in this example, two questions:
Ce sont les meilleures vacances qu'elle ait passées!
1. why "ce" instead of "ces", if vacances is plural?
2. why pasées instead of passée, if the noun is singular and avoir doesn't match in number?
in this example, two questions:
Ce sont les meilleures vacances qu'elle ait passées!
1. why "ce" instead of "ces", if vacances is plural?
2. why pasées instead of passée, if the noun is singular and avoir doesn't match in number?
Cesar,
‘ces’ is a demonstrative adjective and cannot be used as a pronoun as required in this sentence. ‘ Ce sont …’ is the plural demonstrative pronoun-verb form required.
C'est, ce sont = this is, these are (French Demonstrative Pronouns)
In the relative clause, “ qu'elle ait passées “, ‘que’ is the direct object of the compound avoir- conjugated verb ‘ ait passées ‘, precedes the verb and is the pronoun representing ‘ les vacances ‘. As the direct object precedes the verb, agreement of the past participle with the direct object is required, hence plural feminine form. Note that although the lesson refers to the most commonly used compound tense, passé composé, the agreement rule holds for all compound tenses with the auxiliary ‘avoir’.
( If agreement was not required, it would be ‘ ait passé ‘, as it would be for masculine singular with agreement ).
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