Hi,
"Je ne saurais expliquer ce qui m'arrive aujourd'hui"
2 questions:
Why is there no "pas" - is this a negative sentence?
Why is "arrive" in present tense and not passe compose?
- ce qui me suis arrivé -
Hi,
"Je ne saurais expliquer ce qui m'arrive aujourd'hui"
2 questions:
Why is there no "pas" - is this a negative sentence?
Why is "arrive" in present tense and not passe compose?
- ce qui me suis arrivé -
Hi Dragana,
1. Certain verbs don't require the 'pas' to indicate a negation and 'savoir' is one of them.
Although you can use the 'pas', it sounds more elevated without it.
Take a look at the following page -
https://regardsurlefrancais.com/2019/04/12/les-verbes-qui-nont-pas-besoin-de-pas-a-la-negation/
2. It is the present
if it was the past it would have been -
That's just the way it was written
Hope this helps!
Just to distill the gist of the link Cécil posted (which was also news to me):
There are four French verbs that don't require the second half of the standard negation phrase (like pas, jamais, plus, rien, etc.) and get away with only a lonely ne: oser, cesser, pouvoir, savoir.
For these verbs, using only ne results in a higher register of negation. So you'll find this version in literature and higher level French writing.
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