LESSON X

The partitive. — Irregular verbs ouvrir, couvrir, offrir, souffrir, découvrir

40. The partitive. — The partitive construction, i.e., the translation of some, any, no, none, generally offers difficulties to the student.1 However, if these words be studied from the viewpoint of their grammatical relation, the subject should become clear. For this purpose, we may treat them conveniently, first as pronouns, second as adjectives.

a. The pronouns some,2 any, none are generally expressed in French by en.

J'en ai vendu à mon père.3 / sold some (of it, of them) to my

father.

Donnez-m'en, s'il vous plaît. Give me some (of it, of them), please.

Il n'y en a pas ici. There is (are) none (not any) here.

b. The adjectives some,4 any, etc., are generally expressed in French by de + the corresponding definite article.

Y a-t-il de la viande sur la table ? Is there any meat on the table ? Avez-vous acheté du lait? Did you buy some (any) milk?

Voilà des pommes pour votre mère. There are some apples for your

mother.

1 One common difficulty is the omission of the some, any, in English. For example, / have flowers is very often used for i" have some flowers. The student should be continually on the alert so that this omission may not creep into his French, for the partitive is always expressed there.

2 When the pronoun some means a few, a form of quelqu'un(e) or its plural quelques-un(e)s is used.

Quelques-uns de ses amis sont ici. Some (a few) of his friends are here.

3 Notice that en does not affect the agreement of the past participle.

4 When the adjective some means a few, a little, and is of more limited force than the partitive some, then quelque (s) is used.

Il y a quelques pommes dans la There are some (a few) apples in boîte. the box.

c. Exceptions. In the following cases . the partitive is expressed by de alone.