Word
В комнате нет ни телевизора, ни компьютера.
Meaning
There is neither a TV nor a computer in the room.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
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Questions & Answers about В комнате нет ни телевизора, ни компьютера.
Why is нет used here to express absence, and how does it differ from the negative particle не?
Нет is an impersonal verb meaning “there is not” or “there are no,” and it always takes a noun in the genitive to indicate what is missing. By contrast, не is a simple negator that attaches to verbs (or adjectives) to negate an action or quality (for example, не люблю “I don’t like”). You cannot replace нет with не here because you’re not negating a verb; you’re stating that something simply does not exist in the room.
Why are the nouns телевизора and компьютера in the genitive case after нет?
After нет, the direct “object” of absence is always in the genitive case. In Russian, expressing “there is not something” uses нет + Genitive. So телевизор (nominative) → телевизора (genitive singular), and компьютер → компьютера.
What is the function of ни … ни in this sentence, and how is it different from и … и?
Could we omit one of the ни particles and just say ?