Les humains vous haïssent tous, par ignorance.
I’m not sure how to interpret this sentence:
All of the humans hate you.
or
Humans hate all of you.
asked Jul 1, 2016 at 3:41
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1 Answer
It's ambiguous and can be interpreted both ways, but if the author had wanted to be clear that it was qualifying the subject they'd have written
Tous les humains vous haïssent.
So if I needed to take a guess I'd venture that the intent was to qualify the object, purely based on inference, not grammar.
If, on the other hand, you wanted to clarify without the shadow of a doubt that it is "all of you" who are hated, you would need to work around it a bit, because Les humains vous haïssent tous is exactly how you'd say it if a slight doubt was acceptable.
You could say something like:
Les humains vous haïssent tous autant que vous êtes.
Les humains vous haïssent — vous tous.
Vous êtes tous haïs par les humains.
The first two are slightly more emphatic and the last one uses a passive voice.
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On the other hand, if you want to make it perfectly clear without a shadow of a doubt that "tous" qualifies the objective, how would you modify this sentence? Merci. Jul 1, 2016 at 4:03
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5You kind of have to work around it, because the way you have it now is exactly how you'd say it if a slight doubt was acceptable. You could say Les humains vous haïssent tous autant que vous êtes, or Les humains vous haïssent — vous tous, or Vous êtes tous haïs par les humains, but the first two are slightly more emphatic and the last one uses a passive voice.– qobaJul 1, 2016 at 4:14
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