Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> And even there it gives an archaic feeling. "Ne" is also used alone in
> *affirmative* completive subclauses after a verb of fear:
> Je crains qu'il ne vienne: I fear he will come.
> To make it negative, you *have to* write:
> Je crains qu'il ne vienne pas: I fear he will not come.
> This too is only used in the literary language. In spoken language it
> sounds quaint.
How'd *that* happen? :-)
> If you wonder how we can use "personne" in both a negative (nobody) and
> affirmative (person) meaning, the two meanings never overlap. "Personne" in
> a negative meaning is always without an article and at the position the
> negative word must take (after the conjugated verb). "Personne" in an
> affirmative meaning is a noun, and as such is required to be preceded with
> an article (nouns can't appear without article in French, even mass nouns).
Interesting distinction! :-)
> Exactly. When you happen for some reason to use the second part of the
> negation in front of the first, you needn't add another one afterwards.
> Another example:
>
> Jamais je n'ai entendu pareille sottise ! : Never have I heard such nonsense!
Can you drop the _ne_ there, saying "Jamais j'ai entendu pareille
sottise"? Or is that ungrammatical?
> Je ne sais... ;)))) It's *very* archaic literary style, but it's possible.
:-) And we English-speakers use French phrases like "Je ne sais quoi"
:-)