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How many meanings does っこなし have?

On the one hand, I've seen in jisho and here that っこなし is a variant of っこない, which means "no chance of; no way that; certainly not; will never happen".

However, the usages I've found for っこなし seem to differ in meaning.

In these sentences:

そんなつらいこと言っこなし。
固いこと言いっこなし。
細かいことは言いっこなしだよ。

Would っこなし have the function/meaning of an negative imperative (Don't say ...)?

And in this sentence:

誰が勝っても、恨みっこなしね。

I know by jisho that 恨みっこなし means "with no hard feelings", but if translated literally, what would っこなし mean here?

Besides, is there another case where っこなし would have another different meaning apart from 1) "no chance of; no way that; certainly not; will never happen", 2) "Don't ..." (negative imperative) and 3) 恨みっこなし?

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  • Imperatives are generally implied in Japanese, and an imperative sense has to be gleaned from context. Even if we say something like 「〜してください」 - notice we don't say 「〜してくだされ」.
    – Karl Knechtel
    Commented Apr 9, 2023 at 1:13
  • It’d be easier to understand if you add お互いに〜. 誰が勝ってもお互いに恨みっこなし。whoever wins no hard feelings for each other. It’s not “no chance” that you mentioned. できっこない (できるわけがない)
    – Kenji Noguchi
    Commented Apr 9, 2023 at 4:25
  • But then, if you confirm thay っこなし does not mean "no chance" in my examples as I already suspected, then whay does it mean? And if it does not mean either a negative imperative, from which meaning is then the negative imperative implied?
    – Rick
    Commented Apr 9, 2023 at 10:55
  • As commented, it's mostly the implication that makes it an imperative. Compare English No hard feelings.
    – sundowner
    Commented Apr 9, 2023 at 10:58

1 Answer 1

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In English, "No smoking" is grammatically not an imperative, but it effectively has such a meaning ("Don't smoke").

Likewise, ～なし is grammatically not an imperative (it's just "No ～"), but depending on the context, it can be interpreted as a (negative) imperative ("Don't ～"). Although っこ and なし are often paired together, なし by itself can effectively mean "Don't".

  • それ以上はなしだ。 No more. / Don't ask more.
  • 反論はナシですよ。 No rebuttals please. / Don't argue back.

Besides, ～っこなし is not necessarily a negative imperative, either. For example, 勝てっこなしだよ means "There is no chance of winning" rather than "Let's not win".

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  • Thank you so much for your answer! Now I understand the meaning of っこなし and the interpretation of it as a negative imperative.
    – Rick
    Commented Apr 11, 2023 at 7:35

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