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

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

Postby Jinx » Sun May 16, 2021 11:48 am

The French expression "je ne sais quoi" is widely known, although those who've studied a bit of French may find themselves wondering why it's not "je ne sais PAS quoi". I found this discussion thread in the WordReference forums about precisely this topic.

I was intrigued to read people's posts about French negation historically being more oriented towards the "ne" than the "pas", and even quite surprised to see how many people still lean towards the "ne" as being the important part. In most colloquial French usage, I tend to see the exact opposite: people saying "Je sais pas" (or even "J'ai pas") and the like. I don't think I have ever heard a native French speaker say "Je ne sais" without a "pas" (except in constructions such as "ne...rien", "ne...que", "ne...jamais" etc., obviously) – although expressions such as "Je ne sais ce que je veux" do somehow sound like "elegant French" to me, if somewhat less common. (My opinion is to be taken with a grain of salt, because my level of French is not very advanced.)

Here are a few excerpts from the thread, for those who don't wish to read the whole thing:
newg wrote:Peut-être me trompe-je mais le "pas" n'est pas spécialement obligatoire bien qu'il soit rarement voire (jamais) dans un français oral, mais à l'écrit, personnellement, ça ne me choque pas.
"Je ne peux vous en parler pour le moment, veuillez m'en excuser..." < Ne me choque pas.
"Je ne sais quel tailleur choisir" < Ne me choque pas
itka wrote:Loomis, you don't know this way of speaking, but as the others said, it's perfectly correct.
"Je ne sais" is much more high-level than "je ne sais pas" and if you read some literature in french, you'll find it very often as well on this part of the pound as on the other part. It's simply french, you know (sorry for your friend if he doesn't know it. Maybe, he just has to learn a bit more french ?)

I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on this. What linguistic register, in your opinion, is the best fit for the usage of "ne" without a corresponding "pas"? Should it appear in literature only? Or perhaps in academic speech, e.g. a talk given at a conference? In a casual conversation between two highly educated people? In a more average daily conversation?

And more specifically: what about using "Je ne sais" as a complete sentence?
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Re: French negation with only "ne" (not "pas")

Postby Aloyse » Sun May 16, 2021 1:27 pm

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

"Je ne peux vous en parler pour le moment, veuillez m'en excuser..."
Sounds formal, but not actually academic, would be appropriate in a private (handwritten) letter sent by someone who speaks "ampoulé".
Or in daily conversation in some families. Perhaps the kind of families where they say "vous" to their spouse and children.
I wouldn't match this use of "ne" with a level of education or academic usage, it's rather a social class/family tradition usage. It might be more common in some geographic areas of course.

"Je ne sais quel tailleur choisir"
This one is more frequent, at least in writing. Replace "tailleur" with a more common word (such as "métier") and it could appear in a high school essay (Edit: not the average student's essay perhaps, but at least some bookworms' essays).
(with "tailleur", same as above - may be a common way of speaking in some families, but sounds affected for us "commoners").

Edit: class => social class
and clarification about high school essays
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Re: French negation with only "ne" (not "pas")

Postby Carmody » Sun May 16, 2021 3:22 pm

usage of "ne" without a corresponding "pas"?


Thank you so much for posting this question; I am still wrestling with the answer...

I run across it all the time in the French literature that I read.
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Re: French negation with only "ne" (not "pas")

Postby 白田龍 » Sun May 16, 2021 3:28 pm

I've read somewhere that originally "ne" carried the sense of negation, "pas" was just an emphatic, as "at all" in "not at all".

But as "ne... pas" became a fixed expression, it was re-interpreted. "Ne" has lost negative sense, becoming like partitive "ne", as we see in Italian, and "pas" acquired the sense of negation.

So I take it "je ne sais" would be interpreted as an ungramatical version of "je le sais" in modern French.
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Re: French negation with only "ne" (not "pas")

Postby Aloyse » Sun May 16, 2021 4:15 pm

白田龍 wrote:So I take it "je ne sais" would be interpreted as an ungramatical version of "je le sais" in modern French.

"Je ne sais" is just an incomplete-looking/sounding negative sentence.
I would never interpret it as equivalent to "je le sais".
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Re: French negation with only "ne" (not "pas")

Postby Iversen » Sun May 16, 2021 4:17 pm

In Medieval French the second element was actually seldom "pas", but rather "mie" (crumb) or "goutte"(droplet), but since then "pas" (step) has pushed the others out of existence. There are some pockets of "ne" without pas, mostly in fossilized expressions in rather formal written French (like "je ne puis (something)"), but there are also examples with ne without pas in subordinate phrases that aren't really negative, the socalled "ne explétif" - for instance with comparatives: " plus (something) que ne (something else)" or in subordinates governed by certain prepositions: "avant que ... ne..". And I guess that most cases in modern French now belong in this last category, the expletive "ne".

EDIT: I forgot to mention "point"
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Re: French negation with only "ne" (not "pas")

Postby Aloyse » Sun May 16, 2021 4:32 pm

Iversen wrote:In Medieval French the second element was actually seldom "pas", but rather "mie" (crumb) or "goutte"(droplet), but since then "pas" (step) has pushed the others out of existence.


"point" is still in use in my family (jokingly and infrequently) in "je n'sais point" (for additional authenticity, with our accent "je" is pronounced "jeu", and "sais" could be pronounced either sè or sé. Lyon area.)

I've also heard "goutte" in "on n'y voit goutte" said by elderly farmers (who have since passed away).
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Re: French negation with only "ne" (not "pas")

Postby Jinx » Sun May 16, 2021 4:54 pm

Aloyse wrote:"point" is still in use in my family (jokingly and infrequently) in "je n'sais point"...
I forgot to mention this one, yes! That's one I actually use myself sometimes, too, to be sort of humorously dramatic.

Another very interesting usage of "ne" without a corresponding second part is in sentences such as "J'ai peur qu'il ne soit trop tard", meaning "I'm afraid it may be too late". But I suppose this is technically a different usage of "ne" than the one I was talking about in my original post. Still... it's fascinating! Does anyone know the official name for this second type of independent "ne"? It's one of those things I've picked up from reading and am able to use in my own writing, but without ever having understood why.
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Re: French negation with only "ne" (not "pas")

Postby Iversen » Sun May 16, 2021 5:06 pm

This is one more use of the "ne explétif". I mentioned two other uses of this 'ne' above, and it would take several pages to describe it comprehensibly, but there is a reasonably simple overview here.
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Re: French negation with only "ne" (not "pas")

Postby Dragon27 » Sun May 16, 2021 5:12 pm

Jinx wrote:Does anyone know the official name for this second type of independent "ne"?

it's already been mentioned:
Iversen wrote:the socalled "ne explétif"




When it comes to questions like that (what possible ways a word, in this case "ne", could be used in) it often is a good idea to consult a good monolingual dictionary. I don't know any myself, by even the obvious free choice (french Wiktionary) could be of great help:
https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/ne
the interesting cases to ponder over start from entry 7
Grammar explanations on Wikipedia itself also often contain useful information:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A9ga ... n%C3%A7ais
(there's even a section titled "Omission simultanée de « ne » et « pas »" - what are you doing, French?)
Last edited by Dragon27 on Sun May 16, 2021 6:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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