Re: Russian "a" and Norwegian "ikke/ingen" (was: Re: Question about Latin.)

 --- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> skrev:
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 08:58:19PM +0200, Daniel
> Asserbo wrote:
> > >Both: 'I have no car', lit.: 'I have not car.'
>
> I think the Scandinavian examples are actually
> identical in form is to
> the English pair of phrases  "I have no car" vs. "I
> don't have a car".
> Both have the same meaning, but expressed via
> different syntactic
> structures: one uses a quantifier meaning "zero" on
> the object, whilte
> the other uses no qualifier and simply negates the
> verb.
>
> I guess what makes it look odd from a French
> perspective is that in
> French you apparently have to do both?
We say "Je n'ai pas de voiture", "je n'ai pas
d'enfants" (interesting, normally 'voiture' singular,
but 'enfants' plural). Except for this orthographic
specificity, which I guess is not 100% used, it's
difficult to know if what is supposed to be possessed
can be plural or singular. After all, many families
have two cars, but one would still say 'Nous n'avons
pas de voiture' (without s). It's also difficult to
know what is negated: the fact of having car(s) or
child(ren), or the words 'car(s)' or 'child(ren':

- Nous n'avons pas de chat, mais nous avons un chien
(We have no cat, but we have a dog). (Impossible to
say: "*nous n'avons pas un chat", but possible in "ce
n'est pas un chat que nous avons, c'est un chien"; it
is not a cat we have, it is a dog). Also, possible:
"il n'y a pas un chat dans la rue" (there is not one
single cat in the street = there is not one soul
around in the street).

Using 'aucun' (equivalent of German 'kein', Norwegian
'ingen') is much more specific:
- il n'y a aucun moyen de le savoir (there is no way
of knowing it; 'pas de moyen' would sound clumsy).
- tu ne fais aucun effort (you're not doing any
effort): this is stronger than 'tu ne fais pas
d'effort(s)', also possible (you're doing no effort).

Sometimes we even use 'aucuns' in plural, but I have
no common example at hand just now. It looks a bit
weird, and people hesitate when using this form, so
that they can even write 'aucuns' in plural and the
following noun in singular (which is of course
incorrect). Also, there is an expression "d'aucuns",
rather literary, meaning "some (people)".

Damned, this looks all very complicated.

-----------
Joe wrote:

"Well, I have Norwegian family.  And they use 'ikke'
for 'not', as well."

So in what cases do they use "ingen" ? Or has the word
gone out of fashion ?

I think one can say, for ex, either:
- Det finnes ingen vei ut
- Det finnes ikke noen vei ut
for: There is no way out ?




=====
Philippe Caquant


Ceterum censeo *vi* esse oblitterandum (Me).

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