Words with no subject V

Ce mot a survécu à la mode qui l’a créé puts a preposition where English puts nothing whatever. Survivre never takes a direct object: one survives à something. The same holds for a family of verbs that look plainly transitive to an English reader — obéir à, pardonner à, nuire à, ressembler à, succéder à, téléphoner à, échapper à. « Obey the rule », « forgive her », « phone him », « resemble his father »: every one of them needs à going the other way, and leaving it out is the commonest single mistake an English speaker makes with them. Two consequences follow, and both are worth having. The past participle of such a verb agrees with nothing at all, because agreement under avoir wants a direct object standing in front of it and there is none: la mode à laquelle il a survécu leaves survécu bare whatever the gender. And the passive that English builds so cheaply — « she was forgiven », « he was obeyed » — has no comfortable equivalent, so French reaches for on instead: on lui a pardonné.