36246
I have a question about the meaning of these two "words" [あまりこない] and [全くこない].

The complete sentence was

> この美術館[あまりこない]ではなくて[全くこない].

The brackets were also in the original text.

This is from an internal monologue of a women during her job. She also
complained that she had not much to do.

For the first part あまりこない, it consists of two sub parts あまり and こない.  
As I understand, あまり means "not much / not very" since こない is a negative verb.

For the second part 全くこない, it consists of two sub parts 全くand こない.  
全く means some thing like "not at all" since こない is also negative.

While I have a basic understanding of these words, I struggle to comprehend
their meaning in the sentence. Why was the negative form of くる used twice, and
I also do not understand why they were placed in brackets.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-27T22:08:47.697
36230
2016-06-29T15:34:51.293
2016-06-28T10:24:20.533
1527
15913
question
meaning
Meaning of [あまりこない] and [全くこない] in the following context
The use of brackets here is nearly identical to the use of quotation marks in
this English sentence I just found on the internet:

> He was one of the "it'll never happen to me" kind of guys.

Basically these are imaginary quotes of what someone could have said about
that art gallery. In this case she is most likely expressing her own opinion
on the gallery this way.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-27T22:43:58.033
36232
2016-06-27T22:43:58.033
12271
36230
answer
I think there is a く missing and it should be ではな **く** て, otherwise I would
not understand.

If that's the case, given the context I think that the woman is just saying
"It is not that (people/visitors) seldom come, (they) don't come at all!". I
think you analyzed the sentence quite well after all. Here the speaker just
wants to express a contrast between "not coming often" (あまりこない) and "not
coming at all" (全くこない).

Another thing. You use square brackets but I think you mean these brackets
instead 「」. These ones are usually quotation marks, so it might be that
someone in a previous conversation mentioned that "(people/visitor) seldom
come" 「あまりこない」. Therefore, in her sentence the woman somehow wants to
emphasize that it should have been "do not come at all" 「全くこない」 instead (maybe
in a sort of sarcastic way).

全く+ない expresses a very strong negation (which answers your question about why
来ない is in negative form). You can see some explanation
[here](http://japanesetest4you.com/flashcard/learn-
jlpt-n2-grammar-%E3%81%BE%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F%E3%81%8F%EF%BD%9E%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84-mattakunai/).

Just for reference, 全く can also express a strong agreement (for example if
saying something like "We have exactly the same opinion (about something)" you
could say 全く同じ in this case, to express a strong emphasis).
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-28T05:09:53.717
36246
2016-06-28T05:15:07.340
2016-06-28T05:15:07.340
14205
14205
36230
answer
The braces are being used to indicate a quote, in this case they are not
genuinely quotes but something which would be said in response to someone.

  * あまりこない = Rarely come 
  * 全くこない = Completely not come

the use of なくて ties the first part of the sentence to the second. Meaning that
meaning of the sentence is something like "When it comes to this art gallery,
it's not that people rarely come, they never come at all!"

In Japanese it is quite common to leave the subject(that which performs the
verb) out of the sentence, in this sentence the subjects who are not coming to
the art gallery are the 客(kyaku, visitor; customer) this is simply to be
inferred by the reader.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-29T15:34:51.293
36285
2016-06-29T15:34:51.293
15933
36230
answer