Re: French negation


André Keshave wrote:
.....
Except that 'Je n'aime pas le vin' doesn't have the emphatic meaning of
'at all', it's the standard way of saying "I don't".

I do not think so. In many cases the 'pas' can be elided. So you can
state 'Je n'aime pas le vin', but also 'Je n'aime le vin'. The second
is a pretty weak form of the first.

Yes gramatically speaking you can virtually always omit 'pas'. So 'Je
n'aime le vin' is possible but uncolloquial. It doesn't sound weak but
rather quaint. You would have that kind of constructions in literary,
written, language.

You are correct as long as we are talking about some statement that
continues with another qualifying statement (Je n'aime le vin ...que
s'il est bon). A straight statement like *"Je n'aime le vin, period" is
obviously ungrammatical and has been so for too many centuries to even
be called "quaint". In this situation, omitting pas, point, etc. is
impossible.

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