# FR: Qui ne dit mot consent



## Welshie

Surely "Qui ne dit *aucun* mot consent"?

or even: "Qui ne dit pas un mot consent".

Where's the rest of the negative?

As far as I know "ne...mot" is not a negative form ?

Help please


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## Jean-Michel Carrère

What is your question, Welshie ? The wording of the French saying "qui ne dit mot consent" is correct. This saying means that not voicing your objections (to a plan, an idea) implicitly means approving it. The saying is often used to blame someone who objects to a plan or idea a posteriori while he or she didn't object when the plan or idea was first proposed or put forward.


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## OlivierG

Proverbs are often not written in modern language.
Here, "aucun" is implied. It's an outdated way of speaking.


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## Sev

No the proverb is "Qui ne dit mot consent". I guess it's because it is a set phrase.

There are some verbs you can  use without "ne" but dire is not amongst them.


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## Welshie

I understand what it means, what I mean is why is there no "pas" or "aucun" in the phrase to signify anyone who does NOT say a word?

If I had been asked to write that phrase I would have said:

"Qui ne dit *aucun/pas un* mot consent"

Why is it like this?

EDIT:

I am too slow 

Thanks guys.


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## Aupick

There is no 'pas' or 'aucun' because the other half of the negative in this sentence is... 'mot'! If you read Old French texts you discover that negatives were formed by just using 'ne' with a verb. Nothing else was necessary. Sometimes, however you could add other words to go with it to reinforce the negative:
Il ne souffla _mot_ = he didn't utter a _word_
Il n'avança _pas_ = he didn't move forward a _step_
Je ne crois _point_ ceci = I don't believe one _iota_
Je ne vis _personne_ = I didn't see a single _person_

Some of these got stuck as set phrases, 'pas' above all, which lost its assocation with movement and came to be used with all negatives. Others more or less dropped out, except in formal or archaic expressions. Funnily enough, today it is the 'ne' that gets dropped and the 'pas' is left to bear the burden of making a sentence negative.


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## cram1993

Hi Welshie,
My mother tongue is French to begin with, so I can perfectly explain why. The reason why there's no "pas/aucun" is that in French you don't require a complete pair of "ne...pas" to make a negation. You could say: "Je n'ai pu y aller" or "Je n'ai pas pu y aller" which both means "I couldn't go there."
French was made so that you don't require it. There's no exact reason why it is like that, but it doesn't always work either. Most of the time authors use this way of writing to give there text a higher level of writing.
Hope my answer helped,
See you !


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## Keith Bradford

cram1993 said:
			
		

> in French you don't require a complete pair of "ne...pas" to make a negation. You could say: "Je n'ai pu y aller" or "Je n'ai pas pu y aller"


Not quite, Cram, because _pouvoir _is a special case.

In Mediaeval French, there were many possible second halves of the expression _ne... xxx_ such as:

Ne... pas = not a step
Ne... point = not a jot
Ne... personne = not a person, nobody
Ne... mot = not a word
Ne... goutte = not a drop
Ne... rien (from the Latin _rem_) = not a thing
Ne... mie = not a crumb
Ne... mais (from the Latin _magis_) = no more
Etc. etc.

Not all of these have survived, and some only in proverbial expressions.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, Welshie.

There are quite a few rules governing the structure of negation in French. The discontinuous pattern "ne...pas" is the norm, but there are special cases where "pas" is omitted:
"Je ne saurais te pardonner" is one.
Besides, you can find "minimal pairs" of sentences in which the presence/absence of "pas" is responsible for different meanings:
1. Il ne peut pas parler de ça" vs. "Il ne peut Ø parler de ça"
2. Elle n'ose pas lui parler" vs. "Elle n'ose pas lui parler".

All the best.

GS


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## jann

Please let me refer you to two rather comprehensive threads on the general topic:

FR: "ne" without "pas" - "ne" explétif et "ne" littéraire
FR: savoir, pouvoir, oser, cesser - "ne" without "pas" in negative


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## Aoyama

KB is very right.
Those negations are a wee bit more recent than mediaeval, they date from the Renaissance, when French grammar became codified.
Each negation was originally linked to a given verb :
Ne... pas = not a step
Ne... point = not a jot
Ne... personne = not a person, nobody
Ne... mot = not a word
Ne... goutte = not a drop
Ne... rien (from the Latin _rem_) = not a thing
Ne... mie = not a crumb
Ne... mais (from the Latin _magis_) = no more


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## Keith Bradford

Aoyama said:


> ...Those negations are a wee bit more recent than mediaeval, they date from the Renaissance, when French grammar became codified...



My authority (Alfred Ewart, _The French Language_, Faber 1966) says that "originally _ne _was used without an accompanying particle, but very early it began to be strengthened by the addition of a substantive or an adverb" (my emphasis). The examples he gives are all from Low Latin or German, so I guess he means the Early Middle Ages, around 600-1000 AD. 

He then goes on to say that _pas _and _point _had become accepted as the usual complements to _ne _by the 15th century, though _goutte _and _mie _were still in use in the 17th.

Some are in occasional use even today of course; did you know that _je n'y vois goutte _was originally copied from _je ne *b*ois goutte - I don't drink a drop _ ?


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## Aoyama

> did you know that _je n'y vois goutte _was originally copied from _je ne *b*ois goutte - I don't drink a drop_


Yes, I do, and I was about to post something about this, but the post was deleted (not by me), so I thought that comment must have been off-topic.
Your comment is citing part of the deleted post.

Those negations were originally used specifically for a given "daily life" verb and were in fact double negations (je ne marche pas = I don't walk [even] a step/pace etc). 
Likewise, an expression like "qui ne dit mot" = qui ne dit rien (qui ne dit pas un mot). See also post #9 that I had overlooked.
Ne... pas = not a step *marcher*
Ne... point = not a jot *voir 
*Ne... personne = not a person, nobody *etre/avoir* etc
Ne... mot = not a word *dire
*Ne... goutte = not a drop *boire *(later confused/mixed with* voir*)
Ne... rien (from the Latin _rem_) = not a thing all verbs
Ne... mie = not a crumb *manger
*Ne... mais (from the Latin _magis_) = no more *pouvoir*


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## CapnPrep

Keith Bradford said:


> Not quite, Cram, because _pouvoir _is a special case.


At the same time, cram1993 is right, in the sense that all verbs were like _pouvoir_ in earlier stages of French. As you and Aupick have both explained, in _ne dit mot_, the negation is expressed by _ne_ alone. _M__ot_ reinforces the negation, but its primary syntactic function is realizing the direct object of the verb _dit_. In other words, it corresponds more closely to _rien_ than to _pas_. It was never possible to say, for example, _Il ne dit *mot* son nom_ to mean something like _Il ne dit *pas/point* son nom._


Keith Bradford said:


> The examples he gives are all from Low Latin or German, so I guess he means the Early Middle Ages, around 600-1000 AD.


Not earlier than the 12th century for French.


Keith Bradford said:


> did you know that _je n'y vois goutte _was originally copied from _je ne *b*ois goutte - I don't drink a drop _ ?


I know that many people believe this, but there doesn't seem to be any good evidence for it. The usual assumption is that _ne boire goutte_ became _ne voir goutte_ because the verbs sound so similar, but in fact the verbs sounded completely different in Old French (_beivre_ vs. _vedeir_), except in the 3rd sing. pres. ind. (which is admittedly a frequent form). More problematically, according to Price (1990, 1997), there are no examples of _goutte_ used with _boire_ in any Old French texts. His alternative proposal is that _ne voir goutte_ is a variant of another attested expression, _ne voir larme_ (i.e. "I can't see the tears in my own eyes, it's so dark").


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## JeanDeSponde

_Goutte_ dans une négation a des origines très lointaines, remontant au latin qui employait abondamment, tout comme le vieux français, des substantifs de comparaison dans les négations.
Voir p. ex. cet article d'Alfred Schweighaeuser dans la revue de l'Ecole des Chartes (1852).
Ce brave Alfred indique que ce qui est maintenant considéré comme un adverbe dans la négation (_point, pas_) était (est) en fait un substantif de comparaison, et ce depuis le latin.
_Je n'ai goutte d'argent, je ne l'aime goutte, je n'y entends goutte_ etc.
Cela semble indiquer une origine plus vaste que la simple larme dans l'oeil : tous les substantifs indiquant une petite quantité ont été mis à contribution (_je n'en ai brin_).
Les (très nombreux et très anciens) exemples cité par A.S. sont passionnants à ce titre.


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## Nilak

Hello,

I'm sorry because I up this topic because first google's answer when i was searching "qui ne dit mot consent"! Thus all answers were wrong.

In french you have negative form:

"ne ... pas"
"ne ... jamais"
"ne ... rien"

"Qui ne dit mot consent" isn't a negative form but it's a restriction form. Restriction form is based on :

"Ne ... que" 

i.e:

"Je ne mange que des pommes" it's restriction form. (I only eat apples)
"Je ne mange pas autres choses que des pommes" it's negative form. (I don't eat other things than apples)

"Qui ne dit mot consent" uses a restriction form because only quiet people agree.

I hope my argument is clear because i'm not very good in english but my french is very good.

Best regards


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## Nicosito

"Ne dit mot" means "ne dit *pas un seul *mot" surely...so how is this anything but negative?

Nico.


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## jann

Bienvenu, Nilak.

Je ne vois pas du tout où vous voyez un "ne...*que*" dans "qui ne dit mot consent".  Il n'y a pas de "que" dans l'expression et ce n'est par ellipse, parce qu'on ne peut pas omettre le "que" de la réstriction "ne...que" sans en perdre le sens.

Je suis désolée de vous contredire, mais "qui ne dit mot consent" est bel et bien une négation héritée de l'ancien français, comme l'expliquent les réponses précédentes.


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## L'Inconnu

Nilak said:


> "Qui ne dit mot consent" uses a restriction form because only quiet people agree.



If 'mot' is used restrictively, than the translation becomes....

'Qui ne dit qu'un seul mot consent'

''Anything you say will be taken as acknowledgement of your consent.'' 

Or, in other words, if you don't agree, keep your mouth shut.


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## pointvirgule

Nilak said:


> "Qui ne dit mot consent" uses a restriction form because only quiet people agree.


Nenni, Nilak. Like Nicosito and jann already said, the clause _Qui ne dit mot_ is not a restriction but a negation, pure and simple. 

The English gist is, "He who doesn't utter a word is assumed to agree." An idiomatic translation would be, _Silence is tantamount to consent_. And for that very reason, well... I had to say something. 

@L'Inconnu: "if you don't agree, keep your mouth shut" is the diametrical opposite of the meaning.


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