pour autant que

I would like to know : 1- what 'pour autant que' means
and 2- see an example useing this expression in a sentence.
Thank you, Aydan

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on May 20, 2009 at 6:01am

As a set expression it's similar to English "as far as...", "to the extent to which...", for example:

Pour autant que je sache...
As far as I know...
Pour autant que je m'en souvienne...
As far as I recall/remember...
Pour autant que je puisse en juger...
As far as I can tell...

Note:
(a) the use of subjunctive forms after this construction. In case you're not familiar with subjunctive forms, they're special forms of the verb generally used to mark a "non-assertion" (see the aforementioned article for more details). Strictly speaking, English doesn't have subjunctive forms, but various European languages do.
(b) you don't actually need the pour. So you can say "Autant que je sache..." etc.

Note that occasionally you'll get the sequence "pour autant que..." without this particular idiomatic meaning, so if you're still stuck, you may want to post the entire sentence.