French grammar - Definition and Overview

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 unless the direct object 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 undirect object never agrees: elles se sont parlé (elles ont parlé à elles-mêmes).

Conjugation

• French conjugaison (http://www.leconjugueur.com/ukindex.php)

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 definite and indefinite articles, each of which is marked for gender and number:

Definite

• le (masculine singular)
• la (feminine singular)
• les (both plural)

Indefinite

• un (masculine singular)
• une (feminine singular)
• des (both plural)

Definite articles can combine with certain prepositions:

• à + le > au, à + les > aux
• de + le > du, de + les > des

There are also partitive articles, formed by the combination of de ("of") with the definite articles.

Adjectives

Most adjectives follow the noun, except for a small but common subset. 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

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 a 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

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

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)