I have never seen ...

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 10, 2009 at 9:20pm

Hey Crack,

You can say Je n'ai jamais vu de belle fille comme vous (which is a pretty lame pickup line, btw)

Vous êtes la plus jolie fille que je n'ai jamais vue.

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on September 10, 2009 at 9:58pm

Thanks Frank

Vous êtes la plus jolie fille que je n'ai jamais vue.
I got the above answer from Stella. Is it wrong?

http://www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk/forum/topics/opinion-1?id...

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 10, 2009 at 11:22pm

There's no logical reason to use a negative here. However, it looks like a common mistake because in casual speech, we tend to skip some negation words, especially this "ne"/"n'". As in "j'ai pas faim" instead of "je n'ai pas faim". Both will be understood, but while you will almost always hear the former, you should write the latter.
The problem with differences like this one, is that the way we speak tends to confuse the way we write. Just like in English, when some people get confused by "to" and "of" because in casual speech, they often both sound like a schwa. In French, we can easily forget when "ne" should be there and when it shouldn't.
In informal speech, you can say both, it's no biggie. However, while reading it, this negation immediately looked suspicious to me. I might be totally wrong. But Google seems to agree (try http://bit.ly/F19ei ).

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on September 10, 2009 at 11:55pm

Frank
You are good at analyzing French grammar. I just want to know whether you are a teacher of French.
However, you don't have any obligation to tell me your profession.
These things border your private life to a great extent.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 11, 2009 at 12:57am

Hello Crack,

Well, I've nothing to hide :)

I used to work as a teacher but it was all about boring scientific stuff that have nothing to do with linguistics. And it's all downhill from here. However, I've also been writing books and articles for various magazines since I was 15, and while it was still about boring technical stuff, it probably helped a bit to remember some basic grammar and typography rules. Although it's frightening to realize how quickly you forget what you learned at school.
I currently work as a web developer for a French social web site.
So take everything I write with a grain of salt. I'm not a French teacher at all, and I don't pretend to be one. This is why I let Neil reply to questions about important or tricky grammar points. He's a linguistic expert and he knows the exact rules.

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on September 11, 2009 at 1:56pm

Frank
Do you work in UNIX or Windows?
I work with UNIX. I am working with networking.
I train 3 times a week at a gym. So time is very tight.

Je me suis entraîne 3 fois par semaine à un gymnase.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 11, 2009 at 3:27pm

I think it's fair to say that inserting the ne is "not wrong", and in some people's (largely prescriptive) opinions, it may even be necessary. The situation is a little complex and needs some explanation (which I think was touched on in the other thread as I recall).

Underlylingly, what happens is that in sentences where you have a comparative that takes a clause, French speakers tend to insert ne, at least in careful speech/writing:

Elle est plus jolie qu'elle ne paraît.
She's prettier than she appears.
C'est un meilleur ami qu'on ne croirait.
He's a better friend than you'd think.

Pretty much every source I've seen, prescriptive or descriptive, agrees on the presence of the ne as far as these strictly "comparative" sentences are concerned.

The problem then comes as to whether this pattern of introducing ne with the que clause of a comparative extends to a superlative (given that there's actually not much difference between the two constructions). In other words, when, say, un meilleur ami becomes le meilleur ami, do you still insert the ne? It's actually very difficult to find much in the way of overt opinions about this, and in practice there's variation.

Probably in the case of jamais, the fact that speakers associate jamais with the negativene leads speakers to tend to insert the ne in le plus .../le meilleur ... que je n'ai jamais vu etc. But strictly speaking, neither jamais nor ne is a negative here-- they just look like one when used together.

Interestingly, the Wiktionary entry for ne does overtly attest to ne being used in what it calls "grammatically negative comparative clauses that express superlatives", with the example le gâteau le plus grand que je n’ai jamais vu, although no source is given for this opinion.

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