Не- vs. ни-

[zhirafov-nyet.livejournal.com]

What's the difference between the words некто, нечто, негде and никто, ничто, нигде (and any other words that this can happen to that I may have forgotten)? I asked my Russian professor, but she wasn't sure.

Edit: Thanks everyone. I more or less understand it now, and I'm quite sure I'll be able to comprehend it better tomorrow when I'm no longer feeling the effects of a Bacardi O³ I had with dinner.

Comments

[anton-y-k.livejournal.com]

somebody, something, nowhere
and
nobody, nothing, nowhere

[zhirafov-nyet.livejournal.com]

When would one use «негде» and not «нигде»? Can you provide an example please?

[leonya.livejournal.com]

I believe нEгде has 2 meanings. First "some place", so it's analogous to нечто, некто. Живет он негде в Урипинске - He lives in some place called Urupinsk.

The more common usage is akin to nowhere.

Ему негде остановиться - He has no place (nowhere) to stay. (he wants to stay somewhere, but there is no room)

Он нигде не остановился - He stays nowhere. (maybe there are places, he just chose not to stay anywhwere).

[khathi.livejournal.com]

That's an exception: "негде" don't have the meaning "somewhere". It means strictly "nowhere", or more correctly, "no place".

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>Живет он негде в Урипинске
Where did you get that? This is completely wrong. There is no such meaning.

[leonya.livejournal.com]

Wrong by whose standards? I think you understood what I was saying, the word негде conveys a certain meaning here, analogous to некто. And I believe that if the function of a word can be understood, it has a right to exist. (this is regarding the word wrong)

But, of course, I'll agree that this is not a common contemporary meaning. Although as you can see fom the two first googled examples it was used by our classics and I think merits a revival:)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%B4%D0%B5+%D0%B2&btnG=Search

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Look, we are here not for invention of understandable, but currenly non-existent words. We are here for helping those who study Russian. Standard contemporary Russian, you see? Let them know the standard first. This alone takes many years. After that, if they can make it, they can proceed to word-invention and exploration of what this language used to be once. But it's a long way to go, and there is nothing more ridiculous, than a non-native speaker who haven't mastered the contemporary language standards but desperately tries to use slang, regional and/or old words in order to show that he/she really knows the language. SO, making the long story short: do not misguide them.

[plum-passions.livejournal.com]

I would totally use that word to mean somewhere, and I'm 17, so I wouldn't say that it's too obscure and not contemporary.

[leonya.livejournal.com]

thanks for your support:)

[poroshin.livejournal.com]

"негде" is not exactly "nowhere", it means "there is nowhere/no place", as in "негде это положить" ("there's nowhere to put it down"). "Нигде" is plain "nowhere".

[leonya.livejournal.com]

некто, нечто, негде mean respectively someone (or one to be more precise), something (a thing), somewhere (some place), while никто, ничто, нигде - no one, nothing and nowhere.

Also, note that in the first set of words the first syllable is stressed.

You can add некогода - никогда то the list. Te former means "once upon a time (some time in the past), and the latter means never.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

For "once upon a time" in a fairy-tale sense I prefer "odin prekrasnii den'..." :)

[nemica.livejournal.com]

In a galaxy far far away... :)

offtop

[apakin.livejournal.com]

great upic!

Re: offtop

[nemica.livejournal.com]

House rules, Hugh Laurie da best. :)

Re: offtop

[apakin.livejournal.com]

da best, nema bazaru
во френды, кстати...

[predicata.livejournal.com]

"негде" is not "somewhere". "Somewhere" = "где-то", "негде" is approximately "there is no place"

[leonya.livejournal.com]

http://community.livejournal.com/learn_russian/503789.html?thread=7632365#t7632365

[predicata.livejournal.com]

Is it your own idea, the first meaning? Dal, for example, knows only about second.

[spiderhood.livejournal.com]

Dal is the worst dictionary to consult if you want to know about meanings and distinguish between them. Try Ushakov in this case.

[platonicus.livejournal.com]

Dal does know: Нѣгде см. нѣ (2nd ed., vol.2 p.562)
The point is that there were two different prefixes: нѣ (some-) and не- (no-). Perhaps you haven't look to the right page.
Нѣгде - somewhere, негде - there's no place for smth.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

There is no meaning like that. At least, in the contemporary normative Russian.

[olydiagron.livejournal.com]

But you never use 'negde' in the meaning 'somewhere'.

Are negde and nekuda, really used that way? I've only heard them in sentences with the logical subject in dativ:

"Mne negde zhit'. Im nekuda devat'sya."

You can't say "oni nekuda ushli". You'd say "Oni kuda-to ushli". Wouldn't you?

I'm getting very confused....

[spiderhood.livejournal.com]

> некто, нечто, негде
"Некто" means "someone", a stranger, a certain guy. Nowadays mostly used together with a name/surname, for example "Тебе звонил некто Иванов" - "Some guy named Ivanov called you". For "someone" just use "кто-то".

"Нечто" means "something" and is used only in Nominative or Accusative. "Это было нечто ужасное" - "That was something horrible". For "something" you should just use "что-то", most of the time it is more appropriate.

"Негде" earlier meant "somewhere", but not anymore. Now it means "[in/from] nowhere". Two examples: "негде отдохнуть" - "no place to rest"; "негде взять" - "not possible to get it from anywhere".

I'll post another comment on the second question in a couple of minutes.

[olydiagron.livejournal.com]

"Негде" earlier meant "somewhere", but not anymore. Now it means "[in/from] nowhere". Two examples: "негде отдохнуть" - "no place to rest"; "негде взять" - "not possible to get it from anywhere".

oh, thanks! can you say the same about nekuda? Then I wonn't be confused anymore...

[spiderhood.livejournal.com]

You are always welcome. However, the meaning of "некуда" did not change (at least afaik).

Ushakov's dictionary has a wonderful definition of "некуда" - "нет такого места, куда бы" ("there is no place where"). As an example, "некуда идти" - "nowhere to go". Yet "некуда" is not just "nowhere" (as you could have guessed already knowing about "негде").

"Никуда" can have two meanings: "ни в какое место" ([in]to no place) and "ни для чего, ни на что, совсем" (not for anything). So, you can say "никуда не пойду" (I will not go anywhere) and you can also say "никуда не годится" (good for nothing).

[katiroma.livejournal.com]

First, in terms of pronunciation, нЕгде, нЕкто, нЕчто (E is stressed), while нигдЕ, никтО, ничтО (the last vowel is stressed).
The first group has a meaning of undefined place, person, thing, and the other group speaks of absence of those: nowhere, nobody, nothing.
However, нЕгде can also mean "no place available" (and it's much more common usage, btw). For example, "в автобусе негде встать" - no place left in the bus (it's so crowded). Or even a better idiomatic expression: яблоку негде упасть (very crowded and tight).
The same dual meaning with "нЕкогда": either it's "somewhen", or it's "no time available" (also a more common meaning). "Мне некогда!" -"I don't have time!"

[khathi.livejournal.com]

That's because, as platonicus mentioned, earlier pronunciation distinguished TWO different prefixes -- "нѣ-" and "не-", meaning "some-" and "no-" respectively. With removal of "yat'", these two prefixes couldn't anymore be distinguished in writing (in speech there was no difference alrady for the long time), so some confusing variants like "негде" as "somewhere" and, on much less scale, "некогда" as "some time", became obsolete.

[spiderhood.livejournal.com]

Second part ;)

> никто, ничто, нигде
"Никто" means "no-one", for example "никто не спросил" - "no-one asked".

"Ничто" means "nothing", an empty space. "Ничего не хочется" - "I don't want anything". There is another meaning which you might encounter, which is "nothing" referring to a person, a shortened ничтожество. "Я для тебя ничто" - "In your eyes I'm just nothing".

"Нигде" means "nowhere", in no place. An example: "нигде не нашёл пива" - "I couldn't find beer anywhere".

I dare say the only real difficulty is негде/нигде, you'll get the others easily. As for other examples of such pairs, one can name "ни за что"/"не за что" ("низачто" can be spelt this way too), "никак"/"не как", "никогда"/"некогда", "никуда"/"некуда", "нимало"/"немало", "ниоткуда"/"неоткуда", "нисколько"/"несколько" and probably some others.

[unlightened.livejournal.com]

I would note that некогда has two meanings:
1) "a long time ago", as in "древние мифы говорят, что некогда на земле жили великаны" (ancient myths say that a long time ago, giants lived on the Earth).
2) "(someone) has no time to...". This variant always goes after dative, eg. "ему некогда идти в магазин" (he has no time to go to a shop), "современному человеку некогда расслабиться" (contemporary man has no time to relax) etc.

[spiderhood.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely! A lot can be said about the words I mentioned, it's just that I'm too lazy to do it unless asked directly ;)

some more... but it's useful

[tinde-j.livejournal.com]

First of all, your professor seems to have meant negative pronouns only.
Concerning the stress in them: "не" is always stressed, "ни" never is. Actually, it's orthography that is determined by the sress:)))
"Никто", "ничто". Now, that is the nominative case. In all the others there are both forms with a stressed prefix (and then it reads like "there is no such person/thing that would suit..."; Мне некого попросить об этом - I have nobody to ask this; a slight emphasis, as you see) and with an unstressed: Я никого не буду просить, I won't ask anybody. If so, that is merely the russian double negation. I'm afraid I'm not ready to read you a lecture on the topic right now ;) When you build a negative sentence, remember both to negate the verb and to use negetive pronouns, that will be enough for a long time.
As for the rest of the words, there sence alters because of the stress the same way. And there's one more pair at least - "никогда" never and "некогда". Attention: he latter has as an omonym an indefinite pronoun! It is pronounced and spelled the sameway.

And indefinite pronouns are in fact "некто" (used only as the subject) and "нечто"(subject or direct object, same form), which are stressed on the first syllable, the orthographic rule is general. Here I'd like to tell you some more on the meaning of the russian indefinite pronouns. As you probably know, we may use with the pronoun root either the prefix "кое-" or one of the suffixes "-то", "-нибудь", "-либо" (the latter being practically out of colloqual speech). It is true speaking about, say, "когда-то" and "где-то" as well.
When the thing you speak about is not known to you either, you must use the "-то"-variant.

When, besides, you have a of objects to choose the right one from, you may use also the "-нибудь"-variant, to which the "-либо"-one is equivalent. Like "кто-нибудь из наших друзей" - someone of our friends, that is, not known or no matter who exactly - the second meaning of this pronoun type.

When you say you do know, but for some reasons are not going to specify the situation (you are not sure or just don't like to), the only correct way is to use the "кое-"-variant. Mind there's no such word "кое-когда". Well... a native-speaker might make up such a word, but you are not likely to find it in a dictionary :) "Мне кое-кто позвонил" - someone I know has called me. "Некогда", "некто", "нечто" have the same meaning as the "кое-"-variants. Note "негде" with this meaning doesn't exist! I daresay I've never heard it, nor read. Moreover, as much as I personally like "кое-когда", saying "Жил-был негде один старик..." meaning "[once upon a time] there lived [somewhere] an old man" would be too much even for me ;)

I hope it's enough for you on the subject :)

Re: some more... but it's useful

[zhirafov-nyet.livejournal.com]

WOW. So much information! Thank you sooo much!

[oiseau-russe.livejournal.com]

The same is for нЕкогда and никогдА. The first one means "some long time ago" (it'an old meaning, no mor used in modern language) or " no time for". The second means "never".