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What is the capital of Tunisia?

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What is the capital of Tunisia?

Why is ‘lève-toi’ when positive but ‘ne te lève pas’ when negative?

The "irregular" form is the positive imperative which uses the stressed pronoun toi after the verb.

Lève-toi !

All other French tenses use the unstressed reflexive pronoun te:

Tu te lèves
Tu ne te lèves pas
Tu t’es levé
Ne te lève pas !

It’s a pattern among romance languages imperatives:

Spanish: ¡Levantate! / ¡No te levanta!
Italian: Alzati! / * Non ti alzare! (but also Non alzarti)
Catalan: Aixeca’t! / No t’aixequis!
Romanian: Ridică-te! / Nu te ridica!

In spoken French, ne is often dropped leading to:

Te lève pas !

A more radical evolution builds the negative imperative from the positive :

Lève-toi pas !

This last form is probably not in your French grammar book, though.

 

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What is the capital of Tunisia?