Timeline for Excepting "savoir", how does "quoi" function as a general second negator?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 18, 2021 at 5:21 | vote | accept | CommunityBot | ||
| Jun 17, 2021 at 16:01 | answer | added | None | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 17, 2021 at 10:27 | comment | added | XouDo | "Excepting “savoir”, how does “quoi” function as a general second negator?" This title has a big problem. Quoi does not function a a general second negator : we also use the same sentence without omitting the pas : "je ne sais pas quoi". You can't do that with guère, jamais, nullement. | |
| Jun 17, 2021 at 10:04 | comment | added | Eau qui dort | "Je ne sais quoi" is a relic of a late Old French/early Middle French construction. The type of negation used (with ne alone) is simply what was in use at the time. In French, the evolution didn't go beyond set expression, but in Eastern Oil languages those became indefinite pronouns, leaking sometimes into the regional French of those places (Vous voulez ène sakwé (=quelque chose) à boire?), showing quite nicely how frozen and unanalyzed they've become | |
| Jun 17, 2021 at 9:38 | answer | added | jlliagre | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jun 17, 2021 at 9:34 | comment | added | None | @livresque Nowhere in his question is the OP asking about the omission of pas or about the split negative. | |
| Jun 17, 2021 at 9:27 | comment | added | None | I think this answer deals with it, so I'm not keen on writing a new one. Concerning the use of quoi here you might consider that je ne sais pas quoi and je ne sais quoi are exactly the same thing and focus on the meaning of quoi/ce que. If your question is a duplicate it is in no way to this question. You might consider marking my earlier comment as useful so that it appears on top of the list of comments and avoid more people asking for the question to be closed for a wrong reason. | |
| Jun 17, 2021 at 8:19 | comment | added | user1995 | @livresque That's OK. Can you please remove your comment that flags this as duplicate? | |
| Jun 17, 2021 at 8:18 | comment | added | user1995 | @None "Quoi doesn't function with ne, it's not part of the negation". I think you pinpointed my worriment! "Je ne sais quoi" led me to think that quoi is part of the negation with ne! Can you explain pls how "je ne sais quoi" works, if quoi doesn't function with ne? | |
| Jun 17, 2021 at 7:34 | comment | added | None | I'm not sure I quite understand the question, nevertheless I'll try to point something out so you can rephrase it. Quoi doesn't function with ne, it's not part of the negation, so it can't be grammatically or semantically compared to pas, point, etc. Quoi is a pronoun (object to sais) and you could have je ne sais où, je ne sais comment, etc... No, we could not have ? "je ne connais quoi" because pas can't be omitted with connaitre, only very few verbs accept the ommision of pas, point.. (from memory: avoir, pouvoir, oser, cesser, daigner, list to be checked). | |
| Jun 17, 2021 at 5:48 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jul 3, 2021 at 3:01 | |||||
| Jun 17, 2021 at 5:43 | comment | added | livresque | I didn't register the link, pardon. Perhaps this is of more help : stella.atilf.fr/Dendien/scripts/tlfiv5/… and french.stackexchange.com/questions/884/… | |
| Jun 17, 2021 at 5:36 | comment | added | user1995 | @livresque Did you even read my post? I linked to that post in mine. | |
| Jun 17, 2021 at 5:20 | history | asked | user1995 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |