Breakdown of Я не взял с собой ни листовок, ни купонов.
не
not
я
I
взять
to take / to adopt
с
with (also со)
себя
oneself (себе: Dat/Prep)
ни
neither / nor
листовка
leaflet
купон
coupon
Questions & Answers about Я не взял с собой ни листовок, ни купонов.
Why are листовок and купонов in the Genitive case instead of the Accusative?
They are direct objects of a negated verb (не взял). While negated objects can sometimes be in the Accusative, using the Genitive case (the "Genitive of Negation") is highly preferred here to emphasize the absolute zero quantity of these items, a feeling strictly reinforced by the use of ни..., ни....
Why does the Russian sentence use ни..., ни... when the English translation says "any... or..."?
The phrase ни..., ни... literally means "neither... nor...". Because Russian grammar requires negative concord (double negatives), it pairs with the negated verb не взял to mean "I didn't take neither... nor...". English doesn't allow double negatives, so we translate it naturally as "didn't take any... or...".
Where does the о in the Genitive plural листовок come from?
It is a "fleeting vowel". The nominative singular is листовка (leaflet). To make the Genitive plural, we drop the final -а, which leaves a clumsy consonant cluster at the end of the word (-вк). To make it easier to pronounce, Russian inserts the vowel о to break up the consonants, giving us листовок.
Why does the sentence use с собой instead of со мной for "with me"?
In Russian, whenever an object pronoun refers back to the subject of the sentence, you must use the reflexive pronoun себя (here in its Instrumental form, собой). Since the subject of the sentence is Я (I), "with me" must be translated as с собой (literally "with myself").
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