MORE NOTES ON NEGATION

IT’S NOT JUST NE [VERB] PAS ANYMORE… ne ... pas > "not" ne ... rien > "nothing" ne ... jamais > "never" ne ... personne > "nobody" ne ... aucun(e) > "not any" ne ... plus > "not any more, no longer or

no more" ne ... guère > "not much, not any" (barely)

(archaic) ne ... que > "only" ne ... point > "not, not at all" (mostly

literary)

Example: « Je ne sais pas. » > "I don't know." « Il ne fume plus. » > "He doesn't

smoke anymore."

Fumer (to smoke) is a normal ER verb, you could easily conjugate it at this point.

DON’T NEED TO WRITE THIS, BUT NOTICE: In colloquial French it is common to

drop the ne altogether in fast speech (but not in writing).

« Je ne sais pas. » (correct) « Je sais pas. » (spoken)

NEW SECTION The partitive articles in French

correspond to "some" or "any" in English. There are four forms of the French partitive article: du      masculine singular

de la   feminine singular de l'    m or f in front of a vowel or h

muet des     m or f plural

BUT: In a negative construction, the partitive

article changes to de, meaning "(not) any":

   J'ai mangé de la soupe. > Je n'ai pas mangé de soupe.   I ate some soup. > I didn't eat any soup.