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).
Read more about this topic: Quebec French Syntax
Famous quotes containing the word number:
“A good marriage ... is a sweet association in life: full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations.”
—Michel de Montaigne (15331592)
“My idea is that the world outsidethe so-called modern worldcan only pervert and degrade the conceptions of the primitive instinct of art and feeling, and that our only chance is to accept the limited number of survivorsthe one- in-a-thousand of born artists and poetsand to intensify the energy of feeling within that radiant centre.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (18381918)
“Take away from the courts, if it could be taken away, the power to issue injunctions in labor disputes, and it would create a privileged class among the laborers and save the lawless among their number from a most needful remedy available to all men for the protection of their business interests against unlawful invasion.... The secondary boycott is an instrument of tyranny, and ought not to be made legitimate.”
—William Howard Taft (18571930)