Partitive articles

Question

Hi,Is "de" a partitive article by itself? That is, without being used as "du/de la/de l'"? I ask because of the following exampleJ’ai bu beaucoup de café.here: https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/partitive-article/Is it a preposition?

Jim Jones · Accepted Answer

Bonjour Raksha,
The part of the sentence "beaucoup de" is a prepositional phrase with de
 in the sense "a lot of "
So the complete sentence expresses "I drank (J'ai bu) a lot of coffee."
Have a look here also:- https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/de-vs-du-de-la-des-quantity/
 
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne continuation
Jim

Raksha Kumaraswamy · Answer

Merci Jim! Si je vous connais, "de" est un preposition dans la phrase "besoin de", main  ça n'était pas une article de partitive, non?