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Pas (point) without ne in interrogative clauses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Glanville Price
Glanville Price
Affiliation:
Department of European Languages, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Dyfed SY23 3DY.
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Abstract

Old and Middle French interrogative sentences of the type sez tu pas? have often been interpreted, erroneously, as providing evidence for the early dropping of ne as in modern je sais pas. The construction occurs most widely in Old and early Middle French with point (occasionally pas, mie) and the particle had a positive or ‘potential’ value (e.g. Quenois le tu point? ‘Do you know him [at all]?’). It was only in late Middle French that, influenced by the increasing use of pas and point in negative clauses, the interrogative clauses in question came to have a negative value.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , September 1993 , pp. 191 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

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