No hay nada mas que hablar

Question

I've been meaning to ask about this construction, which I see alot.

No hay nada mas que hacer.

Hay más que decir.

Could you say, Ha de ser más que comprender.

I understand the meaning, but what about the grammar? I always assumed that there is an implied but unstated verb:

No hay nada mas que puedes (o se puede) hacer.

Is this the correct grammatical interpretation? Is this only used following impersonal statements (hay, no hay) or can it be used in other constructions as well.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Ha de ser más que comprender.

Except for this phrase, all the other phrases are common sentence structures. This one sounds a little strange ("there should be more to understand"). Maybe you are trying to say "Haz de comprender más" (you should understand more), which is common sentence construction.

Yes, this impersonal structure can be used for just about anything.

As far as your title is concerned,

No hay nada mas que hablar

the common way to say this is "Ni hablar."

Thanks Julian. I didn't think this was a common structure, which is why I asked if you could say it. What I really want to know is whether my grammatical interpretation about the first 2 is correct. - Jeremias, Oct 23, 2011

I don´t know what you mean by "grammatical interpretation" but the first two are correct - 005faa61, Oct 23, 2011

The bit about the implied verb that is unstated, is that what is happening grammatically? - Jeremias, Oct 23, 2011

I don´t know if this is gramaticaly correct, but "no hay" is the same as saying "no existe," so this would be the verb phrase and, ie: "más que decir" would be the subject (más que decir no existe) (más que decir, no hay) (no hay más que decir) - 005faa61, Oct 24, 2011