On May 16, 2:38 pm, Andre Majorel <che...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > There are plenty of cases where "que", translated by 'that',
> > is pretty much always followed by the subjunctive in French
> > ("il a annonc=E9 que...")
>
> Valid point but bad example. Unless I've just become ga-ga,
> "annoncer que" is never followed by the subjunctive.
Sorry, slip of the keyboard-- obviously I meant to say "always
followed
by the *indicative*". In other words, it contradicts the idea that
"que"
translated by 'that' implies subjunctive.
This verb actually is an example of another generalisation that we
can state (although it's arguably just an extension of the "assertion"
idea): that verbs of 'saying' generally take the indicative.
You can obviously find examples where non-assertion strongly
overrides this: e.g. "je ne dis pas qu'il soit agressif" (here current
usage
seems to favour the subjunctive by about 2:1 overall, but to favour
the indicative when the complement is a noun phrase).
> > It can something like "oui, je sais qu'il veut que..." but it wouldn't
> > generally mean "oui, je sais que Jean va d=E9mission=E9".
>
> D=E9missionnER.
OK, sorry for this typo too. Must type more slowly! (I *hope* that
it was really really obvious to everybody though...)
> > - how to deal with similar-meaning pairs such as "souhaiter que..."/
> > "esp=E9rer que" (actually not such a problem: many French speakers
> > do actually say things like "j'esp=E8re que tu r=E9ussisse");
Erm readers will automatically add an "-s" to "r=E9ussisses" too... :-)
> Ouch ! Do they really ? In any case, that's an example that
> French learners would be well inspired *not* to follow.
Fairly common. Sometimes people say/write something like this and
then "correct" themselves, but I suspect for prescriptive reasons
rather
than because it naturally "sounds odd" to them.
Learners would probably be advised not to follow this in the sense
that
it's not considered part of careful, educated speech (assuming that's
the variety of French they want to speak of course). But I see no
reason
to pretend it doesn't exist. And who knows how acceptable or not it
will be in 20 or 50 years' time..
Neil
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