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Un Ministral, Des Ministraux

(mistral.ai)
216 points veggieroll | 1 comments | 16 Oct 24 14:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.262s | source
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cmehdy ◴[16 Oct 24 15:58 UTC] No.41860640[source]▶
For anybody wondering about the title, that's a sort-of pun in French about how words get pluralized following French rules.

The quintessential example is "cheval" (horse) which becomes "chevaux" (horses), which is the rule they're following (or being cute about). Un mistral, des mistraux. Un ministral, des ministraux.

(Ironically the plural of the Mistral wind in the Larousse dictionnary would technically be Mistrals[1][2], however weird that sounds to my french ears and to the people who wrote that article perhaps!)

[1] https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/mistral_mistr... [2] https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/mistral

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BafS ◴[16 Oct 24 16:29 UTC] No.41861020[source]▶
It's complex because french is full of exceptions

the classical way to pluralize "–al" words:

  un animal → des animaux [en: animal(s)]
  un journal → des journaux [en: journal(s)]
with some exceptions:

  un carnaval → des carnavals [en: carnival(s)]
  un festival → des festivals [en: festival(s)]
  un idéal → des idéals (OR des idéaux) [en: ideal(s)]
  un val → des vals (OR des vaux) [en: valley(s)]
There is no logic there (as many things in french), it's up to Mistral to choose how the plural can be

EDIT: Format + better examples

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maw ◴[16 Oct 24 16:58 UTC] No.41861278[source]▶
But are these truly exceptions? Or are they the result of subtler rules French learners are rarely taught explicitly?

I don't know what the precise rules or patterns actually might be. But one fact that jumped out at me is that -mal and -nal start with nasal consonants and three of the "exceptions" end in -val.

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1. makapuf ◴[16 Oct 24 17:22 UTC] No.41861503[source]▶
I've never heard of such a rule (am native), and your reasoning is fine but there are many common examples : cheval (horse), rival, estival (adjective, "in the summer "), travail (work, same rules for -ail words)...