Language/French/Grammar/Subject-verb-agreement-—-Verb-agreement-with-collective-noun-subjects

subject-verb agreement with collective noun subjects

[CHANGED]

Definitions

Subject—Verb Agreement

The subject-verb agreement in French is the way to choose the correct ending for verbs in terms of grammatical persons, gender and number, depending on their subject.

Agreement with collective nouns

A collective noun (nom collectif) is a singular noun that represents a group of things or people.

• Some French examples include une série (a series), une poignée (a handful or fistful), un tas (a pile), une foule (a crowd), and, of course, un groupe (a group).

Although collective nouns can stand alone in a sentence, they are often followed by a complement (a group of something). The tricky part about using collective nouns is determining whether the verb should agree with the collective noun (and be singular) or with its complement (and be plural).

Generally, a collective noun in the singular requires the verb to be in the singular, as opposed to English where speakers use either a verbal form in the singular or the plural:

Collective Nouns in singular and verb in singular

• Le gouvernement a décidé de modifier la loi

The government has/have decided to change the law

• Le comité a proposé une nouvelle réunion d'information

The committee has/have suggested a new information meeting

• La famille passe les vacances de février en Normandie

The family is/are spending the February holidays in Normandy

"Tout le monde" (everyone)

NB: "Tout le monde" always agrees with a singular verb:

• Tout le monde vient passer la soirée chez moi

Everybody is coming to my place for the evening

Collective noun followed by a plural complement

This may change, however, when the collective noun is followed by a plural complement. The verb may then be in the singular or the plural (although some speakers still have a preference for the singular):

• L'équipe de footballeurs italiens a (or ont) dû quitter Paris hier matin

The Italian football team had to leave Paris yesterday morning

• La foule de supporters ont (or a) été rapidement calmé(e)(s)

The crowd of supporters were rapidly calmed down

Note that in English there is a preference for a plural verb in these cases.

Other Chapters

Table of Contents

Nouns

• Types
• Gender
• Plural

---

Determiners

• Articles
• Typical use of the definite article
• Typical use of the indefinite article
• The partitive article: du, de l', de la, des
• Use of indefinite and partitive articles after the negative forms ne... pas, ne... jamais, ne... plus, ne... guère
• Omission of the article
• Demonstrative determiners
• Possessive determiners

---

Personal and impersonal pronouns

• Subject pronouns
• Object pronouns
• Stressed pronouns
• Demonstrative pronouns
• Possessive pronouns

---

Adjectives

• Adjectives modifying the noun
• Adjectives which follow verbs or verbal expressions
• Adjectives with complements
• Indefinite and negative noun phrases with adjective complements
• Adjectives used as nouns
• Adjectives used as adverbs
• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives
• Plural forms of adjectives
• Adjective agreement with nouns
• Invariable adjectives
• Compound adjectives
• Comparative and superlative forms of adjectives
• Subjunctive versus indicative in clauses dependent on a superlative adjective
• Absolute use of the superlative

---

Adverbs

• Function of adverbs
• Formation of adverbs with the ending -ment
• Adjectives used as adverbs without addition of -ment
• Phrases used as adverbs
• English and French adverb formation
• Types of adverbs
• Location of adverbs

---

Numbers, measurements, time and quantifiers

• Cardinal numbers
• Ordinal numbers
• Fractions
• Some differences in the use of cardinal and ordinal numbers in French and English
• Measurements and comparisons
• Dates, days, years
• Clock time
• Money
• Quantifiers

---

Verb forms

• Conjugations
• Easy ways of generating some parts of the paradigms
• Changes in the stem form of some -er conjugation verbs
• Verbs whose stems end in c- or g-
• Verb paradigms

---

Verb constructions

• Relations between verbs and their complements
• Intransitive constructions
• Directly transitive verbs
• Indirectly transitive verbs
• Ditransitive verbs
• The passive
• Pronominal verbs
• Impersonal verbs
• Verbs which take noun + adjective or noun + noun complements

---

Verb and participle agreement

• Subject-verb agreement
• Agreement of the past participle with the subject of être
• Agreement of the past participle of verbs conjugated with avoir with a preceding direct object
• Agreement of the past participle of pronominal verbs in compound tenses

---

Tense

• The present
• The past
• The future
• Other tenses indicating the time at which events occur relative to other events
• Combining tenses
• Tenses in direct and reported descriptions of events
• Tenses with si

---

The subjunctive, modal verbs, exclamatives and imperatives

• The attitude of the subject to events: the subjunctive
• The use of devoir, pouvoir, savoir, falloir
• The French equivalents of the English modal verbs: 'would', 'should', 'could', 'may', 'might', 'ought to', and 'must'
• Exclamatives
• Imperatives

---

The infinitive

• Introduction: what are infinitives?
• Infinitives as complements to other verbs
• Verbs which take infinitive complements without a linking preposition
• Verbs which take infinitive complements preceded by the preposition à
• Verbs which take an infinitive complement preceded by de
• Omission of objects before infinitives
• Infinitives as complements to adjectives
• Infinitives as complements to nouns
• Infinitives in subordinate clauses
• Infinitives as polite commands
• Quick-reference index to verbs taking infinitive complements

---

Prepositions

• Introduction
• Prepositions listed alphabetically from à to vers
• French translations for common English prepositions

---

Question formation

• Introduction
• Yes/no questions
• Information questions
• Order of object pronouns in questions involving inversion
• Order of negative particles in questions involving inversion
• Use of question words and phrases: qui?, que?, quoi?, quel?, de qui?, avec combien de? etc.
• Indirect questions

---

Relative clauses

• Introduction
• Use of relative qui
• Use of relative que
• Preposition plus qui
• Use of lequel in relative clauses
• Use of dont, de qui, duquel/de laquelle/desquels/desquelles
• The use of où as a relative pronoun
• Use of relative quoi
• Free relative clauses and the use of ce qui, ce que, ce dont, ce à quoi, ce sur quoi, etc.
• Translating 'whoever', 'whatever', 'wherever', 'whenever', 'however'
• Indicative and subjunctive in relative clauses

---

Negation

• Introduction
• Location of sentence negators
• Order of negators in multiple negation
• Omission of ne in sentence negation
• Order of negative elements in questions and imperatives
• ne... pas
• ne... que
• ne... aucun(e), ne... nul(le)
• ne... jamais
• ne... plus
• ne... guère
• ne... rien
• ne... personne
• ne... ni... ni
• sans used with other negators
• ne used alone

---

Conjunctions and other linking constructions

• Introduction
• Coordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions
• Conjunctions sometimes confused by English speakers
• Repeated subordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions used with infinitive clauses
• après avoir/ être + past participle linking an infinitive clause to a main clause
• Past participle phrases used as linkers
• Present participles and gerunds