Breakdown of Le garçon est tout fasciné par les crevettes.
être
to be
le garçon
the boy
par
by, through / out of (motive)
tout
completely
la crevette
the shrimp
fasciné
fascinated
Questions & Answers about Le garçon est tout fasciné par les crevettes.
Why does tout stay in its basic masculine singular form here?
In this sentence, tout acts as an adverb meaning "completely." Adverbs don't normally change their form to match gender or number. The only exception for tout is when it comes right before a feminine adjective starting with a consonant or an aspirated 'h'. Because fasciné is masculine, tout remains invariable (it doesn't change).
If we changed the sentence to be about a girl, would tout change to toute?
Why do we use par instead of de for "by" here? I thought emotions usually took de.
You are right to remember that many adjectives describing feelings take de (like fatigué de or heureux de). However, fasciné acts like a literal passive verb here, so it uses par to show the "agent" doing the fascinating, exactly like English ("fascinated by").
In English, "shrimp" can be plural without an "s". How does it work in French?
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