How can we change the following sentence into negative one without changing the meaning?
He did everything.
Can we change it into this:
He left nothing undone.
Or
Didn't he do anything
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2Strange question. Simple didn't do everything is not good enough? No meaning is changed. – Vladimir Markiev Jan 27 '17 at 9:14
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#Vladimir, you've turned this sentence changing the meaning. – Roby Jan 27 '17 at 9:18
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2I assume that mean to negate the verb. Which He left doesn't do. You'll have to use a dummy subject to get the effect you want: "There was nothing he did not do." – deadrat Jan 27 '17 at 10:05
He did not stop until everything was done.
He left nothing undone
is pretty much the same as "he did everything". Your other example, however, is a question not a statement.
Another possibility:
There was nothing he didn't do.
He left nothing undone.
Does fit. Another choice might be:
There was nothing he didn't do.
The second suggestion from the question does not fit.
answered Jan 27 '17 at 23:57
The question completely misunderstands itself.
'He did everything' is grammatically positive; semantically it means little. Define 'everything', please?
'He left nothing undone' is still positive, unless you think 'he ran away' or 'he surrendered' or 'he lost' grammatically negative. Do you?
'Didn't he do anything?' is a question; not comparable to the other examples.
'He did nothing' is still a positive statement. 'He did (whatever)' will always remain positive.
'He did not do anything' is as close as you could get to a negative statement.
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You can't see that "anything" could be considered positive while "nothing" is negative? Regardless, this doesn't answer the question. If you want clarification, please ask for it in comments. – Catija♦ Feb 9 '17 at 4:45
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No, Catija, never. The thing done is wholly irrelevant. The only thing positive or negative is the act of doing it. 'He did a negative thing' is a positive statement. The simple answer is, it's not possible to change a sentence like that into negative without changing the meaning. With a great deal of imagination it might be possible to make the sentence negative but that could never be done with without changing the meaning. – Robbie Goodwin Feb 9 '17 at 22:08
