Hi Clare,

There are numerous occasions where ‘ne’ may be used without ‘pas’.

I assume you are not referring to the ‘ne explétif’ but rather to cases where the ‘ne’ on its own invokes a true negative connotation (which the ‘ne explétif’ does not).

This construction is often referred to as the ‘literery ne’ since its use is largely limited to the literary domain.

1. Certain fixed expressions and proverbs which are largely hangovers from medieval French. E.g.

                À Dieu ne plaise ! – God forbid!

                Qu’à cela ne tienne ! – Never mind !

                Il n’est pire sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre – There is none so deaf as   he who will not hear

2. Certain expressions using avoir and être e.g.

                N’avoir cure de – not to care about  

                                Je n’ai cure de sa réputation – I don’t give a hoot about his reputation

                N’était – but for

                N’était son courage la bataille aurait été perdue – But for his courage  the battle would have been lost

3. The verbs cesser de (cease),  oser (dare), pouvoir  (be able),  savoir (know (how to), when followed by an infinitive e.g.

                Il ne cesse de crier – He never stops shouting, Il n’ose le faire – He doesn’t dare do it

                Je ne peux vous aider – I cannot help you,  Tu ne sais danser - You do not know how to dance

A useful acronym to help remember these verbs is COPS.

These are just some of the situations where ‘ne’ may be used on its own, I’m sure there are many more which can arise.

Hope it helps,

Tom

Clare,

I would demur to the native speakers to detail the frequency of use in speech.

tom

Hi Chris,

This site purports to support learning up to level CEFR level C1.

This being the case, users at the appropriate level should not be discouraged from exploring and/or utilising all registers of spoken and written French.

Students attaining C1 will have displayed the necessary learning commitment to be equipped to embark on fully independent study and will usually be open to all means and methods of ameliorating their facility with the language.

In my opinion discussion of any topic should not be curtailed on the basis of difficulty or register.

tom

I'd think dialogue would work similary to the way it does in English, where it ranges from some people being in the "Don't ever make characters say words like gonna and wanna even though we speak like this in real life" on one end of the spectrum and say, Twain's Huck Finn where dialogue is rendered almost phonetically, on the other. I have definitely encountered dropped ne's in dialogue.

I noticed that, in lyrics of French songs, nes the singer doesn't say are still written out most of the time, whereas that is pretty much never the case when the Il in Il y a or Il y avait is dropped. That gets written as 'Y a/'Y avait. Maybe in a way it's like how we in English are more likely to write out if someone says 'cause rather than because but still write, say, working even if the singer pronounced it workin'. However, when I was playing The Walking Dead, ne's that weren't uttered weren't shown either but Il y a was spelled out though they did say 'Y a. Things seem to vary from medium to medium. 

I had the same problem with subtitles. The subtitles in languages other than the one the movie is in are written to match the original rather than the dubbed speech. From what I've seen, this is pretty much all the time and the only way you can avoid it is to watch original French movies with French subtiles.