Breakdown of Invece di incontrare qualcuno, non abbiamo mai visto nessuno qui.
qui
here
non
not
avere
to have
incontrare
to meet
vedere
to see
mai
ever / never
qualcuno
someone
nessuno
nobody
invece di
instead of
Questions & Answers about Invece di incontrare qualcuno, non abbiamo mai visto nessuno qui.
How does the negative stacking work with both mai and nessuno in the second clause?
In Italian, when the verb is preceded by non, you can chain multiple negative words after it. Here, we stack mai (never) and nessuno (anyone/no one) to mean "never seen anyone". Unlike English, which avoids double negatives ("never seen no one"), Italian requires this "negative concord" to make the sentence grammatically correct.
Why do we use qualcuno in the first part but nessuno in the second part?
The first clause (Invece di incontrare qualcuno) is affirmative, so we use the positive indefinite pronoun qualcuno (someone). The second clause is negative (non abbiamo...), so the pronoun changes to the negative nessuno. In English, we often use "anyone" in both types of sentences, but Italian strictly pairs negative pronouns with negative clauses.
Could I put mai at the end of the sentence, like non abbiamo visto nessuno mai?
Why is incontrare in the infinitive here instead of being conjugated?
In Italian, prepositions like di are followed by the infinitive form of a verb. The phrase invece di means "instead of", so "instead of meeting" translates directly to invece di incontrare, without needing to conjugate the verb.
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