negatives

[spoon]

Hi,

I'm curious about "negatives".

(a) I told no one anything.

(b) I told nothing to anyone.

(c) I did not tell anyone anything.

(d) I dod not tell anything to anyone.

(e) I told anyone nothing.

What are correct? Could you plz tell me the reason?

Thanks in advance.

Spoon

[Mister Micawber]

.
I find E a little odd (I don't know why); otherwise, they are all fine.
.

[dihen]

Is this incorrect?
`
"Anyone didn't tell me anything."

[Mister Micawber]

.
Yes, for the same reason as E above (whatever that is).
.

[rewboss]

"Anyone" usually goes with negative verbs and questions:

"Did you see anyone there?"
"No, I didn't see anyone."

The sentence "*I told anyone nothing" is a statement but not a negative, so you can't use "anyone" here. Grammatically, you should use "someone": "I told someone nothing." That's a grammatically correct sentence, although you would probably never need it: it means you approached a specific individual and told that individual nothing -- but you don't know the identity of that individual, or the identity is unimportant or a secret.

[spoon]

"Anyone" usually goes with negative verbs and questions:

"Did you see anyone there?"
"No, I didn't see anyone."

The sentence "*I told anyone nothing" is a statement but not a negative, so you can't use "anyone" here. Grammatically, you should use "someone": "I told someone nothing." That's a grammatically correct sentence, although you would probably never need it: it means you approached a specific individual and told that individual nothing -- but you don't know the identity of that individual, or the identity is unimportant or a secret.

Tanks a million!
Additionally, words starting with any- cannot go before 'not' as you can see in "(e)". But words starting with any-(anyone, anything) can go before 'not' if they are modified by relatives or phrases.

Note that...

Anyone who did it can come to the party. -> This is correct.