Faites l’accord lorsqu’il il y a plusieurs noms

Question

Petite question. Je n’ai rien trouvé concernant un doute que j’ai où le sujet dont on parle s’agit de plusieurs noms et avec quel mot on doit faire l’accord.

Exemple: La liste des mots que j’ai apprise.

Dans ce cas, je n’ai pas appris la liste donc il me semble étrange de faire l’accord avec « la liste » meme si c’est le sujet. Quelle est la règle?

Accepted Answer

Bonjour AnnaMarie,
Chris is correct! Both are possible:
La liste des mots que j’ai apprise
  -> the main word in the group (la liste des mots) is "liste" and therefore you should agree the past participle accordingly.
La liste des mots que j’ai appris
 -> you learnt the "mots" (= words) ahead and you are talking about the entirety of the words you learnt.
Is this a sentence you saw in one of our lessons? If so, could you provide the link please?
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Answer

How the participle ends is determined by what the relative pronoun que refers to. In the example you quote, I think both options would be possible. If you write apprise, i.e., que refers to la liste, then you view the list as the collection of words not the piece of paper they are written on.

Answer

Thank you both.  This was not an example I found in the lessons; rather, something that came to mind as I went through the lesson.