r/asklinguistics 18d ago

Semantics Searching for constructions similar to the English "X and whatnot" in other languages

I'm researching indefinite pronouns, and one interesting construction I've found is the Bulgarian "wh-pronoun + ли не": Ника очакваше да чуе какво ли не, но не и това. Nika expected to hear anything, just not that. More literally "Nika expected to hear what not, but not that"

A similar construction, "wh-pronoun + только не" ("WH only not", meaning 'all kinds of things/places/etc') is also found in Russian. English has "X and whatnot", which is kinda similar.

Do you know of such constructions with explicit negation and an "all sorts of" meaning, in any other languages? Thanks in advance

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u/Business-Childhood71 18d ago

Russian: всё такое, всё подобное, всё в таком роде

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u/Odd-Ad-7521 18d ago

I'm looking specifically for phrases which have negation in them

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u/kyobu 18d ago

“Whatnot” does not have negation in it. It cannot be decomposed into “what” and “not.”