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TasmanTiger Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

No + Noun = Not any noun

Hello, everyone

A. I have no books.

= I don't have any books.

B. There are no books on the desk.

= There are not any books on the desk.

Is it possible to omit 'any' in those sentences ?

If omitted, it will be like below :

"I don't have (any) books." "There are not (any) books on the desk."

Are they grammatical ?

TasmanTiger
  

Top answer

I think they are sentence structure problems. you can't omit any from the sentences with "There is/are". Otherwise it sounds like right now there aren't books on the desk.

— Holyduke

  • I think they are sentence structure problems.
  • you can't omit any from the sentences with "There is/are".
  • Otherwise it sounds like right now there aren't books on the desk.
  • " maybe it is emphasis or the entire context of the passage.
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3 Answers
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I think they are sentence structure problems.

you can't omit any from the sentences with "There is/are".

Otherwise it sounds like right now there aren't books on the desk. (i am not really sure, but I want to add an exclamation mark after "There aren't books on the desk!")

"I don't have books." seems to have a subtle difference in meaning than "I don't have any books
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TasmanTigerIs it possible to omit 'any' in those sentences ?
In pattern B, no, it's not possible. In pattern A, not really. It sounds very strange to omit any even though it's not exactly wrong. It's a special case that requires a contrastive context:

-- Do you sell books and magazines in this shop?
-- I have some magazines
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Thank you, CJ

Especially the example is 'to the point'.

Beautiful!

TT
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