# FR: I never have anything to write



## crispyambulance

I tried translating the title of this thread and all I got was a dilemma:

Je n'ai jamais rien à écrire.

Je n'ai jamais de chose à écrire.

Is it possible to have a triple negative in French?  Are both these sentences weird?  Help!!


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## marget

crispyambulance said:


> I tried translating the title of this thread and all I got was a dilemma:
> 
> Je n'ai jamais rien à écrire.
> 
> Je n'ai jamais de chose à écrire.
> 
> Is it possible to have a triple negative in French? Are both these sentences weird? Help!!


 
I think that the first one is grammatically correct. I'm not sure that the second one sounds natural, since "de chose" means "rien". A native speaker will have to tell you if either or both sound weird. 

It is indeed possible to use jamais and rien together. Even in English, we don't really consider it a "triple...(_rather double)_ negative" since we say _never_ and then _anything_, not_ nothing_.


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## Horek

Hi,

the first one is correct. 
_
Je n'ai jamais rien à écrire._



> Is it possible to have a triple negative in French?


Maybe, i don't have example to give, but your both sentences have not triple negatives 
In this sentence you only have one negation

ne ... jamais rien (quite rare).

EDIT : The second one is comprehensible, but not really correct.


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## Mauricet

_Ne ... jamais rien_ is not rare ! One million hits on google for "jamais rien" ...


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## crispyambulance

Jamais rien is what came to me first, but I'd never seen it. Thanks.

Horek, I interpreted that sentence as a triple negative because there are three negating words, ne, jamais and rien.


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## itka

> _Ne ... jamais rien_ is not rare ! One million hits on google for "jamais rien" ...


 
And "ne...jamais rien" is only one negation in three parts.


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## crispyambulance

I didn't mean to imply that that wasn't a valid way of looking at it.

Perhaps someone here could clarify for me as I'm not up on the history of the language, but I've hypothesised that, as double negatives became more and more common as the language descended from Latin, people started inserting a second negation even when it didn't mean anything; using only ne is pretty common in books from the nineteenth century as far as I know, so I figured the pas was eventually inserted because people were so used to double negatives, and now people just think of ne and pas or any other combination as one negative in two parts because it's all compulsory. I don't deny this is how French grammarians interpret their language, but I simply chose to look at the language as compared to others, hence my odd descriptions.

How common is dropping the ne with things other than pas in colloquial speech nowadays, by the way? It seems like J'ai rien would be pretty easy to get without it, but do you hear things like J'ai qu'un peu d'argent as opposed to Je n'ai qu'un peu d'argent? Il y a personne as opposed to Il n'y a personne?

Forgive me if I'm derailing the thread too much, mods. You can lock this if it's unacceptable.


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## Lacuzon

crispyambulance said:


> but do you hear things like J'ai qu'un peu d'argent as opposed to Je n'ai qu'un peu d'argent? Il y a personne as opposed to Il n'y a personne?


Hi,

Yes, you can hear it too.


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## Mauricet

You surely hear _pas, jamais, personne, rien, jamais rien_ (and the like) without _ne_, but it is still informal. The neutral form is with _ne_.


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## crispyambulance

All right, thanks muchly both of you.  Pretty funny how French has moved back to single negatives in some cases using my logic!


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## Freddajo

Mauricet said:


> You surely hear _pas, jamais, personne, rien, jamais rien_ (and the like) without _ne_, but it is still informal. The neutral form is with _ne_.



It is actually not quite true for _jamais_

_C'est le meilleur repas que j'aie__ jamais mangé_ ==> there's no negation in that sentence...


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## crispyambulance

I want to translate that sentence as...

That's the best meal I've never eaten.

More or less anyway as it could be interpreted a few ways.

How's that jamais not negation? Is it idiomatic?


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## itka

"jamais" in a positive sentence means "ever", in a negative sentence : "never".
_C'est le meilleur repas que j'aie jamais mangé --> That's the best meal I've ever eaten._


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## crispyambulance

Well, I'm a little embarassed.

Is it possible for a jamais without the ne to be negative as well, though?  I suppose the poster above who mentioned jamais as being usable without ne might have been referring to this sense, however.  I'd just like some clarification.


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## Freddajo

Well, you can find jamais whithout ne in the spoken language (I mean, with a negative sense).

But don't worry, jamais with a positive sense is very rare...

Am I understood ?


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## crispyambulance

Loud and clear. Thanks muchly.


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## Gez

Another possibility: "Je n'ai jamais aucune chose à écrire."

The thing to keep in mind is that technically, the true negative word is "ne" -- all others (pas, plus, aucun, jamais, etc.) are merely quantifiers which explain the negation, but do not duplicate it. Jamais originally had a positive meaning. English does the same thing, too: "Never ever do this!"


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## Mauricet

Je crois devoir corriger l'excellent exemple donné par Freddajo de _jamais_ sans _ne_, au sens positif de_ ever_. Il faut un subjonctif dans la subordonnée : _C'est le meilleur repas que j'*aie* jamais mangé_.


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## itka

Mauricet said:


> Je crois devoir corriger l'excellent exemple donné par Freddajo de _jamais_ sans _ne_, au sens positif de_ ever_. Il faut un subjonctif dans la subordonnée : _C'est le meilleur repas que j'*aie* jamais mangé_.


Tu as raison ! J'ai fait un copié-collé sans m'en rendre compte ! Je vais vite corriger...


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