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French grammar is the set of rules by which theFrench language creates statements, questions and commands. In many respects, it is quite similar to that of the otherRomance languages.
French is a moderatelyinflected language.Nouns and mostpronouns are inflected fornumber (singular or plural, though in most nouns the plural is pronounced the same as the singular even if spelled differently);adjectives, for number andgender (masculine or feminine) of their nouns;personal pronouns and a few other pronouns, forperson, number, gender, andcase; andverbs, fortense,aspect,mood, and the person and number of theirsubjects. Case is primarily marked usingword order andprepositions, while certain verb features are marked usingauxiliary verbs.
Verbs in French are conjugated to reflect the following information:
Some of these features are combined into seventense–aspect–mood combinations. The simple (one-word) forms are commonly referred to as the present, the simple past orpreterite[b] (past tense, perfective aspect), theimperfect[b] (past tense, imperfective aspect), the future, the conditional,[c] the present subjunctive, and the imperfect subjunctive. However, the simple past is rarely used in informal French, and the imperfect subjunctive is rarely used in modern French.
Verbs in the finite moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional) are also conjugated toagree with their subjects inperson (first, second, or third) andnumber (singular or plural). As in English, the subject must be included (except in the imperative mood); in other words, unlike otherRomance languages, French is neither anull-subject nor apro-drop language.
Auxiliary verbs are combined with past participles of main verbs to produce compound tenses, including the compound past (passé composé). For most main verbs the auxiliary is (the appropriate form of)avoir ("to have"), but for reflexive verbs and certain intransitive verbs the auxiliary is a form ofêtre ("to be"). The participle agrees with the subject when the auxiliary isêtre, and with a precedingdirect object (if any) when the auxiliary isavoir. Forms ofêtre are also used with the past participles of transitive verbs to form the passive voice.
The imperative mood, which only has first-person plural and second-person singular and plural forms, usually has forms similar or identical to the corresponding ones in the present indicative.
The pronoun varies in gender (masculine or feminine), in number (singular or plural), and sometimes also in person. It always takes on the meaning of the word or group of words it replaces (the reference). This function is expressed by its name:pro-noun meaning that which is “for,” “put in the place of” a noun.Its meaning also depends on the extralinguistic context (when the pronoun is adeictic), or on the textual context (depending on whether the pronoun is ananaphoric or acataphoric one). The meaning of the cataphoric pronoun “this one,” on the other hand, depends either on the context or on the word to which it refers.The syntactic characteristics of the pronoun are identical to those of the noun, which the pronoun can replace in the sentence.[1]
Every Frenchnoun has agrammatical gender, either masculine or feminine. The grammatical gender of a nounreferring to a human usually corresponds to the noun'snatural gender (i.e., its referent'ssex orgender). 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 isun chanteur, while a female singer is eitherune chanteuse (a pop singer) orune cantatrice (an opera singer). A plural noun that refers to both males and females is masculine. In some cases, the two nouns are identical in form, with the difference only being marked in neighbouring words (due to gender agreement; seebelow); a Catholic man isun catholique, while a Catholic woman isune 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. In Canadian French,une professeure is the standard feminine form, which is becoming more and more common in European French.
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 (e.g.,une étoile 'a star',une voiture 'a car'), while the rest tend to be masculine (e.g.,un ballon 'a balloon',un stylo 'a pen'), but it sometimes can be the opposite. More consistently, some endings, such as-sion,-tion,-aison,-ité and-logie occur almost exclusively with feminine nouns, while others, such as-aire,-isme,-ème and-ège occur almost exclusively with masculine ones. Many nouns ending in-e preceded by double consonants are also masculine (e.g.un cadre, un arbre, un signe, un meuble). Nonetheless, a noun that seems masculine judging by its ending might actually be feminine e.g.,la peau 'the skin',une dent 'a tooth' or vice versa e.g.,le coude 'the elbow',un squelette 'a skeleton' are masculine.Noun clauses are masculine.[2]
A very 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 wordsamour 'love' anddélice 'pleasure' are masculine in singular and feminine in plural; the wordorgue 'organ' is masculine, but when used emphatically in plural to refer to a church organ it becomes feminine (les grandes orgues); the plural noungens 'people' changes gender in a very unusual way, being usually masculine but triggering feminine agreement when certain adjectives precede the word.
Other nouns change meaning depending on which grammatical gender they are used in. For example,le critique (masculine) refers to a critic, whilela critique (feminine) means criticism;le livre refers to a book, whilela livre means the pound (in the sense of both weight and currency). Similarly,le voile means "veil", whereasla voile means "sail".[3]
The vocabulary of French includes manyhomophones, i.e., pairs of words with different spellings but the same pronunciation. Grammatical gender, however, may serve to distinguish some of these. For example,le pot 'the pot' andla peau 'the skin' are both pronounced[po] but disagree in gender.
As in English, nouns inflect fornumber.
Orthographically, the plural is usually formed from the singular by adding the letter-s (cf.maison > maisons 'houses'). Nouns ending in-au, -eu, and-ou often take the ending-x instead (cf.jeu > jeux 'games'). However, the endings-s and-x are in most cases not pronounced, meaning that in speech the plural form of a noun generally has the same pronunciation as the singular. Nouns that end in-s, -x or-z in the singular are left unchanged in the plural in both pronunciation and spelling (cf.croix > croix 'crosses', both pronounced[kʁwa]).
Liaison between a plural noun and a following adjective is one case where the plural ending-s or-x may be pronounced:des fenêtres ouvertes[dɛfənɛtʁəz‿uvɛʁt] ("open windows"). However, this form of liaison usually only appears in careful formal speech (for example by newsreaders). In most everyday speech singular and plural forms of most nouns are therefore homophonous in all contexts.
In spoken French, the plurality of most nouns is marked not on the form of the noun itself but by a preceding article or determiner (cf.la maison [la mɛzɔ̃] 'the house' >les maisons [le mɛzɔ̃] 'the houses';mon frère [mɔ̃ fʁɛːʁ] 'my brother' >mes frères [me fʁɛːʁ] 'my brothers').
French nouns whose spoken plural forms are distinguished from the singular include most of those ending in-al, whose plural form is-aux (cf.cheval[ʃəval] >chevaux[ʃəvo] 'horses'), as well as a few nouns ending in-ail that also follow this pattern (cf.travail[tʁavaj] >travaux[tʁavo] 'works'). Three nouns form completely irregular plurals:aïeul[ajœl] >aïeux[ajø] 'ancestors' (butaïeuls[ajœl] 'grandfathers');ciel[sjɛl] >cieux[sjø] 'heavens' (butdes ciels de lit 'bed canopies'); andœil[œj] >yeux[jø] 'eyes' (butdes œils-de-bœuf 'oculi' (round windows),des œils-de-perdrix 'calluses' (on the feet)). Three other nouns have regular plurals in spelling but have irregular pronunciations:bœuf[bœf] >bœufs[bø] 'oxen, cattle';œuf[œf] >œufs[ø] 'eggs'; andos[ɔs] >os[o] 'bones'.
As with English, most uncountable nouns are grammatically treated as singular, though some are plural, such asles mathématiques 'mathematics'; some nouns that are uncountable in English are countable in French, such asune information 'a piece of information'.
Nouns in French are not inflected for any other grammatical categories. (However, personal pronouns are inflected forcase andperson; seebelow.)
Articles anddeterminers agree in gender and number with the noun they determine; unlike with nouns, this inflection is made in speech as well as in writing.
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 (similar tosome, though English normally does not use an article before indefinite plural nouns). The partitive article is similar to the indefinite article but used for uncountable singular nouns.
An adjective must agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies. French adjectives therefore have four forms: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural. A few adjectives have a fifth form, viz. an additional masculine singular form for use in liaison before a noun beginning with a vowel or a "mute h", e.g.unbeau jardin, unbel homme, unebelle femme, debeaux enfants, debelles maisons (a beautiful garden, a handsome man, a beautiful woman, beautiful children, beautiful houses). This fifth form, which is older, is sometimes used elsewhere in set phrases, e.g.Philippe leBel (Philip the Fair or the Handsome of France, 1268–1314) vs.Philippe leBeau (Philip the Handsome or the Fair of Castile, 1478–1506).
The masculine singular, an adjective's basic form, is listed in dictionaries. The feminine singular is normally formed by adding-e to the basic form. This-e is silent, which makes many masculine and feminine formshomophonous (cf.civil > civile 'civil', both pronounced/sivil/). However, the ending causes "mute" final sounds to be pronounced, whereby masculine-feminine pairs become distinguishable in pronunciation if the masculine form ends in a mute consonant, which is the case with a great deal of adjectives (cf.lourd[luʁ] >lourde[luʁd] 'heavy'). Under certain circumstances, other minor changes occur in the formation of feminine forms, such as the placement of an accent, the doubling of a consonant, or its replacement with another, changes that often reflect the pronunciation of such endings (cf.bon[bɔ̃] >bonne[bɔn] 'good';heureux[øʁø] >heureuse[øʁøz] 'happy'). Irregular feminine forms includebeau > belle 'beautiful',blanc > blanche 'white', and a limited number of others. If an adjective's basic form ends in-e, it is left unchanged in the feminine (cf.riche > riche 'rich').
The plural is normally formed by adding-s to the singular (masculine and feminine). This-s is usually mute, but pronounced[z] inliaison with a following noun that begins with a vowel. Unlike liaison after plural nouns, liaison after plural adjectives is common and even obligatory in standard usage. If the basic form ends in-s, -x, or-z, an adjective is left unchanged in the masculine plural (cf.doux > doux 'soft, gentle'). A few adjectives take the (also mute) ending-x in the masculine plural (cf.nouveau > nouveaux 'new'). Plural forms that are distinguishable from the singular outside of liaison environments occur only with adjectives ending in-al. These normally have-aux in the masculine plural (cf.central[sɑ̃tʁal] >centraux[sɑ̃tʁo] 'central'). By contrast, the feminine plural is formed according to the general rule:centrale > centrales.
Due to the aforementioned rules, French adjectives might have four distinguished written forms which are all pronounced the same. This is the case if an adjective's masculine and feminine forms are homophonous and if there is no liaison between the adjective and a following noun.
| Written form | Pronunciation | Translation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. sg. | un princeturc | œ̃pʁɛ̃styʁk | a Turkish prince |
| fem. sg. | une princesseturque | ynpʁɛ̃sɛstyʁk | a Turkish princess |
| masc. pl. | des princesturcs | depʁɛ̃styʁk | Turkish princes |
| fem. pl. | des princessesturques | depʁɛ̃sɛstyʁk | Turkish princesses |
On the other hand, if the masculine and feminine forms have different pronunciations and liaison does occur, all four forms can be distinguishable in pronunciation. Adjective declension is therefore important in spoken French, though to a lesser extent than in writing. (All forms distinguished in pronunciation are also distinguished in writing, but not vice versa.)
| Written form | Pronunciation | Translation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. sg. | ungrand empereur | œ̃ɡʁɑ̃t‿ɑ̃pʁœʁ | a great emperor |
| fem. sg. | unegrande impératrice | ynɡʁɑ̃d‿ɛ̃peʁatʁis | a great empress |
| masc. pl. | degrands empereurs | dəɡʁɑ̃z‿ɑ̃pʁœʁ | great emperors |
| fem. pl. | degrandes impératrices | dəɡʁɑ̃dz‿ɛ̃peʁatʁis | great empresses |
Due to the peculiarorthography of French, which denotes mute final consonants, most feminine forms seem regular in terms of their spelling because they are formed by adding-e to the masculine form, e.g.,grand > grande,lent > lente,persan > persane. However, if we put this etymologic orthography aside and consider only current pronunciation, the formation of French female forms becomes quite irregular with several possible "endings":[ɡʁɑ̃] >[ɡʁɑ̃d],[lɑ̃] >[lɑ̃t],[pɛʁsɑ̃] >[pɛʁsan].
Most adjectives, when used attributively, appear after their nouns:le vinrouge ("thered wine"). A number of adjectives (often having to do with beauty, age, goodness, or size, a tendency summarized by the acronym "BAGS"), come before their nouns:unebelle femme ("abeautiful woman"). With a few adjectives of the latter type, there are two masculine singular forms: one used before consonants (the basic form), and one used before vowels. For example, the adjectivebeau ("beautiful") changes form fromunbeau garçon ("ahandsome boy") tounbel homme ("ahandsome 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 hommegrand means "atall man", whereasungrand homme means "agreat man".
Many compound words contain an adjective, such asunebelle-mère "a mother-in-law", which is distinct fromunebelle mère "a beautiful mother". Some of them use anarchaic form of the feminine adjective that lacks the final-e. These used to be written with an apostrophe, but a hyphen is now (at least since 1960) considered more correct:unegrand-route (formerly,unegrand'route) "a main country road", which is distinct fromunegrande route "a long way", andunegrand-mère (formerly,unegrand'mère) "a grandmother", which is distinct fromune grande mère "a tall mother".
As in English,adverbs in French are used to modify adjectives, other adverbs, verbs, or clauses. Most adverbs are derived from an adjective by adding the suffix-ment, usually to its feminine form (-ment is analogous to the English suffix-ly): e.g.anciennement "anciently", "of old", "in olden times";grandement "greatly";lentement "slowly"; though there are some systematic deviations (e.g.patient →patiemment "patiently",malaisé →malaisément "uneasily"), some adverbs are derived irregularly (bon "good" →bien "well") and others do not derive from adjectives at all.
Adverbs themselves are generally invariable. An exception to this is the adverbtout "wholly, very" which agrees in gender and number with the adjective it modifies when it is in the feminine and begins with a consonant (e.g.tout petit "very small, m.s.",tous petits "very small, m.pl." buttoute petite "very small, f.s.",toutes petites "very small, f.pl." — when beginning with a vowel however:tout entier, tout entiers, tout entière, tout entières "completely, as a whole" (withliaison)).
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).
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, therelative pronounque (that, which, whom) may have any referent, while thepossessive pronounle 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 pronounil (analogous to English 'it').
French object pronouns are allclitics. Some appear so consistently – especially in everyday speech — that some have commented that French could almost be considered to demonstratepolypersonal agreement.[4]
French usually expresses negation in two parts, with theparticlene attached to the verb, and one or more negative words (connegatives) that modify the verb or one of itsarguments. Negation encircles a conjugated verb withne after the subject and the connegative after the verb, if the verb isfinite or agerund. However, both parts of the negation come before the targeted verb when it is in itsinfinitive form. For example:
Other negative words used in combination withne are:
Examples:
The negative adverbs (andrien) follow finite verbs but precede infinitives (along withne):
Moreover, it is possible forrien andpersonne to be used as the subject of a sentence, which moves them to the beginning of the sentence (before thene):
Several negative words (other thanpas) can appear in the same sentence, but the sentence is still usually interpreted as a simple negation. When another negative word occurs withpas, a double negation interpretation usually arises, but this construction is criticised.
In colloquial French, it is common to drop thene, although this can create some ambiguity with thene ... plus construction when written down, asplus could mean either 'more' or 'not anymore'. Generally whenplus is used to meanmore, the final⟨s⟩ is pronounced ([plys]), whereas it is never pronounced when used to mean 'not anymore' ([ply]).
As an example, the informal sentenceIl y en a plus could be pronounced with the final[s] ([iliɑ̃naplys,jɑ̃naplys]) to mean "there is more", or it could be pronounced without it ([iliɑ̃naply,jɑ̃naply]) to mean "there is none left".
In certain, mostly literary constructions,ne can express negation by itself (withoutpas or another negative word). The four verbs that can use this construction arepouvoir ("to be able to"),savoir ("to know"),oser ("to dare"), andcesser ("to cease").
In certain cases in formal French, the wordne can be used without signifying negation; thene in such instances is known as expletivene (French:ne explétif):
Expletivene is found in finite subordinate clauses (never before an infinitive). It is characteristic of literary rather than colloquial style.[5] In other registers French tends to not use any negation at all in such clauses, e.g.,J'ai peur que cela se reproduise.
The following contexts allow expletivene
In French, the equivalent of the Englishexistential clause "there is/are" is expressed withil y a (infinitive:y avoir), literally, "it there has" or "it has to it". As animpersonal verb, 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 Englishago orit has been:
In informal speech,il y is typically reduced to[j], as in:
The components of a declarative clause are typically arranged in the following order (though not all components are always present):[6]
The most common word order in French is subject-verb-object (SVO).
French also allows for verb-object-subject (VOS) though the usage is relatively rare and various constraints apply. The most common instance of this word order is in more formal texts or in response to questions with a focus on the subject, as opposed to more broad questions such as,Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé? (what happened?). Below are examples of each circumstance.
Finally, in a comparatively limited number of instances French allows for object-subject-verb (OSV) word order, such as when adding emphasis
In regard to word order, French is more restrictive than otherRomance languages. For example,Spanish allows for all six possible word orders, compared to French's three. Additionally, unlike other Romance languages, specifically Spanish andItalian, French does not have freeinversion, which is often explained by French not being apro-drop language (while Spanish and Italian are).[7]
As mentioned above, French expresses negation in two parts, the first with the particle ne attached to the verb and one or more negative words, which modify either the verb or one of its arguments. The participle ne comes before the verb in the sentence that is marked for tense and before any unstressed object pronouns that come before the verb. The location of the second part of the negation varies, however.[8]
Modern French allows for fewer word orders thanLatin orOld French, both of which Modern French has evolved from. In both Latin and Old French, all six potential word orders are possible:
While linguistic evolution occurs on a continuum, the major shift towards increased grammaticalization occurred in French most distinctly between the mid 12th century and end of the 15th century. It is believed that the progressive move towards SVO as the dominant French word order occurred during this time, as a result of a "progressive fixation of the subject in preverbal position from the fourteenth century on".[9]
Broadly speaking, there are two types of questions; yes/no questions and information questions.
In French there are four ways to form yes/no questions, each of which is typically associated with a different degree of formality.
The simplest and most informal way to ask a yes/no question is by raising intonation at the end of a declarative sentence. This question formation structure is common in informal spoken French, but relatively uncommon in more formal spoken French or written French. Examples include:
Yes/no questions may also be formed by adding est-ce que to the beginning of a declarative sentence. This structure may be used in any style of French; formal, informal, spoken, or written.
Source:[10]
This is like adding "is it not?" to the end and it is pronounced[n‿ɛspɑ].
Finally, yes/no questions may be formed by inverting the verb and the subject. This sentence structure is typically used in formal and written French. These questions may be formed in one of two ways, depending on whether the pronoun is stressed or unstressed. If the pronoun is unstressed, it changes places with the verb that it agrees with.
This subject-verb inversion is similar to question formation in English, though in English the inversion may only occur withauxiliary verbs, while in French it may occur with all verbs.
If the subject is anything other than an unstressed pronoun, an unstressed subject pronoun that agrees with the subject is added to the right of the verb.
Two additional notes on subject verb inversion in French. First, when the inversion results in the adjacency of two vowels⟨t⟩ is inserted between them.
Secondly, only the most formal French inverts the verb with 'je'. It has become more common, both in spoken and written French, to replace je with est-ce-que. For example, the following two sentences are ungrammatical in French.
There are four ways to form information questions in French. Like yes/no questions, each form is associated with a different degree of formality.
The simplest and generally most informal way to form an information question in French is by replacing a word in a declarative sentence with a question word or phrase and adding rising intonation to the end of the sentence. The question word or phrase may occur at the beginning or end of the sentence, depending on which word is being replaced, unlike in English, where the question word typically occurs at the start of the sentence.
Another common and informal way of forming information questions is by replacing an item in a declarative sentence by a question word or phrase then moving the question word or phrase to the front of the sentence.
Another way to form a question in French is by following the steps outlined above in one and two, and in addition inserting est-ce que after the question word. This style of question formation may be used in all styles of French.
Finally, information questions in French may be formed by following the steps outlined above in one and two and additionally, inverting the subject and verb. This is typically the most formal form of question formation and is found in written and formal spoken French. As in yes/no question formation, if the subject is an unstressed pronoun, it switches places with the verb:
If the subject is anything other than an unstressed pronoun, an unstressed subject pronoun is added after the verb.
Cleft sentences are sentences that consist of twoclauses, one of which is a copular clause and one of which is arelative clause, also known as a cleft clause. The copular clause consists of acopula followed by the cleft constituent. Cleft sentences are found in many European languages, including French. In the sentence,c'est Stella qui lit Kant ('It's Stella who reads Kant') "c'est Stella" is the copular clause, "Stella" is the cleft constituent, and "qui lit Kant" is the cleft clause.[11]
While cleft sentences are common in European languages, the types of possible cleft sentences vary dramatically by language. Subject clefts, in which the cleft constituent acts as the subject of both the main verb and the cleft clause, are the most common clefts and are found in all languages that have clefts.C'est Stella qui lit Kant ('It's Stella who reads Kant') is an example of a subject cleft. In complement clefts the cleft constituent is a complement of both the main verb of the cleft clause and the non-cleft clause. For example,c'est Kant que Stella lit ('it's Kant that Stella reads'). The final type of clefts are adverbial clefts, which are the most common clefts in French, but are not found in all languages with clefts, such as German. In adverbial cleft sentences, the cleft constituent has an adverbial syntactic function. Therefore, the cleft constituent is not subcategorized by the cleft clause's main verb and it is not required in corresponding non-cleft clauses.
