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What is the capital of Tunisia?

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What is the capital of Tunisia?

Qualité de vie or qualité de LA vie?

I started as a comment but it got too long, unfortunately I can’t give you a complete satisfying answer except that both are said: qualité de la vie and qualité de vie.

To start with I’d say I would have said like you qualité de vie in the exercise (I’m 100 % French born and bred in case you wonder). Considering the enumeration in the sentence I consider it to be understood as the English "quality of life" (i.e. in general). Then I’ll just point to a few random thoughts that certainly need expanding.

  • Qualité de vie could be the scientific concept, something that can be measured through statistics, polls, etc.
  • Qualité de la vie could be more empirical, or philosophical.
  • Another more down to earth thought has crossed my mind: the person who made the exercise absolutely wanted the students to fill in all the blanks and did not even think there could be two possibilities.

I’ve had a look at the article Qualité de vie in wikipedia, noticed they use indifferently qualité de la vie and qualité de vie.

L’Organisation mondiale de la santé définit en 1994 la qualité de la vie comme…

Les chercheurs s’accordent tout de même à considérer la qualité de vie comme un concept multidimensionnel …

Google books returns about the same amount of qualité de vie as of qualité de la vie.


There would be instances of more precise contexts where I would still hesitate between the two:

  • La qualité de (la) vie à Paris est meilleure qu’à la campagne.

But no hesitation for:

  • La qualité de la vie de nos parents n’était pas aussi bonne que la nôtre.
    Because in this last sentence I have used nos parents and la nôtre to define qualité de vie. And it seems to me more personal than just à Paris vs à la campagne.

As concerns "circulation", both are acceptable. As shows the ngram below until the mid sixties in the past century both were used with equal frequency; then, as the phrase with the definite article became rather rare that without remained in comparatively frequent use.

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It can be verified here and here that the usage is the correct one (same meaning of "circulation").

As pertains to "société", the matter is different; the ngram below shows that the phrase containing the article is relatively rare at all times.

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This is so because the meaning of "société" is not the same when the article is used; in that case the article is not the definite article that is used in French with nouns (freedom/la liberté, business/les affaires, time/le temps,…) but it is the article used as a "local" determinative in expressions where "société" does not mean "société des êtres humains d’un pays" at large; when this meaning is restricted (société contemporaine) then the article is used (les questions de la société contemporaine). This can be verified on this page.

"Le monde de sport" is not said at all (ngram). This case stands in opposition to the others and it will be taken up again at the end.

The third case is similar to the first; as "qualité de la vie" began to be used less and less, "qualité de vie" became more frequent (ngram).

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You can see that both can be used but much more common is the phrase without the article. In my opinion, you can still say "qualité de la vie".

"Taux de la chômage" is incorrect on two counts: "chômage" is masculine, and so it should be "taux du chômage" ("taux de le chômage", not correct, but that is the equivalent form in terms of meaning), and then this last form, even if correct grammatically, is not used at all (ngram).

What is to be retained concerning cases "1", "2" and "4" is there is no grammatical rule involved; this is simply a matter of usage. In fact it shows a tendency towards two means of determination of nouns in French for a single context, the traditional one (preposition of the definite article) and the zero article one. That is about all that can be said grammar-wise.

Getting back to "monde du sport", it is interesting to notice that "monde de sport" is not said at all, whereas "questions de circulation", "problèmes de société" and "taux de chômage" all occur. This is to be sought in the semantics of "de".

(TLFi)
I.De prend une valeur sémantique en corrélation avec celle du mot subséquent.
C.De marque une circonstance qui précise (et parfois conditionne) une modalité d’existence ou d’action.
5. La modalité est une appartenance.
a) Possession, dépendance.
− [Le compl. déterminatif est déterminé]
α) [Le possesseur est une pers., un groupe ou un être animé déterminé.]
de + subst. concr. (nom propre ou nom commun).
♦ Elle est là, dans la chambre de Bébé, avec Madeleine (H. Bataille, Maman Colibri,1904, IV, 8, p. 30)
♦ Vous décider à envoyer ma sœur à Mirosménil, ou même à Limeuil, prendre l’air du printemps et boire le lait de nos vaches. (Bernanos, Dialog. Carm.,1948, 1ertabl., 1, p. 1572)
♦ Nos amis recueillaient les grandes paroles simples de leur concierge, du facteur, du plombier, et nous les rapportaient (Sartre, Mots,1964, p. 174)
♦ Ne sommes-nous pas, d’ailleurs, dans le pays des chevaliers de la Table ronde, dans la contrée des fées, dans la patrie de Merlin, au berceau mythologique des épopées disparues? (Flaubert, Par les champs et par les grèves,1848, p. 355)
♦ Des bols de ce perpétuel lait de malade apparurent aussi dans les mains de Christine, entre ses deux mains à lui, sur sa table de nuit, exactement comme pour sa mère. Mais on lui présentait ce lait froid, presque glacé. Malègue, Augustin,t. 2, 1933, p. 379.

It can be seen from the examples that for proper nouns "de" is used but for all others "de + < definite article or other determiner >" is the form in use. This is characteristic of the semantic relation of belonging.

  • chambre de Bébé — which belongs to Bébé"
  • lait de nos vaches — the cows that belong to us
  • paroles de leur concierge, du facteur, du plombier — words that belong to the caretaker, the postman, etc. ie that are theirs as having been said by them, or in other terms, words that are being called theirs because they said them

Notice "lait de malade" (no article). "Le monde du sport" has to be interpreted as "le monde qui appartient au sport" (although this is rather awkward).

The relations to be read into

 

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What is the capital of Tunisia?