La niña no tiene nada que comer. < Que?

Question

So the sentence means "The girl doesn't have anything (nothing) to eat." Why is que used here? does Que + infinitive always mean "for the purpose of"... ?

Answer 1

Read this quick because I have to erase it before I get caught guessing, again!

To avoid saying "The girl must eat nothing", I think you are going for something like "The girl has nothing which to eat".

Interesting! People can say "of which to eat" in formal English. You'll hear "Nothing of which to speak" a lot, but it's just a way to avoid putting a preopsition at the end of a sentence. - rabbitwho, Aug 19, 2010

Answer 2

The sentence means "The girl has nothing to eat". If you remove "que", it would be (in a way, not literally) like removing "to" in the English version, and saying "The girl has nothing eat". But that's how bad the Spanish sentence would sound if you removed that "que"; this does not mean that "to" = "que", even though here they happen to be in the same place.

So.. it doesn't mean anything here? It's just filling a gap? When else is it used in this way? - rabbitwho, Aug 19, 2010

Thanks for the explanation! I always wonder how errors made sound in english. - Sheily, Aug 19, 2010