Quebec French Syntax - Number

Number

On the other hand, many Quebecers in informal context will decide on the agreement with collective nouns based on semantics rather than morphology. That is to say, for instance, that a verb whose grammatical subject is le monde (people, folks) may appear in the 3rd person plural because le monde designates multiple people although it is singular: le monde là-dedans sont en train de chiâler (the people in there are complaining).

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Famous quotes containing the word number:

    There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.
    François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)

    The world is so full of a number of things,
    I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
    Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)

    Today, almost forty years later, I grow dizzy when I recall that the number of manufactured tanks seems to have been more important to me than the vanished victims of racism.
    Albert Speer (1905–1981)