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{1st: feminine}: Toutes les haches dont nous disposons ...

{2nd: masculine}: Tous les pistolets dont nous disposons ...

{3rd: feminine}: Toutes les lances dont nous disposons ...

In conversation, how would you combine these three elements, placing the three nouns in this exact order? And what about on paper?

{This is essentially what I want to say}: Toutes les haches, tous les pistolets et toutes les lances, dont nous disposons ...

{Can the three be merged into}: Tout(e)s les haches, pistolets et lances, dont nous disposons ...

If so, how do you pronounce the part "tout(e)s"?

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  • I don't understand the question. With commas in between? What else is there to say? Well, ok, that we'd use the word et instead of the last comma.
    – Gilles 'SO nous est hostile'
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 0:58
  • @Gilles Hi. Just updated.
    – Con-gras-tue-les-chiens
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 1:08

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The official grammatical rule is to use the masculine form if the enumeration includes at least one masculine case.

(?) Tous les haches, pistolets et lances dont nous disposons

However, it sounds really weird when the adjective comes before the noun like that. Although few grammar books mention proximity agreement in French, it gets used a little in practice. It still sounds weird, but not worse than the masculine here.

(?) Toutes les haches, pistolets et lances dont nous disposons …

Mind you, even if the first case in the enumeration is masculine, so that both masculine domination and proximity agreement give the same result, it still sounds weird.

(?) Tous les pistolets, haches et lances dont nous disposons …

It feels a lot more natural to repeat tous/toutes.

Toutes les haches, tous les pistolets et toutes les lances dont nous disposons …
Toutes les haches et lances et tous les pistolets dont nous disposons …

Alternatively, use a generic word.

Toutes les armes dont nous disposons — haches, pistolets, lances — …

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  • I have a bit of trouble with your comments about ‘sounding weird’. Things sound weird because they are not common, not the other way around. In my experience of daily life, ‘tou(te)s’ will usually be repeated (like you said); and as a reader, it seems like authors usually opt for a workaround, perhaps to avoid a gloomy, not sufficiently attended corner of the language. I don't think any of this makes the options you present intrinsically weird. Their weirdness is symptomatic of their rarity (e.g. ‘grand-mère’ is not weird, though in striking contrast with the usual rules of French).
    – Pas un clue
    Commented Nov 5, 2017 at 15:17
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    @Feelew “Sounds weird” means that I rule out the phrasing through my native's intuition, rather than by applying grammatical rules or by a literature analysis.
    – Gilles 'SO nous est hostile'
    Commented Nov 5, 2017 at 15:21

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