12.7 - Negative sentences
Negatives have a range of grammatical functions in a sentence. For example, you can say that an action did not happen, or comment on the absence of frequency (never), place (nowhere), or doer (no-one, nothing) etc. Like their positive equivalents, negative sentences have a subject, and may also have an object (direct or indirect), adverbs and adjectives, expressed by negative words or phrases as presented below:
verb-negating adverb
| не | not | Він працює? Ні, не працює. Is he working? No, he's not working. |
adverb of time
| ніколи | never / not ever | Президент ніколи не читає про себе. The President never reads about himself. |
adverbs of place
| ніде | nowhere / not anywhere | Багато молоді ніде не вчиться і не
працює. Many young people are not studying or working anywhere. |
| нікуди | to nowhere | На вихідні ми нікуди не їдемо. We're not going (to) anywhere at the week-end. |
| нізвідки | from nowhere | Ніщо нізвідки не береться. Nothing comes from nothing (literally: from nowhere). |
adverb of manner
| ніяк | in no way | Політики ніяк не можуть домовитися. The politicians are completely unable to (literally: cannot in any way) come to an agreement. |
conjunction
| ні... ні | neither ... nor | Завтра у місті не буде ні газу,
ні води. Tomorrow the city will be without gas and water (literally: there will be neither gas nor water). |
pronoun
| ніхто 1 | no-one / not anyone | Українці нікого не бояться. Ukrainians aren't afraid of anyone. |
| ніщо 1 | nothing / not anything | Це право президента нічим не обмежене. This presidential right is not limited by anything. |
adjective
| ніякий 2 | none, no (kind of) / not any / none at all | Ніякий я не герой. I'm no hero. |
| нічий 3 | no-one's / not belonging to anyone | Нам нічиї поради не потрібні. We don't need advice from anyone. (literally: No-one's advice is necessary to us) |
1 as ніхто and ніщо are pronouns by nature (declined like хто and що - see page 18.6), their form will change according to their function in the sentence (the case). Click here to see their full declension.
2 ніякий is declined as a hard adjective (see page 9.3).
3 нічий is declined like чий - click here.(N.B. The feminine form, нічия, has come into the language to mean a draw in a game of sport, as in «Футбольний матч завершився нічиєю 1-1.»).
As can be seen from the examples above, if a negative is used in a full sentence, the particle не must also be used. Не is not required in one-word answers, as in: «Хто там? Ніхто».
To conclude this review of negatives, the following should also be mentioned:
- не also frequently acts as a prefix, giving the opposite of adjectives, adverbs or nouns, or suggesting absence, e.g. поганий – непоганий, правда – неправда, складно – нескладно
- the particle небудь, as in хто-небудь (anybody), де-небудь (anywhere) etc., is not a negative
- the phrases мало не, мало що не look like negatives, but they mean "almost/nearly" (used with a verb), as in «Він мало не впав у воду.» (He almost fell into the water.)
- невже looks like a negative but is, in fact, an interrogative adverb, expressing surprise or incredulity; it usually begins a sentence, as in «Невже йому вже 50?» (Surely he's not 50 years old already?)
- after немає and other negatives the negated person or object is
put in the genitive case (see pages 7.3 and 16.2):
«Новий контракт є» – «Нового контракту немає»
«Уряд зробив помилку» – «Уряд не зробив жодної помилки»
«Я бачу перешкоди» – «Я не бачу перешкод».
To practise understanding negative sentences go to Exercise 12.7A.