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Could anyone help me?

If I say : Will you stay with me if I speak to anyone?

Anyone means : whatever who (sorry I can say otherwise) I mean "anyone" like : Anyone can work here, it will go! Thanks :-)

Companion S9
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  • "Will you stay with me if I speak to someone?" means virtually the same as "Will you stay with me while I speak to someone? [I may not if you don't]" // But "Will you stay with me if I speak to anyone?" can only be used in the sense [A]: "Will you stay with me if I speak to anyone?" ... [B] "Anyone except Catwoman." – Edwin Ashworth Jun 10 '20 at 19:00
  • And Houw could I say : I am not anyone : without it means : I am no one. – Companion S9 Jun 10 '20 at 19:45
  • "Anyone" does not really have a meaning, so stop worrying about it. It's just a chunk of grammar, in this case Negative Polarity. It turns out that if-clauses are negative triggers because they refer to possibility (like questions). That means that NPIs like any, ever, budge, in weeks, etc. can occur there. Take away the negative environment and it's nonsense: He got mad at me because I talked to anyone. This is just one example; there are [a LOT* of negative polarity items](https://english.stackexchange.com/a/63728/15299). – John Lawler Jun 10 '20 at 23:09

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I'm not sure what your question is but if you're asking for clarification regarding your statement, then I can say that "Will you stay with me if I speak to anyone?" is similar to asking, "If I talk to some person, will you stay with me?"

See the definitions by the Merriam-Webster dictionary and the Collins English dictionary, respectively, below:

Merriam-Webster definition

anyone: any person at all

Collins English Dictionary defintion

anyone: You use anyone or anybody in statements with negative meaning to indicate in a general way that nobody is present or involved in an action.

You can see more example sentences of the use of "anyone" here and here.

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