The reference to absence in the English sequences no +Noun and in the sequences pas de + Noun and/or aucun + Noun in French

Abstract

This paper enquires into the field of negative noun determination in English and in French. It focuses on the English sequences ‘No + countable noun in the singular’ (No + N-Ø) and ‘No + count­able noun in the plural’ (No + N-s), and some of their possible translations in French, namely aucun or pas de, followed by a noun either in the singular or in the plural.

The existence in English of the two sequences raises the question of the differences in meaning these two sequences convey and induces one to examine their French possible translations with pas de or aucun. The aim thus is to examine examples in which both constructions are grammatically allowed in English, in order to elucidate the process through which reference is construed, and to examine the similarities and differences in meaning in the French sequences resorting to aucun or pas de.

An analysis of each of the constructions will lead us to investigate the linguistic features, pertaining to sets of properties and occurrences, subjective and argumentative factors, which may or may not imply patterns of correspondences through translation. We will address these issues via the examination of translated examples taken from a parallel corpus made up of extracts from contemporary novels written in English after 1980 and of their translations into French.

In English, no marks an impossible scanning operation either over a set of items defined in a space and time frame, with a noun in the plural, or over an open set defined according to proper­ties, with a noun in the singular.

We have determined that in French, differentiating between two markers depends on defining a different linguistic operation for each of them: a scanning operation for aucun and a blocking of validation for pas de.

We have further proved that the meanings construed by their respective operations agreed with their contextual environment.