French grammar
Encyclopedia
French grammar is the grammar
of the French language
, which is similar to that of the other Romance languages
.
French is a moderately inflected
language. Noun
s and most pronouns are inflected for number
(singular or plural); adjective
s, for the number and gender
(masculine or feminine) of their nouns; personal pronoun
s, for person
, number, gender, and case
; and verb
s, for mood
, tense
, and the person and number of their subjects
. Case is primarily marked using word order
and prepositions, and certain verb features are marked using auxiliary verb
s.
is the controlling element in most sentences, although it is more common in French than in English for a sentence to have no verb. Verbs are conjugated to reflect the following information:
Some of these features are combined into seven tense–aspect–mood combinations. The simple (one-word) forms are commonly referred to as the present, the simple past or preterite
3 (past tense, perfective aspect), the imperfect3 (past tense, imperfective aspect), the future, the conditional1, the present subjunctive, and the imperfect subjunctive forms. However, the simple past and the imperfect subjunctive are rarely used in modern, spoken French.
Footnotes:
Verbs in the finite moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional) are also conjugated to agree
with their subjects in person
(first, second, or third) and number
(singular or plural), but as in English, the subject must be included except in the imperative mood. In other words, unlike other Romance languages, French is neither a null subject language
nor a pronoun-dropping language
.
French also combines the simple forms of helping verbs with the past participles of main verbs; it sometimes uses the verb "être" (to be) and sometimes uses the verb "avoir" (to have) as the auxiliary in the compound past.
The imperative mood derives its conjugation normally from the present subjunctive.
Every French noun
has a grammatical gender
, either masculine or feminine. The grammatical gender of a noun referring to a human or other mammal usually corresponds to the noun's natural gender (i.e., its referent's sex
or gender
). For such nouns, there will very often be one noun of each gender, with the choice of noun being determined by the natural gender of the person described; for example, a male singer is a chanteur, while a female singer is a chanteuse. In some cases, the two nouns are identical in form, with the difference only being marked in neighboring words (due to gender agreement; see below); a Catholic man is un Catholique, while a Catholic woman is une Catholique. Nonetheless, there are some such nouns that retain their grammatical gender regardless of natural gender; personne ("person") is always feminine, while (at least in "standard" French) professeur ("teacher") is always masculine (except in Québec where professeure is used for feminine). However, modern French allows "professeur" to be feminine as well, if the subject is feminine.
A noun's gender is not perfectly predictable from its form, but there are some trends. As a very broad trend, nouns ending in -e tend to be feminine, while the rest tend to be masculine, but there are many exceptions. More consistently, some endings, such as -sion and -tion, occur almost exclusively on feminine nouns, while others, such as -eau, occur almost exclusively on masculine ones. Nonetheless, a noun that seems masculine from its form might actually be feminine (e.g., une souris — "mouse"), or less commonly, vice versa (e.g., un squelette — "skeleton").
A small number of nouns can be used either in masculine or feminine gender with the same meaning (e.g. après-midi "afternoon"). Often one gender is preferred over the other. Some (very rare) nouns change gender according to the way they are used: the words amour, délice ("love" and "delight, pleasure") are masculine in singular and feminine in plural; the word orgue ("organ") is masculine, but when used emphatically in plural to refer to a church organ it becomes feminine (les grandes orgues); the plural name gens ("people") changes gender in a very unusual way, depending on the adjectives that are used with it.
Number
As with English, nouns are inflected for number
; the plural noun is usually formed from the singular by adding the suffix -s, or sometimes -x. However, since final consonants are generally not pronounced in French, adding -s or -x does not generally affect pronunciation, so the singular and plural forms of most nouns are generally pronounced the same. Further, nouns that end in -s (e.g., Français — "Frenchman"), -x or -z in their singular forms generally do not change forms even in writing. However, some nouns are pronounced differently in their plural forms: for example, œil ("eye") becomes yeux, cheval ("horse") becomes chevaux, and os ("bone" or "bones") is pronounced differently when it is plural ([o]) from when it is singular ([ɔs]); and even with nouns for which this is not the case, a distinction will still usually be made in speech, as there will usually be a neighboring article or determiner whose pronunciation does change with the noun's number (due to number agreement; see below). As with English, most uncountable nouns are grammatically treated as singular, though some are plural, such as les mathématiques ("mathematics"), and some nouns that are uncountable in English are countable in French, such as une information ("a piece of information"), or une nouvelle ("a piece of news, a news item").
Case
Nouns in French are not inflected for any other grammatical categories. (However, personal pronouns are inflected case
and person
; see below.)
and determiners agree in gender and number with the noun they determine; and, unlike with nouns, this inflection is made in speech as well as in writing. Perhaps for this reason, they are required in French much more often than in English: this enables nouns' genders and numbers to be reflected in speech.
French has three articles: definite, indefinite, and partitive. The difference between the definite and indefinite articles is similar to that in English (definite: the; indefinite: a, an), except that the indefinite article has a plural form (~some). The partitive article is similar to the indefinite article, but is used for uncountable nouns.
Most adjectives, when used attributively, appear after their nouns: le vin rouge ("the red wine"). A number of adjectives, however (often, but not always, having to do with beauty, age, goodness, or size, a tendency summarized by the acronym "BAGS"), come before their nouns: une belle femme ("a beautiful woman"). With a few adjectives of the latter type, there are two masculine singular forms: one used before consonants (the default form), and one used before vowels. For example, the adjective beau ("beautiful") changes form from un beau garçon ("a handsome boy") to un bel homme ("a handsome man"). Some adjectives change position depending on their meaning, sometimes preceding their nouns and sometimes following them; for example, ancien means "former" when it precedes its noun, but "ancient" when it follows it. To give another example, un homme grand means "a tall man", un grand homme means "a great man".
Many compound words contain an adjective, such as belle-mère ("mother-in-law"; distinct from belle mère, "beautiful mother"). Some of them use an archaic
form of the feminine adjective that lacks the final -e and sometimes show an apostrophe instead of a hyphen, such as grand' route ("main country road"; distinct from grande route, "long way") and grand-mère ("grandmother"; distinct from grande mère, "tall mother").
s in French are used to modify adjectives, other adverbs and verbs or clauses. Most adverbs are derived from an adjective by adding the suffix -ment to its feminine form (-ment is analogous to the English suffix -ly), though some adverbs are derived irregularly, and many do not derive from adjectives at all.
Adverbs are invariable; that is, unlike nouns, verbs, and adjectives, they are not inflected in any way.
que (that, which, whom) may have any referent, while the possessive pronoun
le mien (mine) may have any role in a clause.
As noted above, French — like English — is a non-pro-drop ("pronoun-dropping") language; therefore, pronouns feature prominently in the language. Impersonal verbs (e.g., pleuvoir — to rain) use the impersonal pronoun il (analogous to English it).
The French object pronouns are all clitic
s, and some appear so consistently — especially in everyday speech — that some have commented that French could almost be considered to demonstrate polypersonal agreement
.
ne attached to the verb, and one or more negative words (connegative
s) that modify the verb or one of its argument
s. Negation encircles a conjugated verb with ne after the subject and the negative adverb after the conjugated verb, however both parts of the negation come before the targeted verb when it is in its infinitive form. For example, simple verbal negation is expressed by ne before the finite verb (and any object pronouns) and the adverb pas after the finite verb:
Other negative words are used in combination with ne to express more complex types of negation.
Examples:
The negative adverbs (and rien) follow finite verbs but precede infinitives (along with ne):
Moreover, it is possible for rien and personne to be used as the subject of a sentence, which moves them to the beginning of the sentence (before the ne):
Several negative words (other than pas) can appear in the same sentence, but the sentence is still usually interpreted as a simple negation. When another negative word occurs with pas, a double negation interpretation usually arises, but this construction is criticised.
In certain, mostly literary constructions, ne can express negation by itself (without pas or another negative word). The four verbs that can use this construction are pouvoir ("to be able to"), savoir ("to know"), oser ("to dare"), cesser ("to cease"). (casual, pas only) « J'ai pas pu venir. » [same]
(literary, ne only) « Je n'ai pu venir. » [same];
cf. phrase « Je ne sais quoi » — "I do not know what [remainder of relative clause, e.g., 'it is']" remaining in colloquial speech as a fossilized
phrase
Expletive ne is found in finite subordinate clauses (never before an infinitive). It is characteristic of literary rather than colloquial style.
The following contexts allow expletive ne:
"there is" is expressed with il y a, literally "it there has." The verb may be conjugated to indicate tense, but always remains in the third person singular. For example:
This construction is also used to express the passage of time since an event occurred, like the English ago or it has been:
In informal speech, the dummy subject pronoun il is typically dropped, as in:
French basic word order is thus subject–verb–object (Je lisais un livre: I was reading a book), although if the object is a pronoun, it precedes the verb (Je le lisais: I was reading it). Some types of sentences allow for or require different word orders, in particular inversion
of the subject and verb. For example, some adverbial expressions placed at the beginning of a sentence trigger inversion of pronominal subjects: Peut-être est-elle partie (Maybe she has left).
Word order can be an indicator of stylistic register
. For instance, inversion of nominal subjects is possible in many relative clauses:
The second version of the sentence, with inversion, is more formal.
Since the 16th century, some grammarians, such as Louis Meigret or Dominique Bouhours, have claimed that the strict rules governing French word order ensure that the language conforms more closely to a natural order of thinking than Latin, for example. According to Bouhours, only the French language exactly reflects the natural way of thinking, with the words expressing thoughts in the order in which they arise in the mind. According to these grammarians, variations in word order are considered to be a question of "poetic elegance".
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
of the French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, which is similar to that of the other Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
.
French is a moderately inflected
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
language. Noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s and most pronouns are inflected for number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
(singular or plural); adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s, for the number and gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
(masculine or feminine) of their nouns; personal pronoun
Personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
s, for person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
, number, gender, and case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
; and verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s, for mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
, tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
, and the person and number of their subjects
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
. Case is primarily marked using word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
and prepositions, and certain verb features are marked using auxiliary verb
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
s.
Verbs
In French, as in English, a verbVerb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
is the controlling element in most sentences, although it is more common in French than in English for a sentence to have no verb. Verbs are conjugated to reflect the following information:
- a moodGrammatical moodIn linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
(indicative, imperativeImperative moodThe imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
, subjunctiveSubjunctive moodIn grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....
, conditionalConditional moodIn linguistics, the conditional mood is the inflectional form of the verb used in the independent clause of a conditional sentence to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event, that is contingent on another set of circumstances...
1, infinitiveInfinitiveIn grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
, participleParticipleIn linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
, or gerundiveGerundiveIn linguistics, a gerundive is a particular verb form. The term is applied very differently to different languages; depending on the language, gerundives may be verbal adjectives, verbal adverbs, or finite verbs...
2); - a tenseGrammatical tenseA tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
(pastPast tenseThe past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future...
, presentPresent tenseThe present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
, or futureFuture tenseIn grammar, a future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,...
, though not all tenses can be combined with all moods) - an aspectGrammatical aspectIn linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
(perfectivePerfective aspectThe perfective aspect , sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed as a simple whole, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms...
or imperfectiveImperfective aspectThe imperfective is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed with internal structure, such as ongoing, habitual, repeated, and similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future...
); - a voice (activeActive voiceActive voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. It is the unmarked voice for clauses featuring a transitive verb in nominative–accusative languages, including English and most other Indo-European languages....
, passivePassive voicePassive voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. Passive is used in a clause whose subject expresses the theme or patient of the main verb. That is, the subject undergoes an action or has its state changed. A sentence whose theme is marked as grammatical subject is...
2, or reflexive2).
Some of these features are combined into seven tense–aspect–mood combinations. The simple (one-word) forms are commonly referred to as the present, the simple past or preterite
Preterite
The preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...
3 (past tense, perfective aspect), the imperfect3 (past tense, imperfective aspect), the future, the conditional1, the present subjunctive, and the imperfect subjunctive forms. However, the simple past and the imperfect subjunctive are rarely used in modern, spoken French.
Footnotes:
- In some of its uses, the conditional acts as a tense of the indicative mood; in other uses, including the use from which it takes its name, it acts as a distinct mood.
- The gerundive mood, the perfect, and the passive and reflexive voices are not syntheticSynthetic languageIn linguistic typology, a synthetic language is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio, as opposed to a low morpheme-per-word ratio in what is described as an isolating language...
; that is, they are expressed using multi-word verb forms. - The preterite and imperfect are sometimes called, somewhat redundantly, the preterite past and imperfect past. The preterite is also called the simple past, a translation of its French name (le passé simple).
Verbs in the finite moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional) are also conjugated to agree
Agreement (linguistics)
In languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates....
with their subjects in person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
(first, second, or third) and number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
(singular or plural), but as in English, the subject must be included except in the imperative mood. In other words, unlike other Romance languages, French is neither a null subject language
Null subject language
In linguistic typology, a null-subject language is a language whose grammar permits an independent clause to lack an explicit subject. Such a clause is then said to have a null subject. Typically, null subject languages express person, number, and/or gender agreement with the referent on the verb,...
nor a pronoun-dropping language
Pro-drop language
A pro-drop language is a language in which certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they are in some sense pragmatically inferable...
.
French also combines the simple forms of helping verbs with the past participles of main verbs; it sometimes uses the verb "être" (to be) and sometimes uses the verb "avoir" (to have) as the auxiliary in the compound past.
The imperative mood derives its conjugation normally from the present subjunctive.
Nouns
GenderEvery French noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
has a grammatical gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, either masculine or feminine. The grammatical gender of a noun referring to a human or other mammal usually corresponds to the noun's natural gender (i.e., its referent's sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
or gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
). For such nouns, there will very often be one noun of each gender, with the choice of noun being determined by the natural gender of the person described; for example, a male singer is a chanteur, while a female singer is a chanteuse. In some cases, the two nouns are identical in form, with the difference only being marked in neighboring words (due to gender agreement; see below); a Catholic man is un Catholique, while a Catholic woman is une Catholique. Nonetheless, there are some such nouns that retain their grammatical gender regardless of natural gender; personne ("person") is always feminine, while (at least in "standard" French) professeur ("teacher") is always masculine (except in Québec where professeure is used for feminine). However, modern French allows "professeur" to be feminine as well, if the subject is feminine.
A noun's gender is not perfectly predictable from its form, but there are some trends. As a very broad trend, nouns ending in -e tend to be feminine, while the rest tend to be masculine, but there are many exceptions. More consistently, some endings, such as -sion and -tion, occur almost exclusively on feminine nouns, while others, such as -eau, occur almost exclusively on masculine ones. Nonetheless, a noun that seems masculine from its form might actually be feminine (e.g., une souris — "mouse"), or less commonly, vice versa (e.g., un squelette — "skeleton").
A small number of nouns can be used either in masculine or feminine gender with the same meaning (e.g. après-midi "afternoon"). Often one gender is preferred over the other. Some (very rare) nouns change gender according to the way they are used: the words amour, délice ("love" and "delight, pleasure") are masculine in singular and feminine in plural; the word orgue ("organ") is masculine, but when used emphatically in plural to refer to a church organ it becomes feminine (les grandes orgues); the plural name gens ("people") changes gender in a very unusual way, depending on the adjectives that are used with it.
Number
As with English, nouns are inflected for number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
; the plural noun is usually formed from the singular by adding the suffix -s, or sometimes -x. However, since final consonants are generally not pronounced in French, adding -s or -x does not generally affect pronunciation, so the singular and plural forms of most nouns are generally pronounced the same. Further, nouns that end in -s (e.g., Français — "Frenchman"), -x or -z in their singular forms generally do not change forms even in writing. However, some nouns are pronounced differently in their plural forms: for example, œil ("eye") becomes yeux, cheval ("horse") becomes chevaux, and os ("bone" or "bones") is pronounced differently when it is plural ([o]) from when it is singular ([ɔs]); and even with nouns for which this is not the case, a distinction will still usually be made in speech, as there will usually be a neighboring article or determiner whose pronunciation does change with the noun's number (due to number agreement; see below). As with English, most uncountable nouns are grammatically treated as singular, though some are plural, such as les mathématiques ("mathematics"), and some nouns that are uncountable in English are countable in French, such as une information ("a piece of information"), or une nouvelle ("a piece of news, a news item").
Case
Nouns in French are not inflected for any other grammatical categories. (However, personal pronouns are inflected case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
and person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
; see below.)
Articles and determiners
ArticlesArticle (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
and determiners agree in gender and number with the noun they determine; and, unlike with nouns, this inflection is made in speech as well as in writing. Perhaps for this reason, they are required in French much more often than in English: this enables nouns' genders and numbers to be reflected in speech.
French has three articles: definite, indefinite, and partitive. The difference between the definite and indefinite articles is similar to that in English (definite: the; indefinite: a, an), except that the indefinite article has a plural form (~some). The partitive article is similar to the indefinite article, but is used for uncountable nouns.
Adjectives
An adjective agrees in gender and number with the noun it modifies. The adjective's masculine singular form is its default form; this is the form listed in dictionaries, and is typically the form used when the adjective is used as a noun. Most adjectives' feminine singular forms are formed from their masculine singular forms by adding -e, though some common endings have different patterns; adjectives ending in -eux, for example, typically have feminine singular forms ending in -euse. Similarly, most adjectives' masculine and feminine plural forms are formed from their corresponding singular forms by adding -s, though sometimes -x is added instead, and nothing is added if the corresponding singular form already ends in -s, -x, or -z.Most adjectives, when used attributively, appear after their nouns: le vin rouge ("the red wine"). A number of adjectives, however (often, but not always, having to do with beauty, age, goodness, or size, a tendency summarized by the acronym "BAGS"), come before their nouns: une belle femme ("a beautiful woman"). With a few adjectives of the latter type, there are two masculine singular forms: one used before consonants (the default form), and one used before vowels. For example, the adjective beau ("beautiful") changes form from un beau garçon ("a handsome boy") to un bel homme ("a handsome man"). Some adjectives change position depending on their meaning, sometimes preceding their nouns and sometimes following them; for example, ancien means "former" when it precedes its noun, but "ancient" when it follows it. To give another example, un homme grand means "a tall man", un grand homme means "a great man".
Many compound words contain an adjective, such as belle-mère ("mother-in-law"; distinct from belle mère, "beautiful mother"). Some of them use an archaic
Archaism
In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately or as part of a specific jargon or formula...
form of the feminine adjective that lacks the final -e and sometimes show an apostrophe instead of a hyphen, such as grand' route ("main country road"; distinct from grande route, "long way") and grand-mère ("grandmother"; distinct from grande mère, "tall mother").
Adverbs
As in English, adverbAdverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s in French are used to modify adjectives, other adverbs and verbs or clauses. Most adverbs are derived from an adjective by adding the suffix -ment to its feminine form (-ment is analogous to the English suffix -ly), though some adverbs are derived irregularly, and many do not derive from adjectives at all.
Adverbs are invariable; that is, unlike nouns, verbs, and adjectives, they are not inflected in any way.
Prepositions
French prepositions link two related parts of a sentence. In word order, they are placed in front of a noun in order to specify the relationship between the noun and the verb, adjective, or other noun that precedes it. Some common French prepositions are: à (to, at, in), à côté de (next to, beside), après (after), au sujet de (about, on the subject of), avant (before), avec (with), chez (at the home/office of, among), contre (against), dans (in), d'après (according to), de (from, of, about), depuis (since, for), derrière (in back of, behind), devant (in front of), durant (during, while), en (in, on, to), en dehors de (outside of), en face de (facing, across from), entre (between), envers (toward), environ (approximately), hors de (outside of), jusque (until, up to, even), loin de (far from), malgré (despite), par (by, through), parmi (among), pendant (during), pour (for), près de (near), quant à (as for, regarding), sans (without), selon (according to), sous (under), suivant (according to), sur (on), vers (toward).Pronouns
In French, pronouns can be inflected to indicate their role in a clause (subject, direct object, etc.), as well as the person, gender, and number of their referent. Not all of these inflections may be present at once; for example, the relative pronounRelative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger sentence. It is called a relative pronoun because it relates the relative clause to the noun that it modifies. In English, the relative pronouns are: who, whom, whose, whosever, whosesoever, which, and, in some...
que (that, which, whom) may have any referent, while the possessive pronoun
Possessive pronoun
A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that substitutes for a noun phrase that begins with a possessive determiner . For example, in the sentence These glasses are mine, not yours, the words mine and yours are possessive pronouns and stand for my glasses and your glasses, respectively...
le mien (mine) may have any role in a clause.
As noted above, French — like English — is a non-pro-drop ("pronoun-dropping") language; therefore, pronouns feature prominently in the language. Impersonal verbs (e.g., pleuvoir — to rain) use the impersonal pronoun il (analogous to English it).
The French object pronouns are all clitic
Clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
s, and some appear so consistently — especially in everyday speech — that some have commented that French could almost be considered to demonstrate polypersonal agreement
Polypersonal agreement
In linguistics, polypersonal agreement or polypersonalism is the agreement of a verb with more than one of its arguments...
.
Negation
French usually expresses negation in two parts, with the particleGrammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
ne attached to the verb, and one or more negative words (connegative
Connegative
The connegative is a word form used in negative clauses. In the grammar of French, it refers to an obligatory negation marker such as pas in Je ne sais pas "I don't know". In the grammar of Finnish, it refers to a verb form consisting of an endingless stem used with a negative verb, as for example...
s) that modify the verb or one of its argument
Argument
In philosophy and logic, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, or give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion.Argument may also refer to:-Mathematics and computer science:...
s. Negation encircles a conjugated verb with ne after the subject and the negative adverb after the conjugated verb, however both parts of the negation come before the targeted verb when it is in its infinitive form. For example, simple verbal negation is expressed by ne before the finite verb (and any object pronouns) and the adverb pas after the finite verb:
- « Je les ai pris » ("I took them") → « Je ne les ai pas pris » ("I did not take them")
- « Je voudrais regarder un film et m'endormir » ("I would like to watch a movie and fall asleep") → « Je voudrais regarder un film et ne pas m'endormir » ("I would like to watch a movie and not fall asleep")
Other negative words are used in combination with ne to express more complex types of negation.
- negative adverbs
- negative pronouns
- others
Examples:
- « Je ne sais pas. » — "I do not know."
- « Il ne fume plus. » — "He does not smoke anymore."
- « Nous n'avons vu personne. » — "We did not see anybody."
- « Elle n'a rien bu. » — "She didn't drink anything."
- « Je n'ai aucune idée. » — "I have no idea."
- « Vous ne mangez que des légumes ? » — "You eat only vegetables?"
The negative adverbs (and rien) follow finite verbs but precede infinitives (along with ne):
- « Il prétend ne pas/ne jamais/ne rien fumer » — "He claims not to smoke/to never smoke/to smoke nothing."
Moreover, it is possible for rien and personne to be used as the subject of a sentence, which moves them to the beginning of the sentence (before the ne):
- « Rien n'est certain. » — "Nothing is certain."
- « Personne n'est arrivé. » — "Nobody came."
Several negative words (other than pas) can appear in the same sentence, but the sentence is still usually interpreted as a simple negation. When another negative word occurs with pas, a double negation interpretation usually arises, but this construction is criticised.
- « Elle n'a plus jamais rien dit à personne. » — "She never said anything else to anybody."
- « Elle n'a pas vu personne. — "She did not see nobody (i.e., she saw somebody)."
Colloquial Usage
In colloquial French. it is common to drop the ne in fast speech, although this can create some ambiguity with the ne … plus construction, as plus can mean either "more" or "not anymore." Generally when plus is used to mean "more", the final "s" is pronounced, while it is never pronounced when used to mean "not anymore". Therefore, the informal sentence "Il y en a plus" can be pronounced with the final "s" to mean, "There is more", or without to mean, "There is none left".In certain, mostly literary constructions, ne can express negation by itself (without pas or another negative word). The four verbs that can use this construction are pouvoir ("to be able to"), savoir ("to know"), oser ("to dare"), cesser ("to cease").
- (standard,
cf. phrase « Je ne sais quoi » — "I do not know what [remainder of relative clause, e.g., 'it is']" remaining in colloquial speech as a fossilized
Fossilization (linguistics)
In linguistic morphology, fossilization refers to two close notions. One is preserving of ancient linguistic features which have lost their grammatical functions in language. Another is loss of productivity of a grammatical paradigm , which still remains in use in some words. Examples of...
phrase
Expletive
ne In certain cases in formal French, the word ne can be used without signifying negation; the ne in such instances is known as expletive ne (French: ne explétif):- « J'ai peur que cela ne se reproduise. » — "I am afraid that it might happen again."
- « Il est arrivé avant que nous n'ayons commencé. » — "He arrived before we started."
- « Ils sont plus nombreux que tu ne le crois. » — "There are more of them than you think."
Expletive ne is found in finite subordinate clauses (never before an infinitive). It is characteristic of literary rather than colloquial style.
The following contexts allow expletive ne:
- the complement clause of verbs expressing fear or avoidance: craindre (to fear), avoir peur (to be afraid), empêcher (to prevent), éviter (to avoid)
- the complement clause of verbs expressing doubt or denial: douter (to doubt), nier (to deny)
- adverbial clauseAdverbial clauseAn adverbial clause is a dependent clause that functions as an adverb. In other words, it contains a subject and a predicate, and it modifies a verb.*I saw Joe when I went to the store....
s introduced by the following expressions: avant que (before), à moins que (unless), de peur/crainte que (for fear that) - comparative constructions expressing inequality: autre (other), meilleur (better), plus fort (stronger), moins intelligent (less intelligent), etc.
Existential clauses
In French, the equivalent of the English existential clauseExistential clause
Existential clauses are clauses that indicate only an existence. In English, they are formed with the dummy subject construction with "there", e.g. "There are boys in the yard". Many languages do not require a dummy subject, e.g. Finnish, where the sentence Pihalla on poikia is literally "On the...
"there is" is expressed with il y a, literally "it there has." The verb may be conjugated to indicate tense, but always remains in the third person singular. For example:
- « Il y a deux bergers et quinze moutons dans le pré. » - "There are two shepherds and fifteen sheep in the meadow."
- « Il y aura beaucoup à manger. » - "There will be a lot to eat."
- « Il y aurait deux morts et cinq blessés dans l'accident. » - "There appears to have been (lit. would be) two dead and five injured in the accident." (as in news reporting)
- « Il n'y avait personne chez les Martin. » - "There was nobody at the Martins' home."
This construction is also used to express the passage of time since an event occurred, like the English ago or it has been:
- « Je l'ai vu il y a deux jours. » - "I saw him two days ago."
- « Il y avait longtemps que je ne l'avais pas vu. » - "It had been a long time since I had seen him."
- « Le langage d’il y a cent ans est très différent de celui d’aujourd’hui. » - "The language/usage of one hundred years ago is very different from that of today."
In informal speech, the dummy subject pronoun il is typically dropped, as in:
- Y a deux bergers et quinze moutons dans le pré.
- Y aura beaucoup à manger.
- Y avait personne chez les Martin.
- Je l'ai vu y a deux jours.
Word order
The components of a declarative clause are typically arranged in the following order (though not all components are always present):- Adverb(s)
- Subject
- ne (usually a marker for negation, though it has some other uses)
- First- and second-person object pronoun, or the third-person reflexive pronoun (any of me, te, nous, vous, se)
- Third-person human direct-object pronoun (any of le, la, les)
- Third-person human indirect-object pronoun (either lui or leur)
- The pronoun y
- The pronoun en
- Finite verb (may be an auxiliary)
- Adverb(s)
- The pronoun rien (if not subject)
- Main verb (if the finite verb is an auxiliary)
- Adverb(s) and object(s)
French basic word order is thus subject–verb–object (Je lisais un livre: I was reading a book), although if the object is a pronoun, it precedes the verb (Je le lisais: I was reading it). Some types of sentences allow for or require different word orders, in particular inversion
Inversion (linguistics)
In linguistics, grammatical inversion is any of a number of different distinct grammatical constructions in the languages of the world. There are three main uses in the literature which, unfortunately, have little if any overlap either formally or typologically: syntactic inversion, thematic...
of the subject and verb. For example, some adverbial expressions placed at the beginning of a sentence trigger inversion of pronominal subjects: Peut-être est-elle partie (Maybe she has left).
Word order can be an indicator of stylistic register
Register (sociolinguistics)
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
. For instance, inversion of nominal subjects is possible in many relative clauses:
- C'est le livre [que mon cousin lui a donné]. (Object–subject–verb)
- C'est le livre [que lui a donné mon cousin]. (Object–verb–subject)
- "That's the book my cousin gave her."
The second version of the sentence, with inversion, is more formal.
Since the 16th century, some grammarians, such as Louis Meigret or Dominique Bouhours, have claimed that the strict rules governing French word order ensure that the language conforms more closely to a natural order of thinking than Latin, for example. According to Bouhours, only the French language exactly reflects the natural way of thinking, with the words expressing thoughts in the order in which they arise in the mind. According to these grammarians, variations in word order are considered to be a question of "poetic elegance".
See also
- Le bon usageLe Bon UsageLe Bon Usage , informally called Le Grevisse, is a prescriptive book about French grammar first published in 1936 by Maurice Grevisse, and periodically revised since...
, a respected reference by Maurice GrevisseMaurice GrevisseMaurice Grevisse was a Belgian grammarian.-Biography:Born in Rulles, a small village in the province of Luxembourg, Belgium, Grevisse at a young age broke with a family tradition of working as blacksmiths by deciding to become a school teacher. He attended the Normal School of Carlsbourg, where he...
, and later editions by André GoosseAndré GoosseAndré Goosse is a Belgian grammarian born in 1926. The son-in-law of Maurice Grevisse, he took over editing and updating Grevisses' last book, Le Bon Usage. In 1988, he married the Belgian writer France Bastia...