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I have the following sentence in my grammar book:

> 私の妹は、ピアニストでも歌手でもありません。  
>  My younger sister is neither a pianist nor a singer.

When the book has affirmative sentences, it uses も after each of the nouns.
But in this sentence, it uses でも instead.

All of the textbooks I have read only has the meaning of でも as "but" when used
at the start of a new sentence — they don't mention this kind of use at all.

Is this the でも particle with a new meaning or a combination of で AND も, where
the で does the negation? Or does the で mean something else entirely?

EDIT: It does not look like でも is always used for the negative sentences:

> ロスさんもヒルさんも銀行員ではありません。  
>  Neither Mr Ross nor Mr Hill are bank employees.
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2015-08-11T23:21:21.947
27342
2015-08-13T14:47:09.220
2015-08-13T14:47:09.220
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question
translation particles particle-で particle-も
If も means "also" in a positive sentence, does でも mean "neither" in a negative sentence?
Think about it like this:

> ピアニスト **です** 。 'is a pianist'  
>  歌手 **です** 。 'is a singer'

To negate this, we'll want to split です up into で＋あります:

> ピアニスト **で あります** 。 'is a pianist'  
>  歌手 **で あります** 。 'is a singer'

Now we can negate あります and insert は to go with the negation:

> ピアニストで **は** ありま **せん** 。 'is not a pianist'  
>  歌手で **は** ありま **せん** 。 'is not a singer'

To put these both in one clause, we'll want to use も instead of は, because
we're putting two like things together and negating both of them:

> ピアニストで **も**  
>  歌手で **も** ありません。 'is neither a pianist nor a singer'

Like you said, も here is like 'also'. The individual words don't correspond
exactly to English words, so I can't say that it's _exactly_ like 'also' or
'neither', but hopefully you can see how it fits together.

It's true that there's a particle でも, but that's not what we have here. In
this case, we have the copular construction で＋ある in polite form with the
particle も inserted in between.
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2015-08-11T23:47:18.983
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2015-08-11T23:47:18.983
27342
answer