Inget & Ingenting
Hejsan,
Today I was studying indefinite pronouns (indefinita pronomen) and I saw these two sentences with their translations in my book:

Inget fungerar / Nothing works
Det finns ingenting att göra / There is nothing to do

And I wondered what is the difference between inget and ingenting and is it possible to say "Ingenting fungerar" or "Det finns inget/inget/inga att göra" ?

Question

Inget & Ingenting
Hejsan, 
Today I was studying indefinite pronouns (indefinita pronomen) and I saw these two sentences with their translations in my book:

Inget fungerar / Nothing works
Det finns ingenting att göra / There is nothing to do

And I wondered what is the difference between inget and ingenting and is it possible to say "Ingenting fungerar" or "Det finns inget/inget/inga att göra" ?

Answer

There are certain words who have changed with time but whose old "longer" forms are still used (they still mean the same thing)
någonting/nånting/något/nått - something
någon/nån - somebody
sådant/sånt - "like that" (nått sånt - something like that) 
ingenting/inget - nothing
ingen - nobody

(that's when you're speaking generally, when you're using a substantive you also need to match the pronoun with the gender, "jag har inte nån bil/nått hus" (I don't have any car/house)

So if you see two words who resemble eachother but they mean the same thing, then you'll know that one is just the longer "original" form :)

Answer

Take a look at this link. People have already asked and answered your question:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101001034812AAh3BT4

Answers · 4

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