# FR: Ce n'est pas de l'eau, ni du vin, mais de la bière



## mdjackessex

Salut, je fais du travail sur des articles et des preposition mais il y a un truc qui m'a fais dû mal! 

Ce n'est pas de l'eau, ni du vin mais de la bière

Dans cette phrase ici, on voit l'utilisation des articles partitifs mais comme 'ni du vin' ou 'ni de+le vin' mais je sais pas pourquoi, même que le nom d' 'eau' est masculin dans l'exemple 'Ce n'est pas de l'eau', il garde ce qu'il a l'air feminin. 

Merci à l'avance,

Matthew


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## ufoseeker

I don't know if this answer is what you need, but we don't say "le eau" because the word "eau" begins on one of this letters a,e,i,o,u, so we use in french  l'  before such words


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## mdjackessex

Alors, ça c'est claire, mais quand la forme 'de l'eau' est utilisée pourquoi pas dit, tout simplement, d'eau qui viens de 'de+le = du eau' et aprés, donc, 'd'eau', si on enlève l'U?


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## ufoseeker

Yes, you are right, I had never thought about that before. For example, you will say :"Ce liquide est composé d'eau" but you will say too "Il y a de l'eau dans ce liquide"...very strange, I don't know what to answer you


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## Matcauthon

je pense que les deux sont utiliser, (d'eau et de l'eau) dépendant sur qui parle.

un français peut-être pour le clarifier?


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## wildan1

DE LA bière--OK as is ("some beer" or just "beer")
DE LA eau--> is shortened to DE L' *A* eau--de l'eau ("some water" or just "water")


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## Matcauthon

wildan1 said:


> DE LA bière--OK as is ("some beer" or just "beer")
> DE LA eau--> is shortened to DE L' *A* eau--de l'eau ("some water" or just "water")



http://www.wordreference.com/enfr/water

t'as raison, regarde le lien hypertexte et vous trouvez que verre d'eau est masculine, mais l'eau est feminine.


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## DearPrudence

Matcauthon said:


> [...]l'eau est feminine.


Let's note that when a word begins with a vowel it's great because you don't have to think about the gender of the noun:
*" l'arrosoir "
" l'abricot "
" l'orange "
" l'échelle "*

Some are feminine, some masculine but it doesn't matter, it's always "* l'* ".

So to answer your question, I would just say that consider that the article & the noun, in this case, are stuck together & you can't "merge" the previous "de" with the article.
You can only merge "de" + "le" => "du"
but not "de" + " l'" which remain like this, no matter what.



ufoseeker said:


> Yes, you are right, I had never thought about that before. For example, you will say :"Ce liquide est composé d'eau" but you will say too "Il y a de l'eau dans ce liquide"...very strange, I don't know what to answer you


It's a different & more complex matter.
With another noun, you would have had:
*"Ce liquide est composé de vin"*, not "du vin" ("de le vin")
*"This liquid is composed of Ø wine"*, not "of the wine"
Similarly, you would say
*"Ce liquide est composé d'eau" *(" d' " instead of "de" because the noun begins with a vowel)
& not 
*"Ce liquide est composé de l'eau"* (" de la eau")

But I must say it's a bit too complex for me 

I hope it's not too unclear.


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## Matcauthon

You're saying the original posters sentence should be " Ce n'est pas d'eau, ni de vin mais de bière"

If that's what you're saying I understand you, otherwise I don't. (regarding the second part you've started on)


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## DearPrudence

Yeah, I know. It's a shame that this forer@ introduced that omission or not of the article 
It's very complex & I don't want to talk about it, all the more as it doesn't answer the original poster's question!!

He was asking why we didn't say "*Ce n'est que du eau*" but did say "*C'est de l'eau"*.

The answer is very simple.
*"de + le" => "du"
"de + la" = "de la"
"de + l' " = "de l' " *(you don't even need to know if "* l' *" stands for "le" ou "la", it simply doesn't matter at all!!)
There is simply no contraction.

In the example of "Le liquide est composé d'eau/de vin", the article "le/l' " is omitted, so it has absolutely nothing to do here! Just forget it for the moment.


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## jann

There is one more piece to this picture.

We anglophones learn that _du, de la, de l'_ and often _des_ all become _de_ or _d'_ in the negative.  
eg. 
_J'ai du vin --> Je n'ai pas de vin._ / I have some wine --> I don't have any wine.
_J'ai de l'eau --> Je n'ai pas d'eau.
J'ai de la bière --> Je n'ai pas de bière._

What our instructors usually forget to tell us is that this rule *does not apply when you are identifying something* with the verb _être_:
eg.
_C'est du vin --> Ce n'est pas du vin._ / It is (some) wine. --> It is not wine.
_C'est de l'eau --> Ce n'est pas de l'eau.
C'est de la bière --> Ce n'est pas de la bière._

Remember that _ni_ is a negation... so the sentence says "It's not water, nor wine, but beer."  Clearly, we are using être to identify this substance, so we cannot replace the partitive with _de_.

_Ce n'est pas d'eau, ni de vin, mais de la bière. 
Ce n'est pas de l'eau, ni du vin, mais de la bière. _

Mdjackessex, if you're still confused, maybe this article will help, and then you could try to help us undersand your question a bit better.


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## geostan

The reduction of a partitive after a negative does not apply to the verb etre because it is not a question of absence, but of identification. When one says:

Je n'ai pas d'argent. We show an absence of money.
But when we say Ce n'est pas de l'eau, there is no absence; there is something there; it's simply not water.


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## Thomas1

I think I might have noted some paralels:





jann said:


> There is one more piece to this picture.
> 
> We anglophones learn that _du, de la, de l'_ and often _des_ all become _de_ or _d'_ in the negative.
> eg.
> _J'ai du vin --> Je n'ai pas de vin._ / I have some wine --> I don't have any wine.
> _J'ai de l'eau --> Je n'ai pas d'eau._
> _J'ai de la bière --> Je n'ai pas de bière._


The partitive in the informative sentences would be likely to be translated as _some_ (although, in many cases it is omitted). Whereas in negative sentences when it becomes _de_ it is translated as _any_ (see also below)_._



jann said:


> What our instructors usually forget to tell us is that this rule *does not apply when you are identifying something* with the verb _être_:
> eg.
> _C'est du vin --> Ce n'est pas du vin._ / It is (some) wine. --> It is not wine.
> _C'est de l'eau --> Ce n'est pas de l'eau._
> _C'est de la bière --> Ce n'est pas de la bière._
> 
> Remember that _ni_ is a negation... so the sentence says "It's not water, nor wine, but beer." Clearly, we are using être to identify this substance, so we cannot replace the partitive with _de_.
> 
> _Ce n'est pas d'eau, ni de vin, mais de la bière. _
> _Ce n'est pas de l'eau, ni du vin, mais de la bière. _
> [...]


 



			
				geostan said:
			
		

> The reduction of a partitive after a negative does not apply to the verb etre because it is not a question of absence, but of identification. When one says:
> 
> Je n'ai pas d'argent. We show an absence of money.
> But when we say Ce n'est pas de l'eau, there is no absence; there is something there; it's simply not water.


The rule is that the partitive article doesn't become de in the construction C'est/Ce sont. I see another parallel:
_C'est de la bière --> Ce n'est pas de la bière._
This is beer. --> This is not beer.
Ce sont des pommes de terre. --> Ce ne sont pas des pommes de terre.
These are potatos. --> These aren't potatos.
So, here we have the partitive article in both French sentences and its equivalent in the English ones, that's to say its absence. 
du/de la/d'/des = ø (very often, but not always).

Using _être_ to point out the absence of something we need another construciton, for instance:
_Il n'y a pas de_
_Il y a *du *vin. There's (some) wine._
but 
_Il n'y a pas *de* vin. There's *no* wine._

I hope I didn't make any mistake in what I've just written. 

Tom


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## geostan

Thomas1 said:


> So, here we have the partitive article in both French sentences and its equivalent in the English ones, that's to say its absence.
> du/de la/d'/des = ø (very often, but not always).
> 
> Tom



If you are saying that in Ce n'est pas de la bière, there is an absence of beer, that is true. However, that was not my point. The difference between the example with etre and the one with "il y a," is that with the latter, there is an absence, period! With être, there is no real absence, since there is something there. It merely needs to be correctly idenitified. So my original analysis stands: with être, there is no real absence, merely misidentification.


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## dicomec

Ce n'est ni eau, ni vin, mais de la bière. Je crois que c'est ça ce que vous voulez dire.


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## Thomas1

geostan said:


> If you are saying that in Ce n'est pas de la bière, there is an absence of beer, that is true. However, that was not my point. The difference between the example with etre and the one with "il y a," is that with the latter, there is an absence, period! With être, there is no real absence, since there is something there. It merely needs to be correctly idenitified. So my original analysis stands: with être, there is no real absence, merely misidentification.


Yes, did I say something contrary to that?
My point is that in English we have (in many cases) absence of the equivalent of the French partitive article :
Ce sont des pommes de terre. --> Ce ne sont pas des pommes de terre.
These are ø potatos. --> These aren't ø potatos.
So, here we have the partitive article in both French sentences and its equivalent (i.e. the equivalent of French partitive) in the English ones, that's to say its absence. 
du/de la/d'/des = ø (very often, but not always).


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