# Ничто



## j-Adore

С полетом *ничто *не сравнится.


I was under the impression that in a negative construction in Russian, the genitive "*ничего*" is almost always used. So why is "*ничто*" used here?


С полетом *ничего *не сравнится.


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## Maroseika

Ничто and ничего are synonyms in the sentences with negation after them.

By the way, ничего here is in Nominative (not Genitive) and the subject of the sentence.


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## GCRaistlin

_С полетом *ничто *не сравнится.
С полетом *ничего *не сравнится._

_Ничего _is Genitive, not Nominative, definitely. Try to replace is with _беда:
С полетом *беда* не сравнится.
С тобой *беды* не случится (С тобой *ничего *не случится)._


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## Maroseika

GCRaistlin said:


> _С полетом *ничто *не сравнится.
> С полетом *ничего *не сравнится._


According to the dictionary of Ozhegov, indeclinable negative pronoun *ничего *is colloquially used instead of *ничто *with negative after it. Therefore both variants are correct, the second one being colloquial:
C полетом ничто/ничего не сравнится.



> _Ничего _is Genitive, not Nominative, definitely. Try to replace is with _беда:
> С полетом *беда* не сравнится.
> С тобой *беды* не случится (С тобой *ничего *не случится)._


Since *ничего *is indeclinable in this usage, we formally cannot distinguish Nom. from Gen. (personal vs impersonal construction) like in case with беда: _С тобой беда/беды не случится. _
But from the comparison with _C тобой ничто не случится_, it's quite evident that *ничего *is in Nominative, exactly like *ничто*.


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## Rosett

j-Adore said:


> С полетом *ничто *не сравнится.
> 
> 
> I was under the impression that in a negative construction in Russian, the genitive "*ничего*" is almost always used. So why is "*ничто*" used here?
> 
> 
> С полетом *ничего *не сравнится.


In the given case, only *ничто* (Nom.) would make sense.

However, there may be visibly similar impersonal constructions, where indirect cases are correctly employed:

C полётом *ничего* (Gen.) не(льзя) сравнить, нечего (даже) и сравнивать.

С полётом *ничто* (Acc.) не сравнить, с полётом *ничто* (Nom.) не сравнится.

«*Никто* (Nom.) не забыт, *ничто* (Nom.) не забыто!» (please pay attention to grammatical gender.)


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## GCRaistlin

Maroseika said:


> According to the dictionary of Ozhegov, indeclinable negative pronoun ничего is colloquially used instead of ничто with negative after it.


There's a different example in the Ozhegov's dictionary:


> Его ничто (или ничего) не интересует


_Интересовать_ isn't a reflexive verb while _сравниться _is. This may be a reason why both variants are acceptable.



Maroseika said:


> Since *ничего *is indeclinable in this usage, we formally cannot distinguish Nom. from Gen. (personal vs impersonal construction) like in case with беда: _С тобой беда/беды не случится._


_Ничего _IS declinable in this case as it is a pronoun here, not an adverb. So _ничего_ is Genitive, just like _беды_ is. Also note that the following sentences have no subjects, and that's why we use Genitive:
_С тобой *ничего* не случится
С тобой *беды* не случится_

The following examples have the subjects, and we use Nominative:
_С тобой *беда* не случится
С полетом *ничто* не сравнится
_
We cannot build a subjectless variant of the last example as it would have no sense.


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## Maroseika

GCRaistlin said:


> There's a different example in the Ozhegov's dictionary:
> 
> _Интересовать_ isn't a reflexive verb while _сравниться _is. This may be a reason why both variants are acceptable.


The assertion of the dictionary is quite unambiguous: *indeclinable ничего is colloquial synonym of ничего when followed by the negation*. It refers to any personal sentences, and reflexive one is no more than just an example.
Therefore both ничто and ничего are subjects in the given type of the sentence, i.e. pronouns in Nom. At least this is all we can deduce from the Ozhegov's dictionary.




> The following examples have the subjects, and we use Nominative:
> _С тобой *беда* не случится
> С полетом *ничто* не сравнится_


Agree. And this is exactly where, according to Ozhegov, ничего is used as colloquial synonym of ничто.


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## GCRaistlin

Maroseika said:


> The assertion of the dictionary is quite unambiguous: *indeclinable ничего is colloquial synonym of ничего when followed by the negation*.


I don't see anything like this in the Ozhegov's dictionary (1968). The article is named _Ничто:_


> *НИЧТО*, ничего, ничему, ничем, ни о чём


It means that only _ничто_ is Nominative. There's the only example with _ничто/ничего_ in the article:


> _Его ничто (_или _ничего) не интересует_


Yes, _ничто_ may be replaced with _ничего _here, but it will change the grammatics of the sentence totally. It doesn't mean that _ничего_ is a colloquial synonym of _ничто _for any case.


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## Maroseika

GCRaistlin said:


> I don't see anything like this in the Ozhegov's dictionary (1968). The article is named _Ничто:_.


Please refer to article _Ничего_:

*II. НИЧЕГО, местоимение отрицательное, с последующим отрицанием, несклоняемое (разговорное). То же, что ничто (в 1 значении). Его ничего не интересует.*


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## GCRaistlin

That's funny, but there's no part II of _ничего_ in my Ozhegov's dictionary. _Ничего_ is only an adverb, according to it.


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## Maroseika

GCRaistlin said:


> That's funny, but there's no part II of _ничего_ in my Ozhegov's dictionary. .


Mine is of 2001 edition. Here is its online version.


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## Vovan

I would even go so far as to say that "ничего" is not limited to colloquial speech. Read more here:
«Ничто не интересует» или «ничего не интересует»?

In the OP's example, "ничто" sounds elevated+precise (and is fine, especially in writing).


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## Rosett

Maroseika said:


> Please refer to article _Ничего_:
> 
> *II. НИЧЕГО, местоимение отрицательное, с последующим отрицанием, несклоняемое (разговорное). То же, что ничто (в 1 значении). Его ничего не интересует.*


This can apply to a standalone indéclinable word which behaves similar to adverbs.

In the given phrase which is impersonal construction, it’s unquestionably *ничто* in Gen., and it’s not colloquial.


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## Maroseika

Vovan said:


> I would even go so far as to say that "ничего" is not limited to colloquial speech. Read more here:
> «Ничто не интересует» или «ничего не интересует»?
> 
> In the OP's example, "ничто" sounds elevated+precise (and is fine, especially in writing).


For me too it doesn't sound colloquial. Language situation may have changed since 2001.


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## GCRaistlin

Maroseika said:


> Mine is of 2001 edition.


1968 is more authentic. Changes in 2001 edition are by Shvedova, and some of them are questionable, including this one.


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## Maroseika

Not sure what you mean by "authentic". The recenter dictionary is definitely more relevant when the up-to-date standard is concerned.


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## GCRaistlin

It is highly dependent on its author. For example, you may compare the accents for _маркетинг_ и _маркетинговый _in this dictionary.
As regards to our question, _то же, что ничто_ doesn't necessary mean that _ничего _can be used as a synonym for _ничто_ just in any case. Also, it is unclear why _ничего_ is called indeclinable: to assert this, it is needed to set _ничего_ to some another case, which seems to be difficult - under the terms of the article itself.


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## Sobakus

The reason it's called an indeclinable is ostensibly that it's a petrified Genitive form used in the Nominative function.


GCRaistlin said:


> _С полетом *ничего *не сравнится._


This is unquestionably a grammatically correct sentence, and extremely common to hear. You know this as well as anybody else, but you're denying that it's grammatically correct because you're struggling to understand the grammar - it looks like the Genitive in the Nominative function after all. This is where the "indeclinbale" part comes in.


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## GCRaistlin

Sobakus said:


> The reason it's called an indeclinable is ostensibly that it's a petrified Genitive form used in the Nominative function.


I find this reason strange.



Sobakus said:


> You know this as well as anybody else


Well, you definitely know what I know better than I do.

As I said above, try to replace _ничего_ with _беды_:
_С полётом беды не сравнится._
Maybe somebody would say that it's "unquestionably a grammatically correct sentence", too. I wouldn't.


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## Sobakus

GCRaistlin said:


> I find this reason strange.


Nevertheless you give an excellent illustration of why it makes sense:


> As I said above, try to replace _ничего_ with _беды_:
> _С полётом беды не сравнится._
> Maybe somebody would say that it's "unquestionably a grammatically correct sentence", too. I wouldn't.


_Беды́_, unlike _ничего_, isn't an indeclinable form used in the Nominative function, but can only be the Genitive form of _беда_, therefore it cannot be the subject and the sentence is ungrammatical. The only other solution to this problem is to posit _ничего_ as an alternative Nominative form itself.


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## VCH250

You all make this so complicated  With ничего the idea is—t*here is nothing that compares*, and with ничто the idea is—*nothing compares*.

ничего is colloquial in such cases because what's missing is *нет ничего, что* ...
On the other hand ничто is literally nothing—as an object—as in, *NOTHING* compares with ... (Mr. Nothing)


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## Sobakus

VCH250 said:


> You all make this so complicated  With ничего the idea is—t*here is nothing that compares*, and with ничто the idea is—*nothing compares*.
> 
> ничего is colloquial in such cases because what's missing is *нет ничего, что* ...
> On the other hand ничто is literally nothing—as an object—as in, *NOTHING* compares with ... (Mr. Nothing)


_*Нет ничего, что* там не пропущено = Там всё пропущено._

And why then can't you likewise omit (or rather shorten) _нет беды, что_? Trust us natives on this one: if there was something omitted there, the person omitting it would know.


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## GCRaistlin

Sobakus said:


> _Беды́_, unlike _ничего_, isn't an indeclinable form used in the Nominative function, but can only be the Genitive form of _беда_, therefore it cannot be the subject and the sentence is ungrammatical. The only other solution to this problem is to posit _ничего_ as an alternative Nominative form itself.


This "solution" requires to declare _беды́_ as an alternative Nominative form, doesn't it?



Sobakus said:


> And why then can't you likewise omit (or rather shorten) _нет беды, что_?


This trick seems to work only with reflexive verbs:
_С полетом ничего не сравнится - С полетом беды не сравнится_
_С тобой ничего не случится - С тобой беды не случится_
_Его ничего не интересует - __Его беды не интересует
_
What is more, it seems to be a matter of the word order:
_С полетом ничто не сравнится - С полетом ничего не сравнится
С полетом не сравнится ничто - С полетом не сравнится ничего
_
Actually, _С полетом не сравнится ничто _may be  if _ничто_ is stressed, but _С полетом не сравнится ничего_ sounds definitely better.

I believe use of _ничего_ with reflexive verbs originates, on the one hand, in the similarly sounding constructions with non-reflexive verbs:
_С полетом не сравнить ничего => С полетом не сравнится ничего_
and, on the other hand, in the fact that _ничто_ is harder to pronounce than _ничего_.


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## Maroseika

GCRaistlin said:


> _С полетом не сравнится ничто - С полетом не сравнится ничего_.


That's really strange. Word order backflips your attitude to these phrases.
I don't see any difference between them with any conceivable word order (other than stylistic), both being quite correct.


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## GCRaistlin

Maroseika said:


> I don't see any difference between them with any conceivable word order (other than stylistic), both being quite correct.


As I wrote above, for _С полетом не сравнится ничто_ is actually too strict (I was first going to mark it /)
_С полетом ничто не сравнится _is neutral
_С полетом ничего не сравнится _is awkward
_С полетом не сравнится ничто _has _ничто_ stressed
_С полетом не сравнится ничего_ is neutral


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