French Grammar in Context

Articles and quantifiers 83

5 QUANTIFIERS

aTous/toutes+ les+ noun translates not only ‘all the.. .’ but also ‘every.. ., e.g. tous les pays

(line 2). Tout(e) + noun (with no article) translates ‘any’, e.g. toute collectivité (lines 19–20).

b La plupart (‘The majority/most’) is always followed by de + definite article.

e.g. La plupart des méthodes (line 5)

Other points to note in the text

• Subjunctive: qu’il s’agisse de la famille (line 20); à quelque degré de la hiérarchie qu’il se situe
  (lines 26–7) (see Chapter 26)


• Demonstrative pronouns: celui-là (lines 8, 37); cela (lines 22, 28, 43); adjective: ces (line 21) (see
  Chapter 14)


• Relative pronouns: ce que (line 2); qui (lines 5, 41); que (line 9), qu’ (line 28); dont (lines 28, 32)
  (see Chapter 11)

Discover more about articles and quantifiers

1 THE DEFINITE ARTICLE

a French uses the definite article in its generalizing sense after verbs which express like or
dislike, e.g. J’aime le thé; Je déteste le vin. There would of course be no article in English in such
cases.

b The elided form of the singular definite article l’ occurs before a word beginning with an
inaspirate or ‘mute’ ‘h’, e.g. l’homme, l’huile, but before a word beginning with a so-called
aspirate ‘h’ no elision occurs, e.g. le héros; la hiérarchie (line 27).
There are only a few dozen words which begin with a so-called aspirate ‘h’. These have to be
learnt. The most common include: la haine, le hameau, le hareng, le haricot, la harpe, la hâte, la
hausse, la hauteur, le hérisson, le héros (but not l’héroïne), le hibou, la hiérarchie, le homard, la
honte, le huit.

2 THE INDEFINITE ARTICLE

a Thinking of des as the plural of un(e) may help you to decide whether to use des or les in
French. For example, La mouche est un insecte becomes in the plural Les mouches sont des
insectes (Flies are insects).

b Des may sometimes correspond to ‘some’ or ‘any’ in English, e.g. j’ai des livres (I have some
books); as-tu des vidéocassettes? (Have you any video cassettes?). However, most commonly
English has no equivalent (see Articles and quantifiers in the text, 2a,above).