diificult double negative construction

adrienne h.C1Kwiziq community member

diificult double negative construction

"Depuis que Catherine a changé de carrière il y a quatre ans, plus personne ne la reconnaît."  I understand this to mean "Ever since Catherine changed her career four years ago, no one recognizes her anymore."  I would never have known where to put that "plus!"  I might have thought "personne ne la reconnait plus."  Would that have been wrong if I had been constructing the sentence instead of doing it as a dictation?

And a couple of little periods have been inserted in the vocabulary section at the beginning: eg. te.lle.  I like to look at this section as the whole piece is being read to me and I noticed these tiny typos.

Asked 1 year ago
Chris W.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor Correct answer

Both options are OK, I think. Using plus personne makes it stylistically stronger, though. It kind of also shifts the negation to "nobody anymore", i.e., putting the emphasis on nobody, instead of a negation of reconnaît, i.e., ne reconnaît plus.

CélineNative French expert teacher in KwiziqCorrect answer

Bonjour Adrienne,

Chris is correct about the difference between "plus personne" and "personne ne ... plus" !

Writing "tel.lle" / "tout.e" is a way to write both masculine and feminine versions of a word instead of writing both full versions, i.e. tel / telle  -  tout / toute.

I hope this is helpful.

Bonne journée !

diificult double negative construction

"Depuis que Catherine a changé de carrière il y a quatre ans, plus personne ne la reconnaît."  I understand this to mean "Ever since Catherine changed her career four years ago, no one recognizes her anymore."  I would never have known where to put that "plus!"  I might have thought "personne ne la reconnait plus."  Would that have been wrong if I had been constructing the sentence instead of doing it as a dictation?

And a couple of little periods have been inserted in the vocabulary section at the beginning: eg. te.lle.  I like to look at this section as the whole piece is being read to me and I noticed these tiny typos.

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