French grammar is the study of grammar in the French language.
Verbs
There are three main verb categories, with infinitives ending in -er, -ir and -re. Verbs in -ir are further divided into two groups, based on whether the infix -iss- appears in some parts of the conjugation.
Historically, these groups reflect Latin verbs in -are, -ire, and -ere. The -iss- infix is a development of the Latin inchoative infix -isc-; it appears as -isc- in Italian, -esc- in Romanian, and also (through French) in several English verbs ending in -ish with an inchoative meaning (finish, polish, nourish, etc.).
Verbs are conjugated by the addition of endings to the verb stem, which is normally found by removing the infinitive ending. A single ending encodes person, number, tense, and mood. Many of the endings, however, have identical (and minimal) phonetic realizations; it is common for the first person singular, second person singular, third person singular, and third person plural forms to all be homophones. Personal pronouns are therefore obligatory in modern French -- usually just the conjunctive series, but often supplemented in spoken French by the disjunctive series as well: "Moi, je chante" ("Me, I sing").
Tenses
French verbs are commonly conjugated in five simple tenses and five compound tenses. They are also conjugated in the "literary" or "historic" tenses, each of which have an equivalent commonly used tense. These literary tenses are used often in literature and history. There are two simple literary tenses and three compound literary tenses.
The commonly used simple tenses are: the present tense (le présent), the imperfect (l'imparfait), the future (le futur), the present subjunctive (le subjonctif) and the present conditional (le conditionnel).
The commonly conjugated compound tenses are the perfect (le passé composé), the pluperfect (le plus-que-parfait), the future perfect (le futur antérieur), the past subjunctive (le subjonctif passé) and the past conditional (le conditionnel passé).
The perfect is the tense in common use used to describe actions that were started and completed in the past. The imperfect is the tense used to describe actions that were ongoing or continuous in the past or to describe habitual or repetitive action. The present and past subjunctives are used to describe doubt, emotions, possibilities and events which may or may not occur.
The simple literary tenses are the simple past or past historic (le passé simple), replaced in ordinary language by the perfect tense, and the imperfect subjunctive (l'imparfait du subjonctif), replaced in ordinary language by the present subjunctive.
The compound literary tenses are the past anterior (le passé antérieur), usually replaced by the pluperfect; the pluperfect subjunctive (le plus-que-parfait du subjonctif), usually replaced by the past subjunctive; and a second form of the past conditional.
Of the literary tenses, only the past historic tends to be used commonly any more. While grammatical distinctions were lost when the literary tenses fell out of common usage, the distinctions were not important enough for confusion to result.
Aside from these tenses, there is an imperative, a participle, and the infinitive, each of which can be inflected for tense (present and past), although the past imperative is quite rare.
Compound tense auxiliary verbs
In French, all compound tenses are formed with an auxiliary verb (either être "to be" or avoir "to have"). Most verbs use avoir as their auxiliary verb. The exceptions are sixteen commonly used verbs of motion, their derivatives, and all reflexive verbs. Those sixteen verbs, plus three common compounds, are:
- (Devenir - to become)
- (Revenir - to get back)
- Monter - to climb/go up
- Rester - to stay
- Sortir - to go out
- Venir - to come
- Aller - to go
- Naître - to be born
- Descendre - to go down
- Entrer - to enter
- Retourner - to send back/ to return
- Tomber - to fall
- Rentrer - to return
- Arriver - to arrive
- Mourir - to die
- Partir- to leave or part
As is implied above, these verbs spell the mnemonic "Mrs Vandertamp" (or "Dr Mrs Vandertramp" if the three compounds are included).
In other Romance languages, such as Italian, this exact same distinction is made between the two auxilliary verbs.
The distinction between the two auxiliary verbs is important for the correct formation of the compound tenses and is also essential to the agreement of the past participle.
The Past Participle
The past participle is used in French as both an adjective and to form all the compound tenses of the language. When it is used as an adjective, it follows all the regular agreement rules of the language, but when it is used in compound tenses, it follows special agreement rules.
-er verbs form the participle by changing the -er ending to -é, -ir verbs by changing -ir to -i, and -re verbs by changing to -u. Therefore, the past participle of parler, "to speak", is parlé; for finir, "to finish", fini, and for vendre, "to sell", vendu.
The rules of agreement for past participles differ for avoir verbs and être verbs. For avoir verbs, the past participle does not agree with the subject, but it will agree with a direct object that comes before the verb, either in the form of a pronoun or a relative clause using que: elles ont mangé les fraises que j'avais cueillies. Elles les ont mangées.
For the sixteen commonly used être verbs, the past participle always agrees with the subject: elles sont parties. For reflexive verbs, the past participle generally agrees with the subject, unless there is a direct object to the reflexive verb coming after this verb: elles se sont lavées, elles se sont lavé les mains. Past participle used in reflexive verbs that only have indirect object never agrees: elles se sont parlé (elles ont parlé à elles-mêmes).
Conjugation
Nouns
French has two grammatical genders (masculine and feminine) and two numbers (singular and plural). For animate nouns, grammatical gender usually corresponds to natural gender. Gender is unpredictable from the form of a noun alone, although there are some general trends.
Feminine nouns:
- all nouns in -sion, -tion, -aison, -ance, -ure, -ille
some examples : une décision, une information, une maison(a house), une nuance, la nature, une fille(a girl)
Masculine nouns:
- most nouns in -ment, -eur, -age, -çon
some examples : un sentiment(a feeling), un vendeur, un naufrage(a shipwreck), un garçon(a boy)
Articles
French has three articles: definite, indefinite, and partitive. (The meaning and use of each is described below.) Articles agree with their nouns in gender and number; for example, a feminine, singular noun requires a feminine, singular article. However, none of the articles distinguishes between masculine-plural and feminine-plural; thus, each article has a masculine, singular form, a feminine, singular form, and a plural form. The morphology of the articles is as follows:
|
| masculine singular
| feminine singular
| plural
|
| definite article
| le1,2 | la1 | les2
|
| indefinite article
| un3 | une3 | des4
|
| partitive article
| du5,6 | de la5,6 | des4,5
|
- Le and la become l' before a vowel; see the section on elision and liaison.
- The prepositions à ("to" or "at") and de ("of" or "from") contract with le(s) to form au(x) and du/des, respectively. These contractions are obligatory, except that le does not contract before a vowel (since it becomes l').
- Un(e) is also the word for "one"; this makes semantic sense.
- Des is the plural form of both the indefinite article and the partitive article; this makes sense, as there is no real difference in meaning. Note that many grammarians describe it as exclusively indefinite or as exclusively partitive, saying that the other article has no plural form; this amounts to the same thing.
- The partitive article is formed by adding the preposition de ("of" or "from") to the definite article.
- Du and de la become de l' before a vowel; see notes 1 and 5 above.
|
The French definite article is analogous to the English definite article ("the"). Like "the," the French definite article is used with a noun referring to a specific item when both the speaker and the audience know what the item is; so, "J'ai cassé la chaise rouge" ("I broke the red chair"). Unlike "the," the French definite article is also used with an uncountable noun to describe all of it, or with a plural noun to describe all of them; so, "J'aime le lait" ("I like [no article] milk") or "J'aime les romans" ("I like [no article] novels").
The French indefinite article is analogous to the English indefinite article ("a/an"). Like "a/an," the French indefinite article is used with a noun referring to a non-specific item, or to a specific item when the speaker and audience don't both know what the item is; so, "J'ai cassé une chaise rouge" ("I broke a red chair"). Unlike "a/an," the French indefinite article has a plural form, often translated as "some" but usually simply omitted in English; so, "Il y a des livres là-bas" ("There are some or [no article] books over there").
There is no English partitive article; the French partitive article is often translated as "some," but often simply omitted in English. It is used to indicate an indefinite portion of something uncountable, or an indefinite number of something countable: so, "J'ai du café" ("I have some or [no article] coffee").
As may be seen from the above, French, articles and determiners are required in French much more often than in English. This might be attributed to the fact that in speech, it is generally impossible to distinguish the singular and plural forms of a noun, so it is useful to include articles and determiners so as to make the distinction clear.
Adjectives
Most adjectives follow the noun, except for a small but common subset: adjectives describing beauty, age, goodness, or size (BAGS).
For some adjectives, the meaning changes based on its position relative to the noun:
- mon ancienne maison ("my former house") vs. ma maison ancienne ("my ancient house")
- ma propre maison ("my own house") vs. ma maison propre ("my clean house")
- un grand homme ("an important man") vs. un homme grand ("a tall man")
Many compound words contain an adjective: belle-mère (one word: "mother in law") vs. belle mère (two words: "handsome mother"). Some of them use an archaic form of the feminine adjective (without -e): grand-route, grand-rue (but une grande route "a long way", une grande rue "a long street").
Pronouns
Personal Pronouns
| Singular | Plural
|
| 1
| je | nous
|
| 2
| tu (informal), vous (formal) | vous
|
| 3
| il (masculine), elle (feminine), on (neuter) | ils (masculine or mixed), elles (feminine)
|
on is commonly used to translate the english passive voice and is comparable to english's one ("on a volé la Joconde" would be literally translated by "(some)one has stolen the Joconda"). In addition, on is tending to replace the more formal nous in oral situations ("on a ce qu'il faut" for "we have what's needed").
Possessive Pronouns
Possessive pronouns agree with the object "possessed":
- First Person
- Singular
- Mon (masculine)
- Ma (feminine)
- Mes (both plural)
- Plural
- Notre (both singular)
- Nos (both plural)
- Second Person
- Singular
- Ton (masculine)
- Ta (feminine)
- Tes (both plural)
- Plural
- Votre (both singular)
- Vos (both plural)
- Third Person
- Singular
- Son (masculine)
- Sa (feminine)
- Ses (both plural)
- Plural
- Leur (both singular)
- Leurs (both plural)
Reflexive pronouns
- 1st person: me, nous
- 2nd person: te, vous
- 3rd person: se, se
As odd as it may seem, the French do say "nous nous voyons tous les jours" ("we see each other daily") thus repeating twice nous (or vous).
Interrogatives
Lequel is used as the interrogative pronoun in French. It signifies which one or which ones. It agrees with the noun it replaces:
Singular
- lequel (masc.)
- laquelle (fem.)
Plural
- lesquels (masc.)
- lesquelles (fem.)
Examples:
"Lesquelles dois-je lire, parmi ces lettres?" (Which ones should I read, among those letters).
"Lequel est le plus amusant?" ("Which (of them) is the funniest?")
Lequel can be contracted with à and de.
- "Je veux aller à un beau pays." "Auquel?" (I want to go to a beautiful country. To which one?)
- "J'ai besoin de ces stylos." "Desquels?" (I need these pens. Which ones?)
Demonstratives
Adjectives
| Singular | Plural
|
| Masculine
| ce, cet (before vowel) | ces
|
| Feminine
| cette | ces
|
The preceding adjectives can mean either "this" or "that", "these" or "those". To be more precise or to avoid ambiguity, -ci or -là can be inserted after the noun:
- cet homme-ci "this man"
- cet homme-là "that man"
Ça is a popular shorthand form for cela(meaning that, it can mentally understood as : ce-là (this-there)).
For example :
- Ça/cela n'a pas d'importance(it doesn't matter)
- Tu vois ça(pointing with index)? Eh bien, c'est la tour Eiffel (You see this? It is the Eiffel tower)
Notice here the widely used in oral "c'est", a compound of ce and est.
Another demonstrative adjective, the word quel, means which or what. It agrees with the noun it modifies:
Singular
- quel (masc., quel train?)
- quelle (fem., quelle chaise?)
Plural
- quels (masc., quels hommes?)
- quelles (fem., quelles classes?)
Quel can be used as an exclamation.
- "Quel film!" (what a movie!)
- "Quelle gentillesse!" (what kindness!)
Pronouns
| Singular | Plural
|
| Masculine
| celui | ceux
|
| Feminine
| celle | celles
|
These pronouns agree with the noun they refer to (this one, that one, these ones, those ones).
To distinguish between this/that and these/those, -ci or -là can be used as a suffix just as in the demonstrative adjectives
- "Tu vois cet homme? Celui-ci? Non, celui-là." "Do you see that man? This one here? No, that one over there"
Negation
French has a two part negation, consisting of the ne particle, which signifies a global negation, preceding the verb, and one of several other words following the verb, clarifying the type of negation:
- ne...pas "not"
- ne...rien "nothing"
- ne...jamais "never"
- ne...personne "nobody" (but the word personne alone means person)
- ne...aucun(ne) "not any", but not identical to the german kein
- ne...plus "not any more, no longer"
- ne...guère "not much, not any" (archaic)
- ne...que "only"
Examples:
- Je ne sais pas. "I don't know."
- Nous n'avons vu personne. "We didn't see anybody."
- Il ne fume plus. "He doesn't smoke any more."
In colloquial French it is common to drop the ne in fast speech, although this can create some ambiguity with the ne...plus, meaning either "I (do something) still" or "I (dont do anything) any more."
It is also common in current literary style to omit the pas when the construction is of the ne...pas form with the verbs vouloir and pouvoir ("to want", "to be able to").
Word order
- Subject
- ne (establishes global negation within phrase)
- Reflexive pronoun
- Indirect Object pronoun me, te, nous, vous
- Direct Object pronoun
- Indirect Object pronoun lui, leur
- y and/or en
- Finite verb form
- complement to ne to clarify form of negation (pas,rien,personne,jamais)
- Past participle
- Object (may be a negative complement)
