Bonjour Mouse !
As stated in the lesson, with that negative structure (no more left), the articles follow the established rule of becoming de or d' .
Have a look at the related lesson:
https://french.kwiziq.com/revision/grammar/the-partitive-article-in-negative-sentences
I hope that's helpful!
Bonne journée !
Thank you Aurélie. But, do you know the reason why de is used always even for plurals instead of des? It's not intuitive for me.
Dylan wrote:
"Thank you Aurélie. But, do you know the reason why de is used always even for plurals instead of des? It's not intuitive for me"
Hi Dylan. I cant seem to reply directly under your question. I too struggled with an 'intuitive' feeling of clarity re the use of the invariable 'de' and not the 'de+article' variations to express the negative.
Until I started mentally processing all french negation as meaning "NOT ONE OF" meaning singular.
And since I have 'NOT ONE' (meaning singular), then I dont need the qualifying article. LOL. It became easier to think 'not one..noun' and to see the 'singular' stand alone 'de' and NOT its constructed forms because my mind is thinking 'not one... NOUN'.
I use that 'not one' ' thinking fairly successfully and easily even for the double/triple negatives.
I have NOT ONE 'ne ..personne' (person) 'ne... rien' not one thing and the general 'ne...PAS ... de'.
Of course those de 'idioms/phrases still catch me sometimes.
Why 'beaucoup de'; 'trop de' (never des) BUT 'à cote de l''enfant AND 'à cote des enfants''.
All I could come up with intuitively is "if the idiom is talking about 'how much/many' , the 'de' is usually neutral but otherwise you have to match it with gender;spelling and plurality of the noun. Works enough to get me a passing grade.LOL!
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