Persian to Canadian French: a singular Persian verb can still describe several tables
Do not let the Persian verb erase the objects’ number
The Texas Persian lesson gives in miz hā bozorg ast for these tables are big. The noun phrase is plural even though the final copular form is singular. A Canadian French translation must preserve several tables; changing the referent to one table merely to match the source verb’s form would alter the information being communicated.
The lesson describes this as a pattern involving inanimate plurals, while also documenting variation and exceptions. It is therefore a reading aid rather than a license to force every Persian plural inanimate noun into a singular verb. In the cited sentence, the plural marker on the noun supplies information that the target must retain.
French number extends through the nominal group and the predicate
The OQLF explains number agreement within the French noun phrase: the head noun determines corresponding agreement on its determiners and adjectives. The French UD overview also describes finite verbs and auxiliaries as cross-referencing their subjects’ person and number. For the table description, plural reference consequently has consequences beyond merely adding a noun ending.
An original French rendering of that meaning is Ces tables sont grandes. The demonstrative, noun, copula and adjective describe the same plural subject. These are not four separate claims that extra tables have appeared; they are coordinated grammatical signals for the plural group already identified in the Persian phrase by its noun and demonstrative.
For a room inventory, this distinction prevents a practical misunderstanding. If the source compares several large tables with another group, a singular French noun would shrink the inventory. A plural noun combined with a singular copula would instead leave the intended count recognizable but the target agreement inconsistent. Both problems come from copying the wrong source cue.
A negative possessive statement keeps the plural books
The Persian lesson also illustrates in ketāb hā māl-e man nist, these books are not mine. Again, the denial concerns a plural set of objects despite the singular negative copular form. The translation should deny the speaker’s relationship to those books, rather than deny possession of only one book.
This is different from deciding how many owners there are. Man identifies one speaker; the plural book noun identifies several items. French plural agreement with the subject does not transform that speaker into several owners. Source item number and possessor number must remain separate throughout the translation.
Canadian French does not require an invented regional exception to these ordinary agreement principles. The useful directional adjustment is to interpret the Persian inanimate-plural pattern correctly, then let written French mark the noun group and predicate as its own grammar requires. Counting the referents in the Persian noun phrase is more reliable here than treating a singular-looking verb as the final authority.
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