible to say doppia negazione for both cases.

My pleasure, Marzia! :) I didn’t introduce the term here to show off, I just wanted to be clear…. In fact I don’t know its equivalent in my own language! :)) I don’t think any other linguists beside the Anglophones use it…. (correct me if I’m wrong!)

as for Italian I’d like to point out that,even if “nessuno fa niente” is nowadays almost always used,we can also say “nessuno fa alcunché” and I personally would prefer for instance “non ha alcun senso” to “non ha nessun senso”(but again this form is commonly used)

edit: I’m not sure of this,but I think we use “negative concord” to emphasize the concept

Hi Daniela! :) Thanks a lot! Your observation is very helpful!

I’m so happy to have the opportunity to ask such wonderful people! :)