Any
From Creolista!
The word any is made up of an ( = one ) plus the adjective suffix -y
Contents
Quantifier
Some people call any a quantifying adjective, others refer to it as a quantifying determiner.
It is most often used with uncountable nouns and with plural countables, in questions and negative sentences (not ... any)
- Do you have any idea who wrote this?
- when unstressed: une idée, when stressed: le moindre idée
- Have you seen any good movies lately?
- when unstressed: un bon film, des bons films; when stressed: au moins un bon film
- There aren't any chocolates left.
- plus de chocolats
- I don't have any time free this week. Maybe next Thursday?
- pas de temps
Pronoun (Fused NP head)
- Late at night, you could hear that the building was full of mice. I never saw any in my apartment, though. Neither did my cat. ^^
Prefix
anything
anyone / anybody
anywhere
anyway / any way / [anyhow]
any which way
- any old way, however you please, n'importe comment
- Cf. every which way -- dans tous les sens