Re: USAGE: Circumfixes

On 20 May 2004 Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:

> It's etymologically right, and mostly right in the literary language, which
> still uses "ne" in negations, but *completely* wrong in the spoken
> language.
  Of course you have right, I agree with you, however, I aimed
anything else. I'd like to give an _analysis_ why "ne .. pas" isn't
a single unit. Because the original statement was about the
literary French "ne .. pas", I argued in the same circumstances.

> You can't talk about circumfixes in French negatives because
> there's no "ne" in spoken French.
  I think in this case we can talk about two separate French
"languages" (as in case of many other "civilized" languages), and
we can't mix them. Different rules and analyses could be true for
literary (= written = normative) and spoken (= colloquial) French.

> "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.
  I think it's not affirmative, both Hungarian and Slovak use
negative in this sentence. It's just the different subjective
attidute of the English: they fear the action in this case, we --
Frenchmen, Hungarians, Slovaks -- fear the cancellation of the
action. Both are different sides of the same medal.

  Cf. a similar difference mentioned by Joe: >>Interestingly,
English did something odd here.  'I doubt that he will not come'
originally meant 'I doubt he'll come', used in the same manner as
'I am afraid that'.  But that meaning changed.<<

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