Pas (point) <i>without</i> ne <i>in interrogative clauses</i>

Abstract

Abstract Old and Middle French interrogative sentences of the type sez tu pas? have often been interpreted, erroneously, as providing evidence for the early dropping of ne as in modern je sais pas . The construction occurs most widely in Old and early Middle French with point (occasionally pas, mie ) and the particle had a positive or ‘potential’ value (e.g. Quenois le tu point? ‘Do you know him [at all]?’). It was only in late Middle French that, influenced by the increasing use of pas and point in negative clauses, the interrogative clauses in question came to have a negative value.