nehledě / nemluvě

While regular present transgressives are largely archaic and require strict grammatical agreement, nehledě and nemluvě are major exceptions. They are fossilized transgressives (ustrnulé přechodníky) that function as secondary prepositions.

Meanings and Valency:

• Nehledě na + Accusative (or the more archaic and bookish alternative k + Dative): Means "regardless of" or "irrespective of". It deliberately excludes a factor from consideration.
• Nemluvě o + Locative: Means "not to mention" or "to say nothing of". It amplifies a statement by introducing an additional, decisive factor.

Key Syntactic Rules:
1. No Agreement: They are permanently frozen in the historical masculine singular form ending in -ě, though the feminine/neuter singular ending -íc (nehledíc, nemluvíc) is also a valid invariable fossilized form. They do not inflect for gender, number, or person.
2. No Subject Constraint: Traditional transgressives must share the subject of the main clause. Because these forms act as prepositions, they are entirely exempt from this rule.
3. Prepositions are Mandatory: Just like the original verbs (hledět na/k, mluvit o), these forms inherently govern specific prepositions. They do not take direct objects because the base verbs themselves are intransitive in these meanings. The following noun phrase must be declined into the specific case governed by the primary preposition (Accusative for na, Locative for o).
4. Punctuation: Punctuation depends on sentence position and integration. Both phrases usually do not take a comma when placed at the beginning of a sentence or when tightly integrated into the clause. However, when either is appended at the end of a sentence as an afterthought, it is separated by a comma.
5. Introducing Clauses: These forms frequently pair with the pronoun to to introduce a full subordinate clause (e.g., nehledě na to, že... / nemluvě o tom, že...).
6. Inverted Word Order: A highly frequent and idiomatic usage of nemluvě involves placing it at the very end of the sentence, preceded by the prepositional phrase and often the particle ani (e.g., o penězích ani nemluvě - "not to mention the money").
7. Stylistic Register: These forms belong to a formal, written, or journalistic register. The standard, stylistically neutral counterpart to nehledě na is bez ohledu na. While natož is sometimes used to mean 'let alone' or 'not to mention', it can be used freely in both affirmative contexts (meaning 'even more so') and negative contexts (meaning 'much less'), whereas nemluvě o specifically introduces an additional factor without inherent polarity.

Note: Do not confuse nehledě na with vzhledem k (due to / considering). They are semantic opposites; nehledě na dismisses a factor, while vzhledem k highlights it.