Word
L'assassino non ha nessuno scrupolo e nessun pretesto.
Meaning
The murderer has no scruples and no pretext.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of L'assassino non ha nessuno scrupolo e nessun pretesto.
e
and
non
not
avere
to have
l'assassino
the murderer (m)
Questions & Answers about L'assassino non ha nessuno scrupolo e nessun pretesto.
Why does the sentence use nessuno before scrupolo but nessun before pretesto?
This follows the exact same phonetic rule as the indefinite articles un and uno. The adjective nessuno drops its final -o to become nessun before vowels and most consonants, like the p in pretesto. However, it must remain nessuno before an "impure s" (an s followed by another consonant, like the scr- in scrupolo), as well as before z, gn, ps, and pn.
The English translation says "no scruples" (plural), so why does the Italian use the singular scrupolo?
Why is there a non in front of ha if the sentence already uses the negative word nessuno?
Italian requires a double negative in this structure. Whenever a negative word like nessuno, niente (nothing), or mai (never) comes after the verb, you must place non before the verb. If nessuno started the sentence as the subject (for example, Nessuno parla meaning "Nobody speaks"), you would drop the non.