Gosh Sandra, the reason why I remember the “negation priority rule” in Latin is that my Latin teacher (who scared the hell out of me at that time) repeated it to me at least 1000 times ! But it must be somewhere in my Latin grammar book of those good old days…. :-)

:)) Sorry Marina, forget the referince then…. :) Can I quote your Latin teacher? Kidding. :p

I think this rule is related to what we have in English: we always negate the first element that can be negated. Since conjunction, pronoun, verb is the regular word order, the rule makes perfect sense. Thanks for makeing me see this!!! :)

In Spanish:

1. Nobody does anything – Nadie hace nada
2. Nobody goes anywhere – Nadie va a ningun lado

Hola Enrique! :) Thank you so much!

So “Nadie NO hace nada” and “Nadie NO va a ningun lado” would be incorrect, right?

What about “Enrique no hace nada” or “Enrique no va a ningun lado”? Thanks! :)

Sandra!
Enrique no hace nada is correct and true on sunday mornings …hehe
Enrique no va a ningun lado is also true and correct on sunday mornings

Nadie NO hace nada is incorrect. Nadie is negative. And nada is negative also.
Nadie = nobody
Nada = nothing

Nadie NO va a ningun lado is incorrect

Thanks Enrique!!! :)

So it’s exactly as in Italian: you can have more than one negative element, but you a combination of negative element in subject position and another negative element later in the sentence is incorrect. Great! :)

En español

Nadie hace nada (double negative)
Nadie va a ningún lado (double negative as well)

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

That’s right. : )

>>Another short question for you: would the sencence:
“Nobody ever goes anywhere with anyone.”
“Ninguem nunca vai a lugar nenhum com ninguem.”
It sounds funny, but it’s still acceptable, I usually would hear this sentence from somebody who is emphisizing his or her speach somehow (I think teens would say that; the sentence probably would end up with “it not fair”, “nao e justo” lol)
>>have negative elements in all positions?

That’s right, neg. elements in all positions.

>>is is there a limit to the number of negative >>elements you can have in a Portuguese >>sentence?

Hmm…. it might become confusing if you say for example:

Eu nunca vi nada que ninguem nao saiba fazer.
I haven’t seen anything that anybody didn’t know how to do/make/buid.

Yicks! Better say " people can make/do/build everything" : )

Thank you, Ximena! :) And welcome to eduFire, by the way! Hope you have a great time teaching on this fantastic site! :)

Angela – Thanks so much!! This is extremely useful! I agree that the sentence is a bit weird, it’s the maximum I could stretch it to include as many elements that could take a negation…. :)

BUT – your translation doesn’t have a formal marker of the negation on the verb (like “not go”). On the other hand, you provided “Ninguem não faz nada.”, where we have the “not” element. SO: would “Ninguem nunca não vai a lugar nenhum com ninguem.” be still correct? Would it still mean the same thing?

I’m trying to see if, in this respect, Portuguese is like Italian and Spanish (negative subject + negative verb + other negative elements = wrong) or like Romanian (negative subject + negative verb + other negative elements = ok).

Angela – another thing! :)

In your example, “Eu nunca vi nada que ninguem nao saiba fazer.”, you have:
1. negative temporal adverb + affirmative verb (first clause)
2. negative subject + negative verb.

Is this random, or are there rule of what you can/cannot combine? As in, would “Eu nunca nao vi nada” be ok? Would it mean the same thing (“I have never seen anything”) or the opposite (“I have always seen”)?

Sorry to put so many question, I just need to have some native speaker judgements here, and the new questions arise as I take in the examples that you produce…. :)

“So: would “Ninguem nunca não vai a lugar nenhum com ninguem.” be still correct? Would it still mean the same thing?”

Resposta:
Well, if you re-arrange the sentence to “Nao, ninguem nunca vai a lugar nenhum com ninguem” you can get away with it, but negative adverbs like “jamais”, “nunca” and “nao” don’t usually make sense put side by side.

“Sorry to put so many question, I just need to have some native speaker judgements here, and the new questions arise as I take in the examples that you produce…. :)”

Resposta:
No worries, actually I really enjoy answering these questions. : )

Thanks Angela! :)

I really enjoyed your answers, and they were very useful! :)

In Portuguese:
nobody does nothing is – ninguém faz nada
nobody goes anywhere – ninguém vai a lugar algum

Thanks Mirella! :)