Modern Spanish Grammar: A Practical Guide

Other ways of expressing negation 32.4Pocopoco interesante ‘not very interesting’/‘uninteresting’poco atractivo ‘not very attractive’/‘unattractive’(a) Poco is sometimes used instead of the prefix in- or des- in order to convey a lesserdegree of the quality or characteristic expressed by the adjective. Compare for instance:algo poco apropiado ‘something not very appropriate’algo inapropiado ‘something inappropriate’un hombre poco conocido ‘a not very well known man’un hombre desconocido ‘an unknown man’(b) Nada conveys stronger negation than either poco or the prefixes in- and des-:un problema nada fácil ‘a not at all easy problem’una persona nada inteligente ‘a not at all intelligent person’Now consider how negation varies in degree in each of these phrases, arranged herefrom the least strong to the strongest:una actitud poco correcta ‘a not very correct attitude’una actitud incorrecta ‘an incorrect attitude’una actitud nada correcta ‘a not at all correct attitude’(c) The meaning expressed by a noun can be negated by placing no before it:los no fumadores ‘non-smokers’la no violencia ‘non-violence’la no intervención ‘non-intervention’ 15 (p. 57)32.432.4.1Other ways of expressing negationNi . . . ni . . .Ni . . . ni . . . , ‘neither . . . nor’, may either precede or follow the verb to which it refers.If the latter is the case, the verb must be preceded by no.Ni Sofía ni Joaquín asistieron a la función.No asistieron ni Sofía ni Joaquín a la función.Neither Sofía nor Joaquín attended the performance.The first construction lays more emphasis on the ni . . . ni . . . phrase and overall it isless frequent than the second one.32.4.2Ni siquiera + verb/No + verb + siquieraThe phrase ‘not even . . .’, as in ‘He didn’t even look at me’, can be expressed in Spanishby placing the phrase ni siquiera . . . before the verb (or accompanying pronouns) or byusing the construction no + verb + siquiera. Both constructions express strongnegation, but overall the first one is more colloquial and frequent than the second one.Ni siquiera me miró or No me miró siquiera.He/she didn’t even look at me.193