J'espère que tu n'as rien de cassé. (L 7.4)

Lesson 7.4 makes a point of using "de cassé" for "broken", as in J'espère que tu n'as rien de cassé. - I hope that you have nothing broken. but then goes on to use: Je n’ai rien cassé - I have not broken anything. Am I right in thinking that both forms are equally correct?, and, to make the parallel more obvious, I could say J'espère que tu n'as rien de cassé. - to say - I hope that you have nothing broken. or J'espère que tu n'as rien cassé. - to say - I hope that you have not broken anything. I.e. Grammatically, de cassé when cassé (or more generally, the past particle) is being used as a noun. And by extension: Tu as quelque chose de cassé ( You have something broken) (Note: I am assuming it is cassé here, not cassée, since my inference is that it is being used as a noun, not an adjective qualifying 'chose') And/or Tu as cassé quelque chose - you have broken something.

In the first case, "J'espère que tu n'as rien de cassé", the verb is *avoir* (to have). The tense is <u>present</u>, so it's *tu as ...* (affirmative) or *Tu n'as ... pas/rien* (negative). Cassé doesn't actually function as a noun (rien is the "noun"), but as an <i>adjective</i> in this case (de cassé). In the second case, "J'espère que tu n'as rien cassé, the verb is *casser* (to break). The tense is <u>passé composé</u> (action completed in past) and <i>casser</i> uses the auxiliary verb <i>avoir</i>. The form is *tu as cassé ...* (affirmative) or *tu n'as pas/rien cassé ...* (negative). So, even though the given translation "I hope that you have not broken anything" is fine, it might help to think of it more as "I hope that you *had* not broken anything" to emphasize that you're talking about a past event.

Thanks (again), Torusan. In the final example, then, can you state definitively that it would be Tu as quelque chose de cassée - as opposed to Tu as quelque chose de cassé?, the former being a corollary of an adjectival form, and the latter, a noun. I still find myself leaning to the latter, and unfortunately Rocket French never gets into this level of detail.

Ah okay, on the case where it's being used as an adjective, it's also "cassé" as opposed to "cassée" because "quelque chose" is a masculine pronoun (that you're describing), so you're correct, you would use the second (Tu as quelque chose de cassé?). Oh, and to use the passé composé form of *casser* to ask a question, it would be: Tu as cassé quelque chose? / Est-ce que tu as cassé quelque chose? (Did you break something?)

As always, Merci beaucoup, Torusan. Note that I specifically chose the example "quelque chose" because it is feminine, and would therefore highlight whether "cassé" changed form or not. I appreciate your input

Hmm... I think this is another subtlety. Actually, <i>quelque chose</i> is masculine when it's used as a generic "something", even though "chose" is feminine. But I think that what you're referring to is conforming cassé/cassée - the adjective - to the noun/object, and that approach is correct. For our own amusement, here's how I thought we would end up with a feminine form of the adjective (cassée). :) So, even though we're using "quelque chose", we're actually conforming to the precedent "la jambe". "I broke a leg, did you break something?" -Je me suis cassé la jambe, tu as quelque chose de cassée? {or just "tu as de cassée?"}