against the rules?

Hi everyone. I am trying to teach myself to speak French. I understand most of the rules but when I read I find phrases that seem wrong! Can someone please clarify the following examples:

1- Vous la connaissez, si je ne me trompe? I think it should say si je ne me trompe pas? Why is the pas missing?

2- Elle pouvait avoir besoin de ses services d’ici la fin de la croisière. Shouldn't it say d'ici à la fin de la croisière?

3- Ce n’est pas sans difficulté que je trouve une petite table de libre. What is this 'de' doing here in the sentence. Should it not be: une petite table libre?

4- Mais son sommeil avait-il était d’autant plus profond..... I don't see what 'il' is doing in this phrase. Would it be wrong to say Mais son sommeil avait était d’autant plus profond... and if not then what is the difference between the two versions

merci d'avance pour vos reponses

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on July 20, 2010 at 9:24pm

1. Definitely si je ne me trompe pas in written French. In spoken French, it's common to leave off one part of ne...pas. It's usually the ne that's omitted, however. This one is a bit strange.
2. This is correct. D'ici might be rendered as "From now until." Today I had this message from a prospective translation client: Je vous fais parvenir le texte d'ici deux à trois jours. I will send you the text in two or three days. I would translate your phrase as She might need his services between now and the end of the cruise.
3. De does seems misplaced here, yes.
4. avait-il était makes this one into a question. Your version is correct as a statement.

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Permalink Reply by Fereshteh on July 20, 2010 at 11:49pm

Thanks Stu . Could d'ici also mean from here as in a spatial rather than a temporal sense and if so would it still work without à?

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on July 22, 2010 at 10:46pm

No, I don't believe it could.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on July 25, 2010 at 7:02pm

Just a couple of clarifications:

In (1), the expression is usually without pas here-- si je ne me trompe is effectively just a set expression.
In (3), I think the de is fine-- it's not always necessary, but certain constructions have or tend to have de before an adjective, as in il n'y a rien de plus beau, il y en a trois de préparés. Another case is an "indefinite" phrase modified by an adjective, as in une table de libre. One way of looking at this is to say that de tends to be inserted when there's some kind of "syntactic gap" between the noun and adjective (when you could more easily insert "which is/are" in English).
In (4), était should be été-- then whether or not the inversion is necessary really depends on the rest of the sentence and intended meaning...