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Why is it that any cannot be used as subject in negative sentences, while no can?

An example pair of sentences might be:

No children came.

Any children didn't come.

Please note that the following questions, which have been linked to this one as a basis for closing it, are spectacular in their inaptness:

A question about the 'polarity sensitive' any

Use of “ever” in non-negated sentence

Araucaria - Him
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Matěj Vais
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    "Don't any keys fit the lock?" – Greybeard Jun 26 '22 at 16:02
  • @Greybeard Polar questions are not negative or positive sentences in any meaningful way. Polar questions essentially have no polarity. Notice that the answer to a polar question is the same regardless of whether it is the "negative" or "positive" version. Polar questions are weird beasts! – Araucaria - Him Jun 26 '22 at 17:47
  • What an interesting question! I think this has to do with the idea of negative "scope". I think @John Lawler might come to your rescue here! – Araucaria - Him Jun 26 '22 at 17:51
  • any children is not a subject. "Any who came were late". – Lambie Jun 26 '22 at 17:53
  • @Lambie Que? "Any children are welcome". "Any children who came were late" etc, etc. – Araucaria - Him Jun 26 '22 at 18:15
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    OK. But remember, you asked. – John Lawler Jun 26 '22 at 18:15
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. How can polar questions not have any polarity? – Hot Licks Jun 26 '22 at 18:35
  • @HotLicks Notice the "in any meaningful way". If I ask "Is hotlicks not older than my t-shirt?" and "Is hotlicks older than my t-shirt?" it doesn't matter which question you ask, the answer is always the same - and in English you can just say "yes" or "no" to either. Both involve a choice between the positive and negative propositions. – Araucaria - Him Jun 26 '22 at 18:38
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. I was referring to the OP's sentence: Any children didn't come. In any case, any and no with children don't make a subject. The subject is the word children. – Lambie Jun 26 '22 at 18:41
  • @Lambie Sorry, I don't understand. – Araucaria - Him Jun 26 '22 at 18:45
  • In this "sentence": Any children didn't come. the words "any children" are not a subject. In the sentence: No children came. children is the subject and no is a determiner. – Lambie Jun 26 '22 at 19:07
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    Going to get anticipatory popcorn. – Araucaria - Him Jun 26 '22 at 19:11
  • "Any" may be used in an emphatic negative way. Question about an event: "Female children were not welcome?." Answer: "ANY children were unwelcome!" – Anton Jun 26 '22 at 21:55
  • @Anton That's the Free Choice any. BTW, I forgot to mention Zeno Vendler's wonderful 1967 article "Each and Every, Any and All" in Linguistics in Philosophy. – John Lawler Jun 26 '22 at 22:42
  • @JohnLawler perhaps just as well. Zeno is elusive (like the hare in the eponymous paradox?). On quick online search, at best I only find an abstract of the article. – Anton Jun 26 '22 at 22:53

1 Answers1

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First, the question is out of left field. The ungrammaticality of

  • *Any children didn't come

doesn't have a thing to do with subjects. It has to do with how one uses the word any,
which is rather a complex subject.

There are at least two English words any:

  1. Free-Choice any, as in Pick a number -- any number, or Anybody can do that.
    Free-choice any can be a subject, but it usually occurs with a modal like can or able.
    It's a special term with a special grammar and meaning, basically "Choose one".

  2. Negative Polarity any. This is by far the most common use of any, and it (and all its compounds like anybody, anyone, anywhere, etc.) is a Negative Polarity Item. That means it can only be used grammatically inside the scope of a semantic negative trigger. These include negatives, questions, and a lot of idiomatic constructions.

Negative polarity items are determined by removing negative triggers and seeing whether the NPI is still grammatical. E.g, the boldface NPIs below:

  • I haven't ever been there. ~ *I have/I've ever been there
  • She hasn't been here in weeks ~ *She has/She's been here in weeks
  • He doesn't have any assistants. ~ *He has any assistants
  • This shouldn't take long. ~ *This should take long

Questions are negative environments, as it happens, so NPIs can occur there,

  • Have you ever been there?
  • Does he have any assistants?
  • Will this take long?

even as subjects.

  • Is anybody else coming?

So, since NPIs have to occur with negatives, the reason why *Any children didn't come is ungrammatical is because any isn't in the scope of a negative trigger. Not any children would be clunky but grammatical, though No children is better. There's also upstairs negation, as in

  • It's not true that any children came.
  • I don't think that any children came.
  • He didn't claim that any children came.

where the negative in the main clause licenses the any in the complement clause.

tl;dr -- If a sentence sounds odd, see if there's a negative in it, or whether adding negation makes it better.

John Lawler
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    Popcorn optional – John Lawler Jun 26 '22 at 19:01
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    Any is not within the scope of negative didn't because it occurs outside of the negative verb phrase, right - i.e. higher up? [[Any children] [didn't come]]. – Araucaria - Him Jun 26 '22 at 19:37
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    Yeah, that's what I'd say. Typically the negative precedes the NPI, but scope is not a matter of position. – John Lawler Jun 26 '22 at 19:40
  • Thank you for the comprehensive answer, is there an easy way of figuring out the "stairness" of the two verb phrases? Is it the "that" before the complement clauses in your examples? – Matěj Vais Jun 27 '22 at 08:28
  • @MatějVais "upstairs/downstairs" is a mathematical concept indicating that, in a complex fraction, a number to a negative power should be moved from the denominator line to the numerator line, and vice versa. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9TvZe6V1hg). I thus assume that John Lawler is saying that in a two clause statement, and for the purpose of being idiomatic, the negative moves from the main to the subordinate clause and vice versa. – Greybeard Jun 27 '22 at 09:05
  • @JohnLawler. I note that "that any children came" is not a sentence - it is a noun clause - and that the OP asks "Why can't "any" be used as subject in negative sentences, while "no" can?" – Greybeard Jun 27 '22 at 09:08
  • "Upstairs/downstairs" is a metaphorical term in (some forms of) syntax. It refers to tree structures, which put the main clause at the top and then all the dependent clauses depending down from them. Each subordinate clause uses a different "staircase", and many rules apply cyclically in each ascending clause, starting from the bottom. That's known as the Syntactic Cycle -- the same vertical metaphoric dimension referred to in the cyclic rule known as Subject Raising -- the downstairs subject becomes an argument in the upstairs clause. OK? – John Lawler Jun 27 '22 at 16:16
  • The meaning of the metaphor is obvious if you're familiar with tree diagrams, but not otherwise. Sorry to mislead anyone. As for the original question, as stated, the simple answer is that no is indeed negative and makes it a "negative sentence", but any is not a negative like no, and therefore doesn't make it a "negative sentence." That's why we rarely pay attention to Original Questions, since they often depend on false assumptions, like the idea that sentences are intrinsically "negative", instead of identifying the source of the negation. – John Lawler Jun 27 '22 at 16:25
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    I like how this answer really shows that English, in not using negative concordance like "He didn't have none", is in fact much more complicated and confusing because of it. – Darren Ringer Jun 27 '22 at 18:10
  • As I keep saying, Negation is complicated. It's an Operator, like Quantification and Modality, and they all have very very complex and arbitrary powers, like binding variables and interlocking scopes. To say nothing of idioms -- NPIs are all idioms. – John Lawler Jun 27 '22 at 18:19
  • You could of course say Every child didn't come. It's a bit awkward, but grammatically valid. – Darrel Hoffman Jun 27 '22 at 20:14
  • It's also ambiguous, because it could mean they all stayed away, or that only some came, not all. – John Lawler Jun 27 '22 at 21:36