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「どうせ誰もいはしないと高をくくっていたところもある。」

This one's throwing me for a bit of a loop. The translation says "He also didn't really take the possibility of anyone being there seriously."

It makes sense to me except for the いはしない part. What does this mean?

I looked up い and saw that it can mean stomach, so my first thought was that いはしない was perhaps some idiom like "not doing his stomach" that means "not being there" but I can't find any evidence to justify that on the internet so I have to assume it's wrong.

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The sentence is not about someone's stomach. If it were, 「い」 would have certainly been written in kanji as 「胃{い}」. Besides, 「胃はしない」 makes no sense to begin with.

「Verb in 連用形{れんようけい} (continuative form) + は + しない」

= "would not (verb) one bit" ← rather emphatic

「い」 is the 連用形 of the verb 「いる」 ("to be", "to exist").

「誰{だれ}もはしない」, therefore, means "no one would be (there)"

You will encounter this grammar pattern over and over. That I can guarantee.

Note that the 「は」 is occasionally replaced by a 「や」 in more informal speech.

I have noticed over the years that when the single-syllable 連用形 of some of the two-syllable verbs (two in dictionary forms) is used in phrases and sentences, quite a few Japanese-learners do not seem to even notice that they are seeing/hearing a verb there. Verbs are too important to just not notice in any language. Those verbs include:

「い」 for 「いる」

「し」 for 「する」

「き」 for 「来{く}る」 and 「着{き}る」

「み」 for 「見る」, etc.

「し」 is the one most often used and this website is indeed full of questions regarding phrases containing it.

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  • Thanks, are you aware of anywhere I can read more about this? I'm searching for "stem + はする" and such but unfortunately not turning up much.
    – Aurast
    Jul 16, 2015 at 1:07
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    @user21871 We have some previous questions that touch on this topic, which I just retagged: japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/…
    – user1478
    Jul 16, 2015 at 2:19

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