Breakdown of Personne n'aurait déchiffré ce manuscrit.
avoir
to have
ne
not (used before the verb)
ce
this (before a noun)
personne
nobody / no one
déchiffrer
to decipher
le manuscrit
the manuscript
Questions & Answers about Personne n'aurait déchiffré ce manuscrit.
The translation says "Nobody would have deciphered", but how does that fit the journalistic conditional?
In French news, the past conditional (aurait déchiffré) is often used to report unverified information. While it literally translates to "would have deciphered", in this context it means "Allegedly, nobody deciphered" or "Nobody is believed to have deciphered".
Why is there an n' before aurait but no pas after it?
If I wanted to replace ce manuscrit with "it", where would the pronoun go?
You would use the direct object pronoun le. In compound tenses, object pronouns are placed right before the auxiliary verb, so the sentence would become: Personne ne l'aurait déchiffré. Notice that ne is no longer shortened to n' because it now precedes a consonant.
Does the past participle déchiffré ever change its spelling in this type of sentence?
Because the auxiliary verb is avoir, the past participle déchiffré does not agree with the subject (personne). It would only change if a direct object were placed before the verb. For example, if we replaced ce manuscrit with the feminine plural ces lettres (these letters), it would become: Personne ne les aurait déchiffrées.
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