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French, which treats zero as a singular I believe has a weird way of saying "no one" Personne on its own means ''no one'', but une personne means a person.
by whycome 2y ago
French, which treats zero as a singular I believe has a weird way of saying "no one"
Personne on its own means ''no one'', but une personne means a person.
- Tainnor 2y agoIIRC, formally "personne" has to be used with the "ne" negation in order to mean 'nobody', such as "personne ne l'a vu", which makes a certain kind of sense ('a person hasn't seen it' -> nobody has seen it). But French people usually drop "ne" in spoken language.
- whycome 2y agoYou're right as far as I know. But it's also funny to type in both "nobody" and "anybody" into Google translate and they both translate to "personne".
- bkazez 2y ago“Sans personne” means “without anyone” and has no “ne”.
- Tainnor 2y agoOk, but it literally means "without person", so is equally unsuprising.
- Xmd5a 2y agoAnd "rien" (nothing) used to mean something (via latin "res")
- lloeki 2y ago"Un petit rien" => a small thing Typically used in "les petits riens de la vie", meaning the small things in life that may be overlooked but constitute the true things that make it worth living.
- whycome 2y agoThe cognitive origins of these must be interesting. Rooted in our understanding of existence?