The main marker of negation in Catalan is the adverbno.No is placed before the verbs, whilepas is usually placed after it. Unlike Occitan or French, wherepas andpas is a mandatory negative particle (under many circumstances); in Catalan,pas is only used as an optional intensifier of negation. However, some northern dialects use "pas" instead of "no" as the mandatory negative particle. Also, in many dialects "pas" has totally disappeared.
Borg, Alexander (2004)A Comparative Glossary of Cypriot Maronite Arabic (Arabic–English) (Handbook of Oriental Studies;I.70), Leiden and Boston: Brill,page168
“pas”, inKielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish][1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki:Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland),2004–, retrieved2023-07-03
Its use as an auxiliary negative adverb comes from an accusative use (Latinnec…passum) in negative constructions – literally “not… a step”, i.e. “not at all” – originally used with certain verbs of motion. In older French other nouns could also be used in this way, such asne…goutte(“not… a drop”) andne…mie(“not… a crumb”), but in the modern languagepas has becomegrammaticalized.
The adverb of negationpas is normally used in conjunction with the particlene, as in the examplesJene saispas andMa grande sœurn’habitepas avec nous above. In colloquial language,ne can be dropped, as in the exampleJ’veuxpas travailler above.
Pas directly follows the inflected verb, which itself follows the particlene;
Il nemangepas. ―He's not eating.
Ne letouchezpas. ―Don't touch him.
in compound verb structures it is placed between the inflected auxiliary and the participle.
Il n’apasmangé. ―He didn't eat.
When negating an infinitive verb,pas normally followsne and precedes that verb in the constructionnepas + infinitive (though the sequencene + infinitive +pas was common in the Classical French of the 17th and 18th centuries).
Il a reçu une leçon ànepas oublier. ―He received a lesson not to be forgotten.
pas can be placed before an adverb that modifies all or part of a verbal syntagma, but it directly follows an adverb that modifies the whole sentence.
Je n’aipas vraiment compris. ―I didn't truly understand.
Il n’estprobablementpas arrivé. ―He probably hasn't arrived.
Certain adverbs (e.g.même) can be used before or afterpas without affecting the meaning of the phrase. With other adverbs (e.g.toujours), there may be considerable difference in meaning depending on whetherpas comes before or after.
2024 February 26, Nirmala Maulana Achmad, Ihsanuddin, “TKN: Kebetulan Program Bansos Pas Mau Pemilu, Kebaikan Pak Jokowi Berdampak ke Prabowo-Gibran”, inKompas[3]:
"[…] Kebetulan saja program ini bertepatanpas maupemilu ataupileg danpilpres," kata Afriansyah saat dihubungi, Senin (26/2/2024).
"[…] It is only coincidental that the program coincides withthe time that the general elections, orwhen the legislative and presidential elections were starting," as Afriansyah remarked during our correspondence, Monday (02/26/2024).
The word is very often used in casual andcolloquial exchanges. However, the adverb's etymology is unusually scarcely scrutinized despite its common occurrences in day-to-day speech.
Henrik Liljegren, Naseem Haider (2011) “pas”, inPalula Vocabulary (FLI Language and Culture Series; 7)[4], Islamabad, Pakistan: Forum for Language Initiatives,→ISBN
Władysław Matlakowski (1892) “pas”, inSłownik wyrazów ludowych zebranych w Czerskiem i na Kujawach (in Polish), Kraków: nakł. Akademii Umiejętności; Drukarnia Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego pod zarządem A. M. Kosterkiewicza, page13
“pas”, inSlovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak),https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk,2003–2025
R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “pas”, inGeiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies
