# FR: de beaux enfants, de vieux livres - "de" partitif ?



## Thomas Tompion

roymail said:


> [...]_ De _is not partitive in _Tu as de beaux vêtements_


You sound very sure, roymail, but I'd like:

1. to know what you think it is.

2. to say that you seem to disagree with Littré on the point.



> de partitif, suivi ou non de l’article défini.
> 
> Pris partitivement, il faut, quand un adjective précède, dire en général de et non des: de bons vins, de bonnes gens. Mais on pourra se servir de des, quand le mot, en raison de l’usage, peut être considéré comme ne formant qu’un seul mot avec son adjectif : des jeunes gens, des jeunes hommes.
> On reviendra à de, si on met devant l’adjectif un mot qui le modifie : de tout jeunes gens.



I think it was only the singular form - something like il a de bon vin - which people said sounded strange.

*Moderator note:* This question was split from this thread.


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## roymail

En tout cas _il a de bon vin_ est carrément fautif. Il faut dire : _il a *un* bon vin _ou_ il a *du *bon vin (Du_ est partitif _= de le)_
Le reste est un peu une querelle de mots, car, dans les deux cas, le pluriel est *des. (*)*

Grevisse, p.295 de la 10e éd. :
Il classe _des _parmi les partitifs, mais il ajoute :
"On ajoutera, qu'au point de vue de la signification, _des _n'est presque jamais un véritable article partitif, mais doit être regardé, à peu près dans tous les cas, comme le pluriel de l'indéfini _un_ (...) Le vrai singulier de _j'ai mangé des pommes _est_ j'ai mangé une pomme_"...
Puis, il se justifie d'avoir classé _des_ parmi les partitifs, en disant, en gros, la même chose que moi _supra (*)_.
On dirait que Grevisse n'a pas osé contredire Littré en rayant _des_ de la liste des partitifs, mais qu'il n'est pas très d'accord quand même !

Dans tous les cas aussi, _des_ devient _de_ en langue écrite (plus rarement en langue parlée) si un adjectif précède le nom.


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## Thomas Tompion

So in your view the de in _Tu as de beaux vêtements_ is the indefinite article?


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## roymail

That's my point of view !

Tu as de beaux enfants : Two parts of child ?


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## Thomas Tompion

I don't know how one would say that in English, never, happily, having come across the need to use it: two part-children?

Or perhaps Two parts of children means what I think the police would call now something like two body-parts from children, to imply that the parts came from different children.

I wonder which you meant? and how does the French make either of these grisly suggestions?


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## roymail

I just wanted to show that it makes no sense to talk about _de partitif _in _tu as de beaux enfants !_
If I was not clear, forget it !


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## Thomas Tompion

But couldn't they be some of (part of) the group of beautiful children?  I don't see a problem in the plural; there's no question of subdividing individual children, as you seem to suggest, and, in the singular, for countable things like children, I think we are agreed that we use the indefinite article.


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## marget

De beaux enfants is not a part of an indivisible (non-count) group/whole as flour, sugar and milk might be. Each would be considered a count noun.   Un bel enfant...de beaux enfants. That's how I see it.


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## Thomas Tompion

No, of course not.  But suppose there are 20 beautiful children.  5 of them are part of the group - some (not all) beautiful children.  You can have part of the group, without any need for subdividing children, for having part-children, which was what I understood to be suggested.  

In contrast if you have part of one child, some sort of grisly sub-division is implied.  That was why I pointed out that the singular of de belles cerises is une belle cerise.  I don't think anyone is suggesting that the une is a partitive.


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## roymail

marget said:


> De beaux enfants is not a part of an indivisible (non-count) group/whole as flour, sugar and milk might be. Each would be considered a count noun. Un bel enfant...de beaux enfants. That's how I see it.



That's exactly what I wanted to say, but you said it better !



Thomas Tompion said:


> I pointed out that the singular of de belles cerises is une belle cerise. I don't think anyone is suggesting that the une is a partitive.



No, but Littré (and you with him) did say it for the plural :
*"de partitif*, suivi ou non de l’article défini.
Pris *partitivement*, il faut, quand un adjective précède, dire en général _de_ et non _des_: _de bons vins, de bonnes gens_. Mais on pourra se servir de _des_, ..."


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## Thomas Tompion

Sure. De beaux enfants means some not all beautiful children.  For me the de is a partitive.

Do you think that the fact that in the singular it would be un bel enfant makes that an untenable view?


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## Punky Zoé

I may mistake, but if you just say "_de beaux enfants" _it is impossible to characterise  "de" as _partitif or indéfini, _only the context would enable it.


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## roymail

Thomas Tompion said:


> No, of course not. But suppose there are 20 beautiful children. 5 of them are part of the group - some (not all) beautiful children. You can have part of the group, without any need for subdividing children, for having part-children, which was what I understood to be suggested.


 
Pas besoin de recourir au partitif pour ce genre de raisonnement.
Si je dis _vous avez deux beaux enfants _et que vous n'en avez que deux, le sous-entendu ne sera pas le même que si vous en avez quatre !
Pourtant, il n'y a, à coup sûr, aucun partitif dans cette phrase.

Pour le reste, Punky Zoé, veuillez relire la discussion qui précède. Si je vous réponds, on va redire sans fin ce qui a été dit !
Voyez notamment la réponse de Marget : 
De beaux enfants is not a part of an indivisible (non-count) group/whole as flour, sugar and milk might be. Each would be considered a count noun. Un bel enfant...de beaux enfants. That's how I see it.
Je suis de son avis !


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## Thomas Tompion

Punky Zoé said:


> I may mistake, but if you just say "_de beaux enfants" _it is impossible to characterise "de" as _partitif or indéfini, _only the context would enable it.


Great, Punky Zoé.  Thank you very much.  Could you possibly give a context for each use to explain the difference?



roymail said:


> Pas besoin de recourir au partitif pour ce genre de raisonnement.
> Si je dis _vous avez deux beaux enfants _et que vous n'en avez que deux, le sous-entendu ne sera pas le même que si vous en avez quatre !
> Pourtant, il n'y a, à coup sûr, aucun partitif dans cette phrase.


Thank you. I understand you to be saying this: if you say vous avez de beaux enfants, the children we are considering must be yours, and they are all beautiful. That would translate into BE as either You have beautiful children or You have some beautiful children.

In reply I'd say this: if, as might be the case, you had some children who were beautiful, and some who were ugly - we can put considerations of politeness aside; we may be speaking of the keeper of an orphans' home - then vouz avez de beaux enfants means that some of the children that you have are beautiful. That would translate into BE as You have some beautiful children. Perhaps you would grant that de as partitive, perhaps not.


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## roymail

Parents always think their children are the most beautyfull on earth !
If you say _vous avez de beaux enfants_, they'll understand "he's talking about *all *our children".
But, in french, if you want to avoid any misunderstanding, say _vous avez x beaux enfants _(x = the number of children they have) !
It's impossible, in french, to make the difference if you simply say _vous avez de beaux enfants. de_ is not a partitive here. The partitive sense can result *of the context*. In English, it's possible (with/without _some_).


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## Thomas Tompion

Fine. So you admit there may be a partitive sense for de? For a while I thought you didn't think there could be.

It occurs to me that there's a question about of what group we may be considering a part.

When we say you've got some children, clearly you don't have all the children in the world: you've got a part of that enormous group.

When we say you've got some beautiful children we're considering the children that you have, and here you, Roymail, intrude considerations of politeness, properly perhaps: one wouldn't say vous avez de beaux enfants to imply that some of the person's children didn't come into this category. Here all the children in the group ("your children") are beautiful.

I'm wondering if there's a way in French of distinguishing between some of the group of children, and between some of the group of beautiful children. We could surely show that we were only considering some of the person's beautiful children with a relative: Vous avez de beaux enfants qui sont gauchers.  You've got some beautiful children who are left-handed.  That leaves out the beautiful ones who are right-handed.

In a general way, Some beautiful children are left-handed would be Quelques beaux enfants sont gauchers wouldn't it? One really couldn't translate it as De beaux enfants sont gauchers?

What, if anything, could De beaux enfants sont gauchers possibly mean? Surely the proposterous assertion Beautiful children are left-handed would be Les beaux enfants sont gauchers?


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## CapnPrep

[…]

And in this new thread, I would suggest trying to find a common definition for "partitive", because it appears that the discussion is currently based on a rather vague notion that allows everyone to say almost whatever they want. In fact, partitive and indefinite interpretations are similar and interdependent, so asking whether this or that use of "de" is partitive or indefinite often makes little sense and will only lead to endless debate.


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## Conchúr

As far as I'm aware, the "de" in expressions such as "de beaux enfants" in the indefinite article.

"de beaux enfants" = "des enfants qui sont beaux"
Ca me plairait d'avoir de beaux enfants = Ca me plairait d'avoir quelques beaux enfants.
Il y a de beaux enfants dans la rue = Il y a des enfants dans la rue, et qu'ils sont beaux !


It would only be partitive in expressions such as "beaucoup de" :

"Il y avait beaucoup de beaux enfants (beaucoup d'enfants) au cinéma"
"


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## roymail

Je voulais l'éviter, mais vous me poussez à faire un peu de théorie structuraliste.
Pardonnez-moi, mais mon anglais est trop pauvre pour le faire dans votre langue. J'espère que ce ne sera pas un obstacle.
J'ai mis en *gras *les termes techniques chers aux structuralistes.
Bon courage !

Les grammairiens structuralistes considèrent qu’une distinction n’est *pertinente* que si on peut *opposer* deux possibilités dans une même structure ou deux structures voisines.
Exemple : on ne peut pas *opposer* _une table_ à _un table._ Il n’est donc pas *pertinent *d’établir une distinction grammaticale entre le féminin et le masculin dans ce cas.
*Un* sein désigne rarement quelque chose de typiquement masculin et *une *verge (au sens anatomique) quelque chose de particulièrement féminin. 
Le féminin de _table_ est *démotivé, *c'est-à-dire qu'il est devenu une habitude de langage imposée par l’histoire de la langue, mais qui a perdu tout sens réel.
Par contre, si je parle d'une enfant, par *opposition* à un enfant, le genre de l'article prend tout son sens.
Ces grammairiens diront donc : Le genre grammatical de l'article (pour ne parler que de lui) est *apte à* indiquer le genre (sexuel) de l'objet / de la personne / de l'animal, mais cette aptitude ne se réalise que si on peut *opposer* deux possiblités qui entraînent un changement de sens, même léger.

Revenons à _des_ ou _de_ (au sens pluriel) 

En anglais : _You’ve got some beautiful children_ peut être *opposé* à_ You’ve got beautiful children. _Il est *pertinent* de distinguer les deux sens.
En français, _Vous avez de(s) beaux enfants_ n’est opposable à rien du tout. Il n’est donc pas pertinent d’établir une distinctions entre un _de(s)_ partitif, un _de(s)_ indéfini ou tout autre _de(s)_ imaginable. Donc, _Vous avez de(s) beaux enfants _se traduira *indistinctement* par : _You’ve got some beautiful children_ ou_ You’ve got beautiful children. _Bien sûr, le français peut faire la distinction, mais par d’autres moyens, par exemple _Certains de vos enfants sont beaux_.

Les structuralistes diraient ici que les distinctions entre les _des_ tirés de différentes phrases résultent du *contexte* et non du *texte.* Ils parlent alors *d'effet de sens.*
La grammaire ne doit pas être construite sur les effets de sens, mais sur les *structures*.
Sans cela, on risque de créer des catégories non pertinentes sur base d'effets de sens :
_J'aime mon père : complément d'amour !!!_
_Je prendrai le train pour Paris : futur ferroviaire !!!_
_(copyright pour ces exemples : professeur_ _M. Lavency)_

Donc, vouloir distinguer un _des _partitif d’un _des_ indéfini n’a pas de sens (pas d’opposition possible). 
Or, le _des_ indéfini existe (opposition indéfini/défini : un enfant est venu / l’enfant est venu. – des enfants sont venus / les enfants sont venus). Donc la notion de _des_ partitif n’est pas pertinente.
Par contre, au singulier, ça marche : oppositions _je mange le chocolat / je mange du chocolat / je mange un chocolat._

Evidemment, cette vision structuraliste s’oppose parfois à la vision ancienne, traditionnelle d’un Littré ou, dans une moindre mesure d’un Grévisse, qui a le mérite, aux yeux des structuralistes, de partir de l’*usage* de la langue. Mais c’est là un autre volet du structuralisme sur lequel je ne m’étendrai pas ici.
Je vous ai sans doute assez fatigué comme ça !


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## Thomas Tompion

Roymail, I'm most grateful to you for your explanation.  And I think we work much better when we write our own native languages.

My first reaction - and unfortunately I haven't time this evening to give more than that, so I won't do justice to your post immediately - is to say that your structuralists have redefined the partitive to mean something other than the article which indicates that we are dealing with part of a group, rather than the whole group.

Then I say to myself: there is surely opposition between Les livres and Des livres (?), then why not between De vieux livres and Les vieux livres? and so why not between J'ai vu de vieux livres and J'ai vu les vieux livres?  I saw *some* old books versus I saw the *old *books.

You can see where my argument is going.  The meanings are distinct, so we have opposition; the distinction is, therefore, important and we need words to describe it.  I understood those words to be partitive/indefinite.  Where have I gone wrong?


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## roymail

Thomas Tompion said:


> My first reaction - and unfortunately I haven't time this evening to give more than that, so I won't do justice to your post immediately - is to say that your structuralists have redefined the partitive to mean something other than the article which indicates that we are dealing with part of a group, rather than the whole group.


Non, ils disent qu'en français _des_ (donc au pluriel) est incapable de faire une distinction indéfini / partitif, alors que _some/rien du tout_ fait cette distinction en anglais.



> Then I say to myself: there is surely opposition between Les livres and Des livres (?), then why not between De vieux livres and Les vieux livres? and so why not between J'ai vu de vieux livres and J'ai vu les vieux livres? I saw *some* old books versus I saw the *old *books.


Il y a bien une opposition entre _j'ai vu les vieux livres_ (= tous les livres dont on parle) et _J'ai vu des vieux livres_ (= quelques vieux livres, certains vieux livres). C'est l'opposition article défini / article indéfini.
_J'ai vu des vieux livres / de vieux livres_ : *le sens est exactement le même*, mais il y a une opposition de *style* (+- langage parlé / langage écrit)
Mais au niveau du sens, l'opposition _de vieux livres / les vieux livres_ est la même que _des vieux livres / les vieux livres._
Pas besoin d'introduire une notion de partitif, il n'y a pas d'autre possibilité.

Au singulier_, j'ai lu le vieux livre / j'ai lu un vieux livre : _opposition défini / indéfini.
On dira rarement _J'ai lu du bon livre_ (partitif), parce qu'en principe le livre n'est pas une matière incomptable, mais on pourrait dire tout de même : _ça, c'est du bon livre !_ comme on dit : _ça, c'est du bon cinéma !_ On ne dit pas souvent cela, mais ce serait très possible, parfaitement compréhensible et un peu humoristique.
Donc, *au singulier*, il existe un partitif, utilisé normalement avec des noms de matière, comme le chocolat cité auparavant.


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## Thomas Tompion

> Non, ils disent qu'en français _des_ (donc au pluriel) est incapable de faire une distinction indéfini / partitif, alors que _some/rien du tout_ fait cette distinction en anglais.


In English the distinction between some and none - some old books and no old books - is mirrored by the distinction between de vieux livres and pas de vieux livres.



> Il y a bien une opposition entre _j'ai vu les vieux livres_ (= tous les livres dont on parle) et _J'ai vu des vieux livres_ (= quelques vieux livres, certains vieux livres). C'est l'opposition article défini / article indéfini.
> _J'ai vu des vieux livres / de vieux livres_ : *le sens est exactement le même*, mais il y a une opposition de *style* (+- langage parlé / langage écrit)
> Mais au niveau du sens, l'opposition _de vieux livres / les vieux livres_ est la même que _des vieux livres / les vieux livres._


We agree about this.



> Pas besoin d'introduire une notion de partitif, il n'y a pas d'autre possibilité.


But de vieux livres means some old books. Where's the difference in English which allows us to have a plural partitive but not the French? Some old books means part of the class of things that are old books.



> Au singulier_, j'ai lu le vieux livre / j'ai lu un vieux livre : _opposition défini / indéfini.
> On dira rarement _J'ai lu du bon livre_ (partitif), parce qu'en principe le livre n'est pas une matière incomptable, mais on pourrait dire tout de même : _ça, c'est du bon livre !_ comme on dit : _ça, c'est du bon cinéma !_ On ne dit pas souvent cela, mais ce serait très possible, parfaitement compréhensible et un peu humoristique.
> Donc, *au singulier*, il existe un partitif, utilisé normalement avec des noms de matière, comme le chocolat cité auparavant.


Let's see if I've understood what you are saying:
1. In English there's a partitive in both singular and plural.
2. In French there's a partitive in the singular
indefinite - un cinéma
definite - le cinéma
partitive - du cinéma
3. In French there's no partitive in the plural just:
indefinite - de vieux livres
definite - les vieux livres

If I've got you right the most immediately puzzling thing about this to me is what in English this third possibility as well as some books (part of the group of books) and the books, might be (?). There are other puzzling things, but let's make a modest beginning with that.


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## roymail

Bonjour

Je suis d'accord avec vous sur tout sauf :
"But de vieux livres means some old books." OR old books.

Il y a 3 possibilités en anglais : I've got some old books / I've got old books / the old books.
Mais deux seulement en français : de(s) vieux livres / les vieux livres, puisque _de_ et _des_, c'est la même chose au niveau du sens.


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## Thomas Tompion

Hello Roymail,

It's good to be in touch again.

That's very interesting.

So all hinges on the difference in English between I've got old books and I've got some old books.

I've got old books doesn't mean necessarily that all the books I have are old. I've got old books and I've got new books is a perfectly possible thing to say. It's not like I've got beautiful children in that respect. I wonder if that makes a difference.

It can, just, at a pinch, mean that all the books I own are old, and I suspect (am I right?) that this is the third meaning you are pointing to.

The other thing that strikes me is that if the English has three meanings, then I don't doubt they can be expressed in French too. Isn't the problem that the French use the same verbal formula to express two of the three different meanings, and distinguish between the two by such means as adverbial phrases? If this is the case, and de vieux livres does service for both meanings, I'd more naturally say that the de can be either the partitive or the indefinite, rather than that it cannot ever be the partitive.


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## CapnPrep

The most natural reading of "I've got some old books" is indefinite (= « J'ai quelques/des vieux livres. »), not partitive. Whether or not I also have books that are not old is irrelevant here. The relation of partitivity is established between the set of old books that I have and the set of all old books (old books that I have + old books that I don't have). In this case (for unstressed "some" and "quelques"), I am not emphasizing the fact that I only own a subset of all the old books in the world (even if this is very likely to be the case).

If we consider a case where "some" in English is definitely partitive, the contrast with "des" becomes clearer. "I like _some_ French films", with stressed "some", definitely means that the French films that I like are a subset of the French films that exist. (Again, any films that are not French are simply irrelevant.) In French, "J'aime des films français" sounds a little bit strange, because this is a context where you would normally emphasize the partitivity ("J'aime certains films français.") or the non-partitivity (« J'aime (tous) les films français. »).

Thomas, your examples also make the same point. "_Some_ children are left-handed" is partitive: "some" has to be stressed, and this cannot be translated as « Des enfants sont gauchers. » but as « Certains enfants sont gauchers. » On the other hand, "Some clients came to see you this morning", with unstressed "some", is indefinite, and we can translate it with "des": « Des clients sont passés vous voir ce matin. »


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## Wyn

Bonjour à tous,
If one wants to be accurate in terminology, then this "des" and "de" are NOT the PARTITIVE, strictly speaking ! In French the partitive is used ONLY with things you cannot count such as cheese, bread, courage, patience etc. and is obviously (since it means part of) (almost) always in the singular. 
e.g. - du fromage, du pain, du courage, de la patience which mean SOME in the sense of "a certain unspecified QUANITY of something”, but which is usually omitted in English. 
Did you buy cheese ? Avez-vous acheté du fromage
One needs patience. On a besoin de patience ( since avoir besoin de + de la patience = de patience – (another contraction similar to the one mentioned de beaux yeux)

For things which one CAN COUNT, such as apples, eyes, people, books etc des yeux, des pommes des gens, des livres -- the DES is NOT the partitive ( it doesn’t mean part of as one would with cheese etc) but IS the plural of UN or UNE, that is the plural of the indefinite article.
Un garçon, des garçons
Une table, des tables
It is NOT the partitive 
and it means SOME meaning a certain unspecified NUMBER of things (NOT QUANTITY). In fact the partitive ( which means a part of) does not appear in the plural and in normal circumstances has NO plural. There are however some rare cases where the plural is required, since a language is rarely logical

The French for spinach ( in the culinary sense) is "des épinards" which only exists in the plural. In the culinary sense, it does not exist in the singular and clearly is NOT countable, so one has to write des épinards where DES is indeed the partitive plural - this is quite reare. 
O.K., it makes no difference in French whether one knows that “des” is the plural of the indefinite article and that one calls it incorrectly the partitive but the standard of the English language is becoming poorer, in my opinion, when people fail to distinguish between countable things and non countables. Announcers on TV -The amount of people - instead of the number of people, amount is a quantity –( the amount of cheese yes) In golf commentary one hears - There are less holes left - instead of there are fewer holes left. Less goals were scored this year – Fewer goals were scored this year.
It does annoy me somewhat that the media which has such an influence on language is lowering the standard of language in general.
Cordialement
Wyn


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