In the write up for this grammar point, the text says the following:
However, the example above this block is using 誰にとも in a way which is, in my opinion, a positive sentence.
Is there some nuance here which is making this sentence into a “negative sentence?” Or can you use どこも / 誰も in positive sentences, meaning something like “anywhere” or “anyone” rather than “somewhere” and “someone?”
Also, it seems there’s a stray bullet point in the list that is attached to nothing.
Are you perhaps confusing 誰も with 何も? As far as I know, 誰も can be used with affirmative or negative sentences. 何も is generally only used with negative ones (although there is also the pattern ～も何も). That might be what you’re thinking of here.
I’m just going off what they wrote in the grammar explanation I posted above as well as what they wrote at the top.
Oh, I see. Yeah, that actually is a little bit confusing. I had to go back and look at the grammar point to get an idea what was meant. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why the grammar point is written that way. I think they’re trying to teach two general patterns in the same point, which might not be the best way to organize things.
The gist seems to be noun+か is used to mean “some …” (e.g. something, someone, somewhere). This construction is used in affirmative (positive), interrogative (questioning) sentences. The second is noun+も is used to mean “no …” (e.g. no one, nowhere, nothing) in negative sentences. They also include the cautionary note about how か stays directly attached to the noun, whereas も gives way to other particles (で、と、に、へ).
What they didn’t note–which is probably the confusing part–is that も can also be used with affirmative statements to mean “all …” or “every …” (e.g. everyone, everywhere). But they might have shyed away from this because it’s not 100% consistent. For instance, 何も tends to always be used in negative sentences. 何でも can used for “everything,” but it mainly means “anything,” as the noun+でも pattern is analogous to “any …” (e.g. anything, anywhere, anybody). Other words better encapsulate the meaning “everything” (e.g. すべて) than 何でも.
These kinds of exceptions might be why they limited the grammar point discussion the way they did.
Makes sense. Thanks.
This will be fixed asap, the description is correct, but it looks like the wrong example ended up there. も is always negative when it appears by itself (in relation to a verb). When it appears with other particles, that is not the case.
This means that there is a very big difference between にも、or でも、and も by itself.
Is this the same どこ~も as in どこでもいい (Anywhere is fine)?
誰かと話す – I talk with someone
誰かに話す – I talk to someone
誰とも話さない – I won’t talk with anyone
誰にも話さない – I won’t talk to anyone
Note that に and と have almost the same meaning with 話す.
(Asher already addressed the typo. I was just working through some of this in my head.)
Could you perhaps elaborate on what you mean by “in relation to a verb,” @Asher? I know I’ve seen pronouns like 誰も used in affirmative sentences, so I think the “in relation to a verb” would be the key distinguishing factor.
This was actually a bit unclear. The key point is what is being done to the verb, not the verb itself. By that, what I mean is auxiliary verbs.
Word + も + Plain verb = Everything/Everyone/Any
Word + も + ない auxiliary verb = Nothing/No one/None
Word + も + ても or でも used with any other auxiliary verb = Can often create double negatives.
OK, yeah, that’s more or less what I thought you meant, but I wanted to make sure I fully understood. That makes sense to me. Thanks, Asher.
