Correctness of “je ne connais (pas) personne”

Question

Is this negative sentence correct?

Je ne connais personne qui sache lire le latin.

Should I add "pas" after "connais"?

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-17 09:38:50Z

3

Pas personne is not grammatical.

Should you want to add pas after connais, you would need to add de or une too:

Je ne connais pas de personne qui sache lire le latin.

Je ne connais pas une personne qui sache lire le latin.

This form works too:

Je ne connais aucune personne qui sache lire le latin.

In these three sentences, personne is no more a pronoun but a substantive, so they are not cases of double negation.

CommunityBot

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answered Dec 2 '17 at 9:21

jlliagre

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user45784 · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-02 08:07:46Z

1

Surtout pas! il y aurait une double négation avec "personne".

answered Dec 2 '17 at 8:07

user45784

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WaterBearer · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-05 05:48:00Z

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You can however say:

Je ne connais pas quelqu'un qui sache lire le latin.

answered Jan 5 '18 at 5:48

WaterBearer

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This is not idiomatic at all. It sounds like you're saying you don't know someone if they read Latin.
– N.I.
Jan 8 '18 at 10:34
@NajibIdrissi I'm saying and I wrote "I don't know someone who knows how to read latin". It might not be idiomatic but it is as correct as "Je ne connais pas de mathématicien qui sache diviser par zéro."
– WaterBearer
Jan 8 '18 at 13:09
I do not think it is correct. There is a crucial difference between your answer and "Je ne connais pas de mathématicien qui sache diviser par zéro.": the preposition de. And since you can't say "de quelqu'un", you have to write "de personne", as in "je ne connais pas de personne [...]". And then you get back to jilliagre's answer.
– N.I.
Jan 8 '18 at 14:07

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3 Answers 3