If I wanted to say, for instance, C'est bon, la salade, should that be bonne ? Should the adjective match what I'm referring to when I use it that way? It seems very clear that it should, grammatically, and yet I can't recall ever seeing someone say C'est bonne.
asked Mar 28, 2017 at 23:56
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1 Answer
C'est bonne is ungrammatical.
Bon must agree with the subject which is the neutral pronoun/deixis ce, so stays in masculine. When used to describe or comment on something, c'est is always followed by a singular masculine adjective:
Des salades aux truffes, c'est bon !
Note that there is agreement with personal pronouns which must agree with the real subject :
Elle est bonne, cette salade !
Tes salades aux truffes, elles sont bonnes !
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Very interesting. I never realized it worked that way, I thought it had to agree with the thing ce was referring to. Mar 29, 2017 at 0:29
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@Aerovistae, agreement is always with the words, not with the thing (which may be designated by words of different gender). When it is a person which is designated, there is a tendency to use the grammatical gender which match with the sex of the person instead of the gender of the word, but that happens only when the distance is relatively big. Mar 29, 2017 at 13:36