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:

    Envy has blackened every page of his history.... The future, in its justice, will number him among those men whom passions and an excess of activity have condemned to unhappiness, through the gift of genius.
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