Thanks for that PMEG link, tommjames!

I see this is one of those murky issues about which different authorities disagree... E.g. in Plena Analiza Gramatiko de Esperanto, Kalocscay and Waringhien write (section 65) that nenio is also used as a noun, and that therefore the o-ending can be left off of nenio, e.g. neniigi, neniiĝi, nenifari. :/

russ:Thanks for that PMEG link, tommjames!

I see this is one of those murky issues about which different authorities disagree... E.g. in Plena Analiza Gramatiko de Esperanto, Kalocscay and Waringhien write (section 65) that nenio is also used as a noun, and that therefore the o-ending can be left off of nenio, e.g. neniigi, neniiĝi, nenifari. :/

That could be confusing though, because what exactly does 'neni' mean? with an 'o' it means "nothing" but with an 'am' it means "never"... effectly "nenifari" to me seems more like a verb meaning "to do no action", but I'm not certain if that is the right definition (of course it would be faster than saying "fari neniun faron"

ceigered:

russ:Thanks for that PMEG link, tommjames!

I see this is one of those murky issues about which different authorities disagree... E.g. in Plena Analiza Gramatiko de Esperanto, Kalocscay and Waringhien write (section 65) that nenio is also used as a noun, and that therefore the o-ending can be left off of nenio, e.g. neniigi, neniiĝi, nenifari. :/

That could be confusing though, because what exactly does 'neni' mean? with an 'o' it means "nothing" but with an 'am' it means "never"... effectly "nenifari" to me seems more like a verb meaning "to do no action", but I'm not certain if that is the right definition (of course it would be faster than saying "fari neniun faron"

"neniam" is not formed from "neni". "neniam" is itself a root. Think of it as analogous to how the root "fort" is not formed from the root "for".

(And yes, you understand "nenifari" correctly. "neni/far/i". Do nothing. Like "ĉiopova" = omnipotent, etc.)

russ:Various variants of "neni/far/" appear by various authors in tekstaro.com

May I know what search string you used for that? I'm trying \\bnenifar(i|is|as|os)\\b but no luck as yet.

russ:
"neniam" is not formed from "neni". "neniam" is itself a root. Think of it as analogous to how the root "fort" is not formed from the root "for".

(And yes, you understand "nenifari" correctly. "neni/far/i". Do nothing. Like "ĉiopova" = omnipotent, etc.)

Yes sorry I kinda translated my way of remembering correlatives into word formation, but anyway thanks for clearing that up Russ

tommjames:

russ:Various variants of "neni/far/" appear by various authors in tekstaro.com

May I know what search string you used for that? I'm trying \bnenifar(i|is|as|os)\b but no luck as yet.

You're making it too complex. Just search for nenif and you'll find 'em.

russ:You're making it too complex. Just search for nenif and you'll find 'em.

Gotcha.

Just to stick up for complexity though .. this one came up with something interesting:
\\bneni(?!o|u|e|a|am|al|el|es|ig|iĝ)\\w+
which matches an instance of neni plus any ending that is not a regular correlative postparto..

Tekstaro:2 trovoj en Satiraj rakontoj

..on. Vi postulis neeblaĵon de mi, sinjoro. Neniam, nenispeca maŝino povos tiom multe plenumi! Tiom mul..

..on sinjoron Alvarez kaj intencis aĉeti ĝin, se li nenipreze volis ĝin vendi.

tommjames:Just to stick up for complexity though .. this one came up with something interesting:
\\bneni(?!o|u|e|a|am|al|el|es|ig|iĝ)\w+
which matches an instance of neni plus any ending that is not a regular correlative postparto..

Yes, I originally found it through a series of more refined searches, simply starting with
neni[a-np-z] and then successively removing letters that were giving false hits (like "neniam" leading to search for neni[b-np-z], and "nenie" then leading to search for neni[bcdf-np-z] etc.) That sort of successive refinement was faster and easier than trying to think of all the noninteresting cases in advance and construct a complex regular expression to exclude them all.
I also saw no need to start with \\b since in theory the root "neni" could appear with some prefix, and that too could be fruitful.
I'm a believer in starting simple and keeping it as simple as possible while still solving the problem.
http://c2.com/xp/DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossib...