I don't have any cats
I am not completely sure. Is it possible to say this in two ways?
I don't have any cats
I don't have cats.
There aren't any cats.
There aren't cats.
I mean, is it necessary to put "any" in this type of sentences?
Thank you.
2 Answers
But this : 'There aren't cats' doesn't sound right, it really needs an 'any'.
I agree with everyone else on this that it would sound odd.
In terms of why, I think that it might have to do with the placement of the word "not" and its use as an adverb.
?I don't have any cats ? I do not have (a quantity of) something
?I don't have cats. ? I do not have something
Notice that in this first set of sentences, your structure is subject-verb-object, with the negative word "not" being used adverbially (in conjunction with the auxiliary "do") to negate the verb. This is different from what occurs in the next set of sentences:
?There aren't any cats. ? There are not (some quantity of) something
?There aren't cats. ? There are not cats
In the first sentence, the word "not" is is used adverbially to modify the quantifier "any." Because the word "any" acts as an adjective here, it is possible for the adverb "not" to perform this modification. In the second sentence, however, there is no intervening adjective between the adverb ("not") and the noun (cats) so that you are left with an adverb modifying a noun, a syntactic relationship that is considered incorrect.
If you wished, you could modify this last sentence to read:
?There are no cats.
Here, the word "no" would function as an adjective, allowing it to modify the noun "cats." In this case, it takes the same value as the expression "not any" (used in the sentence above).
Please don't ask me to explain why, I can only go by what sounds right to me. I would say 'I don't have any cats' , 'I don't have cats' and 'There aren't any cats.' are fine.
But this : 'There aren't cats' doesn't sound right, it really needs an 'any'.
