French negation with only "ne" (not "pas")

[Jinx]

My hunch is that it appeared because the subordinates at some deep layer could be derived from sentences with a negation: "Elle a plus de monnaie que je n'aurais cru" - je n'avait pas cru qu'elle avait tellement de monnaie", "je crains qu'il ne vienne sans me prévenir" <--- il ne doit pas venir sans me prévenir" etc. etc.

Thank you for this clear analysis – it explains exactly what I had always intuitively sensed about this odd construction, but been unable to put into words myself.

[Aloyse]

"Je ne sais" is not a complete sentence in modern French whatever the register.

Incorrect. Savoir with ne has a different sense to savoir with ne pas. "Ne pas savoir" is like "to not know" while "ne savoir" is more like "to be uncertain". In every other case it demands the full negation. It's pretty high register though.

Ok thanks for the correction.
My feeling is that the average person is unaware of this and will request clarification or rephrasing (or just think you speak oddly) if you attempt to use "je ne sais" as a complete sentence

[Carmody]

I think these postings are extremely helpful and well worth saving.

Is it possible for someone to post this in a Wiki or some sort so others might know the information?

[rpg]

I thought this topic was fairly academic when I first saw it, but then I just came across this sentence in Harry Potter:

Mais même si tout ce que lui avait raconté Hagrid jusqu’à maintenant était incroyable, Harry ne pouvait s’empêcher de lui faire confiance.

It's funny because in French classes you get it beaten into you that you can't use ne by itself for negation (a common error since many languages have a similar looking negative word like no or nicht), yet here's an example from a children's book.