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I recently found the following sentence:

何もこんな所に立ち寄る必要もなかったのではないか。

The translation I can roughly make is:

There's absolutely no need [for her, the character they're talking about] to stay in this place, is it?

...but I'm having trouble parsing this use of 何も.

From what I understand, grammatically this is formed by having 何も + noun + ではないか, with "noun" being the noun-ified (not sure how to say that in English) ーの version of こんな所に立ち寄る必要もなかった.

So, if my interpretation is correct, can 何も really be attached to larger sentence groups like this? How would you translate it?

F.X.
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    This なにも【HLL】 is not "not ～ at all", but is a guiding adverb that indicates the speaker is feeling something is an overstatement, too extreme, too much, etc. It works like a sentence adverb and can be placed at the beginning of the sentence. Compare it with こんな所に立ち寄る必要は[なにも]{LHH}ない ("there is absolutely no need"). – naruto May 31 '20 at 12:20
  • @naruto Thanks, that does make sense, I wasn't aware it could be used this way (and the dictionary I use had no entry on this use either). – F.X. May 31 '20 at 20:45

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