Same sound, opposite meaning

[sagehen]

Your
 > their inability to appear outside a context
>of negation, whether explicit or implied by a question.<
looks like a good marker to me.  I'm not sure that it is exactly applicable
to my sample question("do you think he did diddly [or squat] for us?")
since, while it seems to anticipate a negative answer, doesn't entirely
exclude it.  THis is a quibble, I admit.
*Any* itself is a sort of chamaeleon (sp?) word, sometimes positive,
sometimes privative.  Dialectal diferences in the use of *any more* have
come up from time to time on the list.  *Anything* and *nothing* sometimes
seem to be engaged in a perpetual do-se-do.
AM