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French Collective Nouns | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Giordano Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7173 days ago 213 posts - 218 votes  3 sounds Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Cantonese, Greek | Message 1 of 9 13 December 2005 at 11:33am | IP Logged | ||
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I was reading an article (I believe in the Journal de Montréal) about a report from the Office (québécoise) de la langue française about the quality of French in Quebec media. They talked about various "errors" committed by media personalities (especially on the radio). In fact most of these were just colloquial language, but one thing that struck me was the use of constructions like "le gouvernement ont décidé..." for collective nouns.
This is the accepted form in British English ("the team play well", "the government have passed...", etc...), but I didn't know it was common (if incorrect) in French. Has anyone else heard similar usages in French? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7375 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 9 13 December 2005 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome back. In French you set the verb to the the number of its subject, including for collective nouns. 'Les joueurs ont joué' but 'Le gouvernement a voté'.
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| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7102 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 3 of 9 15 December 2005 at 3:03am | IP Logged | ||
Sorry to go off on a tangent on this thread but I would hesitate to say that this is the "accepted" form in British English. The use of plural verb forms with collective nouns is one of those issues that has people writing letters to the Times newspaper deploring the decline of the English lanaguage. For me, context (as ever) seems to be the key. When referring to the collection as a whole, singular but when emphasizing individual members then plural. In your examples (albeit only fragmentary) saying "The team has played well" or "The government has passed...." sounds equally acceptable to me. This is with the caveat that certain aggregate nouns like "the police" are not going to be followed by a singular verb without it sounding wrong - and that's not a characteristic peculiar to British English I believe. Andy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7145 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 4 of 9 26 January 2006 at 1:57am | IP Logged | ||
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That is an interesting point I hadn't considered.
You can say, "The government has retired for the night." But you can't say, "The police has retired for the night." It must be, "The police have retired for the night." It doesn't seem to be covered by a rule. You just have to learn it. (I like language to work by rules.) :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Eidolio Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 6860 days ago 159 posts - 164 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, Greek | Message 5 of 9 12 February 2006 at 5:07am | IP Logged | ||
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this phenomenon also occurs in Latin and Greek, where it's called "constructio ad sententiam". That means that strict grammar is less important than the actual meaning of the words. The clearest example is the one of the collective nouns. There are also other examples: ancient Greek sometimes uses male adjectives with neutral substantives if these neutrals refer to male human beings.
Even French sometimes uses a plurar with a singular noun: "La majorité des gens ONT dit que..." (the majority of the people said that...) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chalokun Tetraglot Groupie FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5471 days ago 58 posts - 55 votes Speaks: French, Spanish*, English, Japanese | Message 6 of 9 02 June 2010 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | ||
sorry to say here than in my humble opinion that:"La majorit� des gens ONT dit que" is not correct, although it is largely hearded;corect French remains:"La majorit� des gens A dit que", & I learned:who sayed? La Majorit�, subject of the sentence, La majorit�, subject is singular,verb is at the third singuilar person, full stop;the rest is faulty French & there is no debate about that, not like for instance between "au temps pour moi" & "autant pour moi" 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7102 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 7 of 9 02 June 2010 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | ||
Well... a quick google should tell you that there's plenty of debate about it :-) There seems to be a number of "rules" given by people but here's a quote from Wikipedia on it: Syllepse selon le nombre Ce cas de syllepse est fréquent dans la langue courante mais il est limité le plus souvent à une simple alternative entre l’individu et le collectif, le singulier et le pluriel et ne constitue alors que rarement une figure. Certains mots comme « la plupart, beaucoup de, un certain nombre de… » indiquant exclusivement la quantité ou le nombre demanderont logiquement le pluriel, d’autres se centreront sur une idée de cohésion, d’unité d’action ou d’opinion, etc. et feront pencher nettement pour le singulier. In the absence of having any of my hard-copy references available at work, I can't declare either as being "wrong" but I would have said ONT. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spiderkat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5811 days ago 175 posts - 248 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 8 of 9 02 June 2010 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | ||
Like we say, languages are not mathematics and the logic doesn't work the same way. Here's what "Hanse-Blampain - Nouveau dictionnaire des difficultés du language moderne" says about it. Nom collectif Bande, foule, infinité, majorité, multitude, un grand (ou petit) nombre, nuée, partie, quantité, totalité, troupe, etc. - Sans complément S'il n'est pas suivi d'un complément, c'est le collectif qui détermine l'accord. Toutefois si, d'après le contexte qui précède, il est clair qu'un complément pluriel est sous-entendu, on applique la règle avec un complément au pluriel. - Avec un complément au pluriel S'il est suivi d'un complément au pluriel, c'est le sens ou l'intention qui règlent l'accord ou laissent parfois le choix. On accorde avec le collectif si l'on considère en bloc - ou si l'on souligne - la totalité, le groupement ou l'idée abstraite du collectif; avec le complément si l'on pense individuellement aux êtres, aux objets qui constituent cet ensemble: ... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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