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:
“If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take us as long to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our thinking. All recollected times undergo, accordingly, what M. Ribot calls foreshortening; and this foreshortening is due to the omission of an enormous number of facts which filled them.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“In this world, which is so plainly the antechamber of another, there are no happy men. The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former. That is why we demand education and knowledge.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“Not too many years ago, a child’s experience was limited by how far he or she could ride a bicycle or by the physical boundaries that parents set. Today ... the real boundaries of a child’s life are set more by the number of available cable channels and videotapes, by the simulated reality of videogames, by the number of megabytes of memory in the home computer. Now kids can go anywhere, as long as they stay inside the electronic bubble.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)