# nanimo imasen



## Miseryk

Hi to all, Im new, and this is my question:

SORE WA NANI MO ARIMASEN. also DARE MO IMASEN.

NANIMO = nothing                     DAREMO = nobody
ARIMASU = is                           IMASU = is
ARIMASEN = isn't/is not              IMASU = isn't/is not

So I'd be like:

 Nothing is not. Which logically means Something is.

Am I wrong?

Also in Spanish it is equal to NANIMO(nada) DAREMO(nadie) which is

No es nada.
No es nadie.

Para los que hablan español, éso está mal, porque si "no es nada" = "es algo", y lo correcto es decir "es nada" o "no es algo", también con "nadie es" o "no es alguien", todos lo dicen mal porque es idiomático y usan doble negación transmutando el resultado o expresión.

 For those who speak Spanish, that's wrong, because if "is not nothing" = "is something" and the right thing is to say "is nothing" or "is not something", also with "no one/nobody is"(right) or "is not someone"(right) they all say it wrong because it is idiomatic and use double negatives transmuting the result or expression.

NOT 0 = 1


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## Shiratori99

Miseryk said:


> NANIMO = nothing                     DAREMO = nobody



I think this is where the error in your assumption is. 

NANIMO~NAI = nothing

DAREMO~NAI = nobody


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## YangMuye

Actually, _nanimo_ is more like "anything".
_Nanimo arimasen_ literally means "there is not anything", which is the same as "there is nothing".
People may tell you _nanimo_ means nothing, because _nanimo_ (anything) and _masen_ (not) are a set phrase. When you see _nanimo_, in most cases, the sentence must end with _masen_.


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## Miseryk

So, in spanish only exists "nada" (nothing) and "nadie" (nobody), so, to translate to spanish is hard so I try to use English too, but you have anything/something which nobody can tell me the difference, so I use nothing/nobody to translate.

But looking to the point:

NANI = what
 NANIMO = something/anything (amount of things >= 1)

DARE = who
DAREMO = somebody/anybody? (amount of beings >= 1)

IMAS
u = affirmative form? (imasU)
en = negative form? (imasEN)


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## Miseryk

Shiratori99 said:


> I think this is where the error in your assumption is.
> 
> NANIMO~NAI = nothing
> 
> DAREMO~NAI = nobody



but what would be NANIKA~NAI and DAREKA~NAI?


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## Flaminius

First, the difference between _nanimo_ and _nanika_ is that the former is a part of the construction "_nanimo . . . nai_" while the latter is a word in itself meaning "something".

Second, the two phrases have different  _nai_-s.  The one for the _nanimo_-construction is for negation and the one for _nanika_ is a question marker.   For want of a proper phonetic device, the difference is often  masked in the written language but the latter nai has a high pitch on the beginning, which I tentatively write _nái_ here.

If you say, _nanika nái_, it is a question if there is something.


Note when you will be more advanced:
This _nái_ is in fact a negation too.  Sorry for throwing you off.  There are other negation devices that are used for question.  When and how they are questions is another topic for another thread.


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## Miseryk

Flaminius said:


> First, the difference between _nanimo_ and _nanika_ is that the former is a part of the construction "_nanimo . . . nai_" while the latter is a word in itself meaning "something".
> 
> Second, the two phrases have different  _nai_-s.  The one for the _nanimo_-construction is for negation and the one for _nanika_ is a question marker.   For want of a proper phonetic device, the difference is often  masked in the written language but the latter nai has a high pitch on the beginning, which I tentatively write _nái_ here.
> 
> If you say, _nanika nái_, it is a question if there is something.
> 
> 
> Note when you will be more advanced:
> This _nái_ is in fact a negation too.  Sorry for throwing you off.  There are other negation devices that are used for question.  When and how they are questions is another topic for another thread.



About what you are saying I don't have to trust in google translate, but, what would be (no matter if it is logic or not) SORE WA NANI MO ARIMASEN and SORE WA NANI MO ARIMASU.


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## Flaminius

> what would be (no matter if it is logic or not) SORE WA NANI MO ARIMASEN and SORE WA NANI MO ARIMASU.


Please do not quote the whole post of someone whom you are replying to.  Limit your quote only as much as necessary or poor readers will be forced to read my post twice.

Both of your examples are downright ungrammatical.  The grammatical flaws are too big to ignore and parse them into some meaning.  No translation, therefore, is possible for either of them.


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## Miseryk

That's not true, words are equal to something in this world, matter or energy. That's why also particles has their own meaning.

Btw, google translates it as "何も    nothing, anything", that's why im asking coz how can a word could have 2 meanings?

if it is nothing then it is ARIMASU (pos) (it is nothing)
if it is anything then it is ARIMASEN (neg) (it is not anything)


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## M Mira

Miseryk said:


> That's not true, words are equal to something in this world, matter or energy. That's why also particles has their own meaning.
> 
> Btw, google translates it as "何も    nothing, anything", that's why im asking coz how can a word could have 2 meanings?
> 
> if it is nothing then it is ARIMASU (pos) (it is nothing)
> if it is anything then it is ARIMASEN (neg) (it is not anything)


Individual members of a random string of words have meanings, but together they don't make sense. SORE is medial "that", maybe you mean SOKO (medial "there") instead.

I would say that Google Translate still sucks at translating anything non-Indo-European, so don't trust it.

To me, NANIMO is more like "even anything", DAREMO is "even anyone", NANIMO NAI/ARIMASEN is "not even anything"

Also, the words required to translate a foreign word != the number of its meanings in its language. There're like a dozen Japanese words for English "or", but I don't think any English speakers perceive it as such.


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## Miseryk

Interesting, so, to you NANIMO es like "even anything" as DAREMO "even anyone", so, which meaning would you give to the same but with the KA particle (NANIKA and DAREKA)?


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## M Mira

Miseryk said:


> Interesting, so, to you NANIMO es like "even anything" as DAREMO "even anyone", so, which meaning would you give to the same but with the KA particle (NANIKA and DAREKA)?


"Anything?" and "Anyone?", but expecting the answer to be the identity, not yes/no, so idiomatically "What?" and "Who?"


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## Miseryk

Yes, "dare is "who" and "nan/nani" is "what"
Sry, didn't get it.
NANIMO = even anything?
NANIKA = anything?
DAREMO = even anyone?
DAREKA = anyone?


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## Flaminius

I still insist that these things should be understood as constructions, not as separate words.

nanimo S nai: For all contextually relevant things, not S
Nanimo tabe nai: (I, You, He etc.) do not eat anything.

nanika: Yes, this is "something."

daremo S nai: For all contextually relevant persons, not S
Daremo konai: No one comes.

daremo-ga S: For all contextually relevant persons, S
Daremo-ga kita: Everyone came.

dareka: Yes, this is "someone."

There is no construction with _nanimo_ that expresses "for all contextually relevant things, S."


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## Miseryk

Ok, I am understanding, but what is the difference between "any" and "some" like "anything" and "something"?

Edit:

Could I say "dareka imasen" => "There is not someone"?


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## Biel Isern

DAREMO = va siempre con el verbo en negativo y significa nadie.
NANIMO= tambien va siempre con el verbo en negativo y significa nada.

DAREDEMO= significa todo el mundo o qualquiera
NANDEMO= significa qualquier cosa o de todo.

DAREKA= alguien. Puedes usarlo en afirmativo o en negativo solo en las interrogaciones, porque para decir "no hay nadie" sería DAREMO IMASEN

Dareka imasu = Hay alguien
Dareka imasuka? = ¿Hay alguien?
Dareka imasenka?= ¿No hay nadie? pero en español yo lo traduciría también como ¿Hay alguien?


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## Flaminius

Miseryk said:


> Ok, I am understanding, but what is the difference between "any" and "some" like "anything" and "something"?


There are many uses of Enlgish words "some" and "any."  Would you mind elaborating your question?  



> Could I say "dareka imasen" => "There is not someone"?


You could say that but it's more natural to say _dareka-ga imasen_, just to avoid ambiguity with the question (dareka imasen?).


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## Biel Isern

Darekaga imasenka? Sounds completly unnatural. "ga" never goes with interrogative adverbs. Try to type it on google.jp and you won't find sentences with this structure. I only found and answer from a Japanese speaker about this question in a forum and he says also "Darekaga imasenka" just sounds wrong.



> 「だれかいましたか」と「だれかがいましたか」の違いは？
> まず、２番目の文は少しおかしいように、感じられます。そこで、次の２つの文を比べてみて下さい。
> 
> だれかいましたか。／だれがいましたか。
> 
> 最初の文は、だれかがいたか、あるいはいなかったかに重きをおいた質問だといえます。……


And this is the link: http://www.alc.co.jp/jpn/article/faq/03/244.html


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## Flaminius

Hi *Biel Isern*,

Please limit your quote up to four sentences from a source.  If you think the quote limit is too short to make your case, you are always welcome to summarise the part of the source you want to share.

My post #17 _supra_ is concerned with a negative declarative sentence of the type "Some S is not P".  In addition to whatever is said about it in terms of classic logic, linguistically 誰かがいません usually means that the speaker does not know, at least for the moment, who exactly is missing from the scene.



> Darekaga imasenka? Sounds completly unnatural.


Your "completely unnatural" comes across an overstatement in view of the judgment given in your quote; 少しおかしいように、感じられます.  The unsigned article seems to be saying that the _wh-ka-ga_ question is unnatural because it conflates a Yes/No question and a Wh-question.  Even if it were true, a negative declarative sentence risks little of this sort of misunderstanding.



> Try to type it on google.jp and you won't find sentences with this structure.


Google turns up this from a PDF survey questionnaire by a municipality:
ふだん学校から帰ったとき、家族のだれかがいますか。


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## Biel Isern

I think you are right, now it makes sense. And yes instead of "completly unnatural" I should have said I feel is wrong. 

ふだん学校から帰ったとき、家族のだれかがいますか
ふだん学校から帰ったとき、家族のだれかがいませんか
I understand that the meaning of the sentences above are the same. But what I don't understand what's the difference between using GA and not, because the sentence below seems gramatically right to me too.

ふだん学校から帰ったとき、家族のだれかいますか


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## Flaminius

…家族のだれかいますか is in fact a bit less acceptable than …家族のだれかがいますか.  It looks like a modified Wh-expression behaves like a normal noun phrase.  For instance, 家族の人がいますか or 家族の人がいませんか is far more acceptable than 家族の人いますか or 家族の人いませんか.  The latter group is not ungrammatical but sounds very informal.


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## Biel Isern

Thank you for your clarification


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## Miseryk

The problem I see is that all languages have an idiomatic part which means "we couldn't figure out how to solve the bugs of our new idiom, so we do or say this to fix it"

First, about "dareka imasen", the point of adding "ka"/"mo", "dare" is "who", then 2 particles can be attached to that word to create 2 meanings, which both, I supposed are different, but about what you said it is the same but in a different context.

To express something we could say it in 2 forms, 1 in our point of view and 2 in another person point of view.

Ex:

"There is someone/somebody" which is equal to express it as "There is not no-one/no-body". This is like an equation.

The "not" transforms the post word into its opposite, "someone" to "no-one" and "somebody" to "no-body". (In English you have to bind 2 words to create 1)

like PCs:  1 = not 0,  not 1 = 0

In Spanish I cannot translate it because the stupid ppl say "No hay nadie" (there is not no-body) what they are trying to say or express is "there is not someone" or "no-one is there" (people is not there) ("No hay alguien"), and in English exists "any-body/thing" which I cannot use my native language because they speak like ass and I cannot use English because I cannot understand that difference because It would mean the same between "any" and "some", even if you use it in affirmative, negative and interrogative I couldn't figure out, that's why I thought one was "someone" dareKA and "no-one" dareMO.

I know "KA" can be used as a question sign "?" or "OR", also "MO" can be used as "the same", "I like it." "boku mo" or "I don't like it." "boku mo" (which means "Me the same", to express equality situation or thinking, etc)


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## Flaminius

Miseryk said:


> The problem I see is that all languages have an idiomatic part which means "we couldn't figure out how to solve the bugs of our new idiom, so we do or say this to fix it"


The topic of this thread is concerned with "an idiomatic part" but I am wondering if I have made my points understood about the basic syntactic framework within which you can discuss idioms.



> First, about "dareka imasen", the point of adding "ka"/"mo", "dare" is "who", then 2 particles can be attached to that word to create 2 meanings, which both, I supposed are different, but about what you said it is the same but in a different context.


Who told you that _Wh-ka_ and _Wh-mo_ are "the same but in a different context"?



> To express something we could say it in 2 forms, 1 in our point of view and 2 in another person point of view.


"[A]nother person [_sic_] point of view" is probably a subjective difference.  The example you gave in the following paragraphs are not of this type.  In other words, I am wondering what the example is intended to illustrate.



> Ex:
> 
> "There is someone/somebody" which is equal to express it as "There is not no-one/no-body". This is like an equation.


I understand what you are trying to do with "There is not no-one/no-body", but it is hardly a good English sentence.  A clarification is needed whether you are talking about logic or language.



> The "not" transforms the post word into its opposite, "someone" to "no-one" and "somebody" to "no-body". (In English you have to bind 2 words to create 1)


It is not just "not" that transforms "someone" to its opposite.  Why do you leave the deletion of "some" unaccounted for?



> like PCs:  1 = not 0,  not 1 = 0


If "no" transform*ed* "one" into its opposite "no-one", then it would be like binary logical bit operations in programming.



> In Spanish I cannot translate it because the stupid ppl say "No hay nadie" (there is not no-body) what they are trying to say or express is "there is not someone" or "no-one is there" (people is not there) ("No hay alguien"), and in English exists "any-body/thing" which I cannot use my native language because they speak like ass and I cannot use English because I cannot understand that difference because It would mean the same between "any" and "some", even if you use it in affirmative, negative and interrogative I couldn't figure out, that's why I thought one was "someone" dareKA and "no-one" dareMO.


It is hardly constructive to belittle "the stupid ppl [_sic_]" or the language they speak just because you cannot perform a certain symbolic calculation on it.  What's more important is how a language is expressive of quantified predicate logic.  If Spanish does not implement translation of NOT FORALL NOT into EXISTS on "No hay nadie", it is never less expressive for it.  A famous example is SQL, which to the detriment of programmers lacks FORALL operator, is fully capable of first-order predicate logic using EXISTS and NOT.  Do Spanish-speaking students find it difficult to discuss the nested quantifiers of the epsilon-delta definition of limit?  I doubt it.  It is up to a language what to do with a superfluous form.  Apparently Spanish chose to use double negative as a simple negative.  This is for an added emphasis or clarity of communication.




> I know "KA" can be used as a question sign "?" or "OR", also "MO" can be used as "the same", "I like it." "boku mo" or "I don't like it." "boku mo" (which means "Me the same", to express equality situation or thinking, etc)


To rephrase what I have discussed in the last post, _Wh-ka_ maps to EXISTS and _Wh-mo _to FORALL in logic.  I leave it to you to devise how other parts in the square of oppositions are rewritten.


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## Miseryk

Ok, now I understand, and yes, spanish uses double negation and I get mad sometimes, so Wh-KA (EXISTS) and Wh-MO (FORALL) how do you know when to use it? I mean, in English, someone told me that some-thing is used in affirmative form and any-thing is used in interrogative and negative form, Japanese is it equal to English in that case?

NANIMO ARIMASEN KA => "FORALL" IS NOT THERE?

I know sometimes negation in a question is needed when for example I thought something was in a manner and about the new situation is different like "Wasn't the number 9?"

But with the basic example of NANIMO ARIMASEN KA, why don't they say NANIKA ARIMASU KA which is simpler and direct. If I want to ask "Is anything there?" would it be "NANIMO ARIMASU KA"?

1)NANIMO ARIMASU KA. => ? Is there anything? (exists?)
2)HAI, NANIKA ARIMASU. => ? Yes, something is there. (Same form/mode of answering the question ARIMASU and ARIMASU)
3)IIE, NANIMO ARIMASEN. => ? No, anything is not there.

1)object occupying space?
2)yes, object occupying space.
3)no, no object occupying space.

4)NANIMO ARIMASEN KA. => ? Isn't there anything? (doesn't exist?) => Is there nothing? ("not" changes "anything" to "nothing", I know it is not correct, but it is to clean numbers in the equation)
5)HAI, NANIMO ARIMASEN => ? Yes, anything is not there. (it is clear like sector cleared / nothing is there / there is nothing) (Same form/mode of answering the question ARIMASEN and ARIMASEN)
6)IIE, NANIMO ARIMASEN => ? No, anything is not there. (well, here I'm getting a "brain vascular accident", but I will try) OH MY GOD, let's deduct it by remaining...

4)no object occupying space?
5)yes, no object occupying space.
6)no, object occupying space.    =========> so It would be 6)IIE, NANIKA ARIMASU.

Well, this is my logic, do you agree? and then, does my logic fit with japanese literature?

Thank you.


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## Flaminius

Miseryk said:


> Well, this is my logic, do you agree?


No.  More later.


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## YangMuye

Natural language is not formal language, and it does not denote formal logic.
Even for formal logic, there exists difference systems, where a seemingly obvious proposition may not hold or be provable.

Why can't you just accept "nanimo ~arimasen" is a set phrase?


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## Miseryk

Because I can't go deep if I don't understand correctly all meanings of an idiom, I know there are words which cannot be translated directly to Spanish or other idioms, but it means something, if I don't have the equality, I wanna know what it really means and how to use it.


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## Flaminius

What we have been telling is that _Wh-mo . . . . nai_ is a statement of the type ∀¬.  I have shown an example sentence.  The _Wh-mo_ part roughly corresponds to the *symbol* ∀ but I strongly advise a beginner like yourself should learn _Wh-mo . . . . nai_ as a construction.

I have shown one of the many ways how Japanese expresses a ∀-*statement* (general positive).


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