indefinite pronoun + adjective | clause – English Grammar Profiler
Let’s look at what intermediate students can do with indefinite pronouns.
In the English Grammar Profile, B1 point 44 in ADJECTIVES/position is defined as:
adjective or adjective phrase after pronouns like
‘something’, ‘nothing’, ‘somewhere’, ‘nowhere’
Point 29 in NOUNs is defined as:
phrases with an indefinite pronoun + adjective or clause.
It is difficult to accept CEFR-level descriptions with vague expressions such as ‘LIKE‘ because ‘something‘ has two grammar entries at A2 for this structure.
_PN1 _JJ
The left main title is iWeb corpus frequency. To the right are Now Corpus collocates (4 left and right)
1 SOMETHING NEW 136740
1 TRY (VVI ) 4498 2 EVERY (AT1 ) 2795 3 ALWAYS (RR ) 2672 4 LEARN (VVI ) 2186 5 TRYING (VVG ) 2133 6 LEARN (VV0 ) 1502 7 DIFFERENT (JJ ) 1442 8 TRY (VV0 ) 1335 9 CREATE (VVI ) 1230
10 LEARNING (VVG ) 1117
2 SOMETHING DIFFERENT 78487
3 NOTHING WRONG 72874
Definitely, there is nothing wrong with being different other than the morning fight between pancakes, eggs or yogurt.
PELIC STUDENT: Spanish, Female, level 5, writing class
4 SOMETHING SIMILAR 72212 5 SOMETHING WRONG 55545 6 SOMETHING SPECIAL 52391 7 NOTHING NEW 36337 8 NOTHING SHORT 33532 9 ANYTHING WRONG 27167 10 ANYONE INTERESTED 26572 11 NOTHING BETTER 21096 12 SOMETHING GOOD 18895 13 ANYTHING NEW 18368 14 NOTHING SPECIAL 15929 15 SOMETHING INTERESTING 15757 16 SOMETHING UNIQUE 15677 17 SOMETHING IMPORTANT 14743 18 NOTHING WORSE 14151 19 EVERYTHING POSSIBLE 13462 20 SOMETHING FUN 13045 21 SOMETHING BIGGER 11653 22 SOMETHING SIMPLE 11334 23 SOMEONE NEW 11220 24 SOMETHING BIG 10798 25 ANYTHING SPECIAL 10623 26 SOMETHING BAD 10299 27 SOMETHING POSITIVE 9775 28 SOMETHING USEFUL 9614 29 SOMETHING GREAT 9019 30 SOMETHING BETTER 8923 31 SOMEONE SPECIAL 8871 32 EVERYONE INVOLVED 8771 33 SOMETHING SPECIFIC 8257 34 SOMETHING NICE 8087 35 SOMETHING EXTRA 7808 36 ANYTHING DIFFERENT 7095 37 SOMETHING SWEET 7065 38 SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL 6587 39 SOMETHING AMAZING 6557 40 SOMETHING SMALL 6549 41 SOMETHING STUPID 6200 42 SOMETHING STRANGE 6195 43 ANYTHING BAD 5763 44 SOMETHING AKIN 5449 45 ANYTHING BETTER 5312 46 SOMETHING UNEXPECTED 5153 47 ANYTHING GOOD 5105 48 NOTHING GOOD 5004 49 SOMETHING COOL 4957 50 NOTHING FANCY 4935 51 NOTHING BAD 4868 52 EVERYONE HAPPY 4767 53 ANYTHING SIMILAR 4723 54 SOMETHING MAGICAL 4679 55 ANYTHING USEFUL 4401 56 SOMETHING MEANINGFUL 4335 57 ONE AVAILABLE 4314 58 SOMETHING REAL 4285 59 SOMETHING UNUSUAL 4254 60 SOMETHING GREATER 4228 61 SOMETHING WONDERFUL 4218 62 SOMETHING WEIRD 4202 63 SOMETHING FUNNY 4176 64 NOTHING MAJOR 4131 65 ANYONE INVOLVED 4087 66 SOMETHING ONLY 4043 67 ANYTHING SPECIFIC 3971 68 SOMETHING TERRIBLE 3849 69 SOMETHING FRESH 3787 70 ANYTHING NEGATIVE 3725 71 ANYONE FAMILIAR 3668 72 ANYONE WILLING 3619 73 SOMETHING LARGER 3585 74 SOMETHING EXCITING 3542 75 SOMETHING VALUABLE 3514 76 SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY 3513 77 NOTHING UNUSUAL 3500 78 SOMETHING SERIOUS 3427 79 ONE BETTER 3403 80 ONE FREE 3349 81 EVERYTHING READY 3297 82 NOTHING SERIOUS 3290 83 ANYTHING IMPORTANT 3245 84 ANYTHING INTERESTING 3241 85 ANYTHING EXTRA 3222 86 ANYTHING UNUSUAL 3172 87 SOMETHING WORTHWHILE 3161 88 SOMETHING EASY 3134 89 SOMETHING NEGATIVE 3098 90 SOMETHING CRAZY 3071 91 SOMETHING AWESOME 3050 92 SOMETHING ODD 3034 93 SOMETHING TANGIBLE 2874 94 NOTHING PERSONAL 2841 95 SOMETHING SMALLER 2726 96 SOMEONE WILLING 2696 97 EVERYTHING NECESSARY 2584 98 SOMETHING QUICK 2558 99 SOMETHING CREATIVE 2541
100 SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT 2535
Somewhere and Nowhere are tagged as locative adverbs by claws7 (RL):
So a new search for:
somewhere|nowhere _JJ
1 SOMEWHERE SAFE 3561
2 SOMEWHERE NEW 3270 3 NOWHERE CLOSE 1649 4 SOMEWHERE WARM 988 5 SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT 981 6 SOMEWHERE SPECIAL 755 7 SOMEWHERE QUIET 718 8 SOMEWHERE NICE 609 9 SOMEWHERE EXOTIC 391 10 SOMEWHERE HOT 379 11 SOMEWHERE CLOSE 316 12 SOMEWHERE PRIVATE 313
13 NOWHERE BETTER 296
_PN1 to _VVI
1 NOTHING TO WORRY 15213
By the time you’re ready to hit the road, you will say to yourself “I did a really good job, and I have nothing to worry about”.
Male, level 5, writing class
2 NOTHING TO LOSE 13176 3 SOMETHING TO SAY 12409 4 SOMETHING TO KEEP 10320 5 SOMETHING TO LOOK 9429 6 SOMETHING TO EAT 8839 7 ANYTHING TO GO 8712 8 SOMETHING TO THINK 8199 9 SOMETHING TO CONSIDER 8157 10 ONE TO GET 8074 11 SOMEONE TO HELP 7940 12 SOMETHING TO HELP 7658 13 NOTHING TO SAY 7353 14 ANYTHING TO GET 7117 15 SOMETHING TO MAKE 6621 16 ONE TO MAKE 6130 17 SOMETHING TO GET 6046 18 NOTHING TO STOP 5890 19 SOMEONE TO TAKE 5760 20 EVERYONE TO SEE 5689 21 ONE TO USE 5685 22 NOTHING TO FEAR 5471 23 SOMETHING TO OFFER 5138 24 SOMEONE TO TALK 5123 25 EVERYONE TO ENJOY 5085 26 ONE TO GO 5073 27 ANYTHING TO SAY 4962 28 ANYTHING TO HELP 4909 29 SOMETHING TO SUIT 4839
30 ONE TO WATCH 4826
B1: consider, fear, nowhere, private
B2: exotic