I'm having a lot of trouble understanding what this means (bolded):


あ。。。森。。。ですか。。。 森の中、そこだけは 何も無かったり、有ったり 過去の遺物の集積場 「ここにやがてつまれるのかな？」

What does 何も無かったり、あったり mean?

This is from a song.

  • 1
    Is that the entire sentence? – Aeon Akechi Apr 2 at 21:59
  • Is this from a poem, a song or a tweet? Please include the whole context. Usually a rhetorical expression like this comes with a hint in sentences surrounding it. – naruto Apr 3 at 1:56
  • Apparently the text comes from here japanese.stackexchange.com/q/66398/7810 but I'm not sure what OP means by "Since it's using ~tari, is the fact that it's past tense relevant here?" – broccoli forest Apr 3 at 3:54

This seems to be from 初音ミクの終焉.

It's not past tense (ta-form), but it's tari-form used to list two or more verbs and i-adjectives. So 「何も無かったり、有ったり」 roughly means "sometimes there is nothing, sometimes there is something" or "there may or may not be something".

  • Another question: is the speaker doubting whether 過去の遺物の集積場 exists? As in, does the sentence mean, there might/might not be a place where relics of the past accumulate? EDIT: My bad, they're doubting what's in the forest, like you said – user30175 Apr 3 at 17:56
  • @kumichan The subject of ある/ない is 何 ("something"), not 集積場. – naruto Apr 4 at 6:53

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