Tegnalos:
> I don't need to do any homework... I'm Spanish, my
> mother tongue is Spanish, and I know pretty well
> what I'm talking about.
Yes, you do "know pretty well what you're talking
about"... about _SPANISH_! Grrr :)
You have to respect the many differences between
French and Spanish, especially when it comes
to the expression of the plural. It's really
important to understand how the loss of final
consonants that occured **only in French, not in
Spanish** plays a unique part in the French-specific
rules that may very well deviate from the Latin norm,
even from the stuffy academic language itself.
While I know that Spanish **always** pronounces the
plural because its pronunciation is meticulously
faithful to the spelling, this is simply not the
case in French at all. The final consonants were
dropped after the Middle Ages, as is attested by
loans from Old French into English like "forest"
(now French "forêt" but further eroded in standard
pronunciation as /fORe/). Another is "deuce" from
French "deux" but nowdays its pronounced /dö/ with
only the occasional linking -z-.
> French is a language close enough for any educated
> Spaniard to see something weird in "quatres, cinqs"
> etc.
Again, Spanish is in this regard nothing like French.
There are lots of things in Spanish that are
considered 'normal' for Spaniards but that are not
allowed in French. Now wouldn't I sound arrogant if I
had said that your language standards are 'weird' to
the average Francophone?
Now, admittedly, I never actively thought about these
rules in French until it has been pointed out just
now because after being educated in a French Immersion
program since I was in kindergarten, French has
become automatic for me. I no longer think consciously
about all these burdensome rules but only what feels
naturally to me like any native speaker of French.
So things like "Je suis faim" and "J'ai allé" send
shivers down my spine like any good Frenchman.
I can admit that when I test out "les quatre enfants"
with an intruding -z- with my normal accent, it
sounds awkward. This is probably because I've opted
for a more Parisian pronunciation perhaps to the
distaste of my Quebecois compatriots. Hehe, that's
what you get for Bill 101, Quebec! Anyways, I
apparently don't do it which means that I obey this
so-called 'educated' rule in speech without knowing
it regardless.
However... I'm really not sure that this is the case
for all French speakers and when I test out an
Acadian twang, /le kAts E~fE~/ doesn't give me the
heebie-jeebies. It just ends up sounding like a
difference of dialect.
> It doesn't make sense in the logic of
> Romance languages.
Since when did grammar make "logical" sense. This
conviction of yours sets you up for major
misunderstandings.
> The problem is that many French write phonetically
> rather than ortographically, and that leads them to
> make many shameful spelling mistakes.
Shameful? It depends on how linguistically elitist
you are. However, this is exactly why comparing
Spanish with French in this regard can lead you
astray.
All of this in the end is immaterial to the original
fact that, whether its grammatically incorrect or
not, saying "quatre-vingt onze" with a linking -z-
will make "quatre-vingt" sound like an adjective
but the more general rule about adjective-noun
number agreement in French. That's all I was really
trying to say before we went down another path but
I guess I've learned a little more in the process.
Go figure. :)
= gLeN
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