subjunctive?

in a Fr. conversation group, someone wrote a quote "je ferais admirablement remarquer aux hommes politiques qui me prennent pour un rigolo que ce n'est pas moi qui aie commencé" why use the subjunctive?

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on October 31, 2009 at 12:23am

I think it's just a typo!

In the case of avoir, the subjunctive and indicative sound the same. But if you substitute another verb, I think it's clear that it's really the indicative (e.g. Ce n'est pas moi qui suis...).

There are cases where a negative triggers the subjunctive, e.g. Il n'y a rien qui puisse m'empêcher....

But in cases like the one you mention, I think the subjunctive would generally be judged ungrammatical or at least unnatural (of course, feedback from others is always welcome)-- again allowing for the fact that to make the judgement, you need to consider cases where the indicative/subjunctive sound different.

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Permalink Reply by elaine woodward on November 1, 2009 at 4:14am

thank you, Neil. I thought it was not correct but do you have a way to explain this to a French woman who who "just knew" it was right? Probably il ne vaut pas la peine to try. Thanks to this site (which I just found from my computer in Florida USA) I can access more information than from any book that I can find here. à très bientôt elaine

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Permalink Reply by Frank on November 1, 2009 at 10:40am

Yes, this is definitely a typo or a mistake. Using the subjunctive wouldn't make any sense here.

However, it's a common mistake. The subjunctive form often follows "que" or "qui" and with the verb "avoir", the subjunctive sounds the same as the indicative.

Neil just explained a simple way to explain this to this French woman: just imagine what the phrase would be with another verb that doesn't sound the same in the subjunctive and in the indicative forms. A good pick is "vendre", because the subjunctive and the indicative really sound different and require less thinking than "être" to identify when the subjunctive is being used .