French Grammar

French grammar is the set of rules by which the French language creates statements, questions and commands. In many respects, it is quite similar to that of the other Romance languages.

French is a moderately inflected language. Nouns and most pronouns are inflected for number (singular or plural, though in most nouns the plural is pronounced the same as the singular even if spelled differently); adjectives, for number and gender (masculine or feminine) of their nouns; personal pronouns and a few other pronouns, for person, number, gender, and case; and verbs, for tense, aspect, mood, and the person and number of their subjects. Case is primarily marked using word order and prepositions, while certain verb features are marked using auxiliary verbs.

Verbs

Verbs in French are conjugated to reflect the following information:
* a mood (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, or conditional)
* a tense (past, present, or future, though not all tenses can be combined with all moods)
* an aspect ( perfective or imperfective)
* a voice ( active, passive, or reflexive)
* Nonfinite forms (e.g., participles, gerunds, infinitives)

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 (past tense, perfective aspect), the imperfect (past tense, imperfective aspect), the future, the conditional, 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 to agree with their subjects in person (first, second, or third) and number (singular or plural). 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 nor a pro-drop language.

Auxiliary verbs are combined with past participles of main verbs to produce compound tenses, including the compound past (). For most main verbs the auxiliary is (the appropriate form of) ("to have"), but for reflexive verbs and certain intransitive verbs the auxiliary is a form of ("to be"). The participle agrees with the subject when the auxiliary is , and with a preceding direct object (if any) when the auxiliary is . Forms of 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.

Nouns

Gender

Every French noun has a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine. The grammatical gender of a noun referring to a human 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 , while a female singer is either (a pop singer) or (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; see below); a Catholic man is , while a Catholic woman is . Nonetheless, there are some such nouns that retain their grammatical gender regardless of natural gender; 'person' is always feminine, while (at least in "standard" French) 'teacher' is always masculine. In Canadian French, 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 tend to be feminine (e.g., 'a star', 'a car'), while the rest tend to be masculine (e.g., 'a balloon', 'a pen'), but it sometimes can be the opposite. More consistently, some endings, such as , , , and occur almost exclusively with feminine nouns, while others, such as , , and occur almost exclusively with masculine ones. Many nouns ending in preceded by double consonants are also masculine (e.g. ). Nonetheless, a noun that seems masculine judging by its ending might actually be feminine e.g., 'the skin', 'a tooth' or vice versa e.g., 'the elbow', 'a skeleton' are masculine. Noun clauses are masculine.

A very small number of nouns can be used either in masculine or feminine gender with the same meaning (e.g., 'afternoon'). Often one gender is preferred over the other. Some (very rare) nouns change gender according to the way they are used: the words 'love' and 'pleasure' are masculine in singular and feminine in plural; the word 'organ' is masculine, but when used emphatically in plural to refer to a church organ it becomes feminine (); the plural noun '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, (masculine) refers to a critic, while (feminine) means criticism; refers to a book, while means the pound (in the sense of both weight and currency). Similarly, means "veil", whereas means "sail".

The vocabulary of French includes many homophones, i.e., pairs of words with different spellings but the same pronunciation. Grammatical gender, however, may serve to distinguish some of these. For example, 'the pot' and 'the skin' are both pronounced but disagree in gender.

Number

As in English, nouns inflect for number.

Orthographically, the plural is usually formed from the singular by adding the letter (cf. 'houses'). Nouns ending in and often take the ending instead (cf. 'games'). However, the endings and 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 or in the singular are left unchanged in the plural in both pronunciation and spelling (cf. 'crosses', both pronounced ).

Liaison between a plural noun and a following adjective is one case where the plural ending or may be pronounced: ("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. a mɛzɔ̃'the house' > e mɛzɔ̃'the houses'; ɔ̃ fʁɛːʁ'my brother' > e fʁɛːʁ'my brothers').

French nouns whose spoken plural forms are distinguished from the singular include most of those ending in , whose plural form is (cf. > 'horses'), as well as a few nouns ending in that also follow this pattern (cf. > 'works'). Three nouns form completely irregular plurals: > 'ancestors' (but 'grandfathers'); > 'heavens' (but 'bed canopies'); and > 'eyes' (but 'oculi' (round windows), 'calluses' (on the feet)). Three other nouns have regular plurals in spelling but have irregular pronunciations: > 'oxen, cattle'; > 'eggs'; and > 'bones'.

As with English, most uncountable nouns are grammatically treated as singular, though some are plural, such as 'mathematics'; some nouns that are uncountable in English are countable in French, such as 'a piece of information'.

Case

Nouns in French are not inflected for any other grammatical categories. (However, personal pronouns are inflected for case and person; see below.)

Articles and determiners

Articles and determiners 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 to ''some'', 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.

Adjectives

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. (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. ( Philip the Fair or the Handsome of France, 1268–1314) vs. ( 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 to the basic form. This is silent, which makes many masculine and feminine forms homophonous (cf. 'civil', both pronounced ). 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. > '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. > 'good'; > 'happy'). Irregular feminine forms include 'beautiful', 'white', and a limited number of others. If an adjective's basic form ends in , it is left unchanged in the feminine (cf. 'rich').

The plural is normally formed by adding to the singular (masculine and feminine). This is usually mute, but pronounced in liaison 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 , or , an adjective is left unchanged in the masculine plural (cf. 'soft, gentle'). A few adjectives take the (also mute) ending in the masculine plural (cf. 'new'). Plural forms that are distinguishable from the singular outside of liaison environments occur only with adjectives ending in . These normally have in the masculine plural (cf. > 'central'). By contrast, the feminine plural is formed according to the general rule: .

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.

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.)

Due to the peculiar orthography of French, which denotes mute final consonants, most feminine forms seem regular in terms of their spelling because they are formed by adding to the masculine form, e.g., , , . 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": > , > , > .

Most adjectives, when used attributively, appear after their nouns: ("the ''red'' 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: ("a ''beautiful'' 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 adjective ("beautiful") changes form from ("a ''handsome'' boy") to ("a ''handsome'' man"). Some adjectives change position depending on their meaning, sometimes preceding their nouns and sometimes following them. For example, means "former" when it precedes its noun, but "ancient" when it follows it. To give another example, means "a ''tall'' man", whereas means "a ''great'' man".

Many compound words contain an adjective, such as "a mother-in-law", which is distinct from "a beautiful mother". Some of them use an archaic form of the feminine adjective that lacks the final . These used to be written with an apostrophe, but a hyphen is now (at least since 1960) considered more correct: (formerly, ) "a main country road", which is distinct from "a long way", and (formerly, ) "a grandmother", which is distinct from "a tall mother".

Adverbs

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 , usually to its feminine form ( is analogous to the English suffix ''-ly''): e.g. "anciently", "of old", "in olden times"; "greatly"; "slowly"; though there are some systematic deviations (e.g. → "patiently", → "uneasily"), some adverbs are derived irregularly ( "good" → "well") and others do not derive from adjectives at all.

Adverbs themselves are generally invariable. An exception to this is the adverb "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. "very small, m.s.", "very small, m.pl." but "very small, f.s.", "very small, f.pl." — when beginning with a vowel however: "completely, as a whole" (with liaison)).

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: (to, at, in), (next to, beside), (after), (about, on the subject of), (before), (with), (at the home/office of, among), (against), (in), (according to), (from, of, about), (since, for), (in back of, behind), (in front of), (during, while), (in, on, to), (outside of), (facing, across from), (between), (toward), (approximately), (outside of), (until, up to, even), (far from), (despite), (by, through), (among), (during), (for), (near), (as for, regarding), (without), (according to), (under), (according to), (on), (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 pronoun (that, which, whom) may have any referent, while the possessive pronoun () 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., 'to rain') use the impersonal pronoun (analogous to English 'it').

French object pronouns are all clitics. Some appear so consistently – especially in everyday speech — that some have commented that French could almost be considered to demonstrate polypersonal agreement.

Negation

French usually expresses negation in two parts, with the particle attached to the verb, and one or more negative words ( connegatives) that modify the verb or one of its arguments. Negation encircles a conjugated verb with after the subject and the connegative after the verb, if the verb is finite or a gerund. However, both parts of the negation come before the targeted verb when it is in its infinitive form. For example:
* 'I took them' → 'I did not take them'
* 'I would like to watch a movie and fall asleep' → 'I would like to watch a movie and not fall asleep'

Other negative words used in combination with are:
* negative adverbs
: — not anymore, no longer
: — never
: – nowhere
: — not much, hardly (literary)
: — not, not at all (literary)
* negative pronouns
: — nothing
: — nobody
* others
:(determiner) — no/not any (also , literary)
:(restrictive particle) — only

Examples:
* — I do not know.
* — He does not smoke anymore.
* — We did not see anybody.
* — She didn't drink anything.
* — I have no idea.
* — You only eat vegetables?

The negative adverbs (and ) follow finite verbs but precede infinitives (along with ):
* — He claims not to smoke/to never smoke/to smoke nothing.

Moreover, it is possible for and to be used as the subject of a sentence, which moves them to the beginning of the sentence (before the ):
* — Nothing is certain.
* — Nobody came.

Several negative words (other than ) can appear in the same sentence, but the sentence is still usually interpreted as a simple negation. When another negative word occurs with , a double negation interpretation usually arises, but this construction is criticised.
* — She never said anything else to anybody.
* — She did not see nobody (i.e., she saw somebody).

Colloquial usage

In colloquial French, it is common to drop the , although this can create some ambiguity with the construction when written down, as could mean either 'more' or 'not anymore'. Generally when is used to mean , the final is pronounced (), whereas it is never pronounced when used to mean 'not anymore' ().

As an example, the informal sentence could be pronounced with the final () to mean "there is more", or it could be pronounced without it () to mean "there is none left".

Independent ''ne''

In certain, mostly literary constructions, can express negation by itself (without or another negative word). The four verbs that can use this construction are ("to be able to"), ("to know"), ("to dare"), and ("to cease").
* (standard, + ) — "I was not able to come."
* (casual, ''pas'' only) ame* (literary, ''ne'' only) ame
''cf.'' phrase — "I do not know what t is remaining in colloquial speech as a fossilized phrase

Expletive ''ne''

In certain cases in formal French, the word can be used without signifying negation; the in such instances is known as expletive (French: ):

: — "I am afraid that it might happen again."
: — "He arrived before we started."
: — "There are more of them than you think."

Expletive is found in finite subordinate clauses (never before an infinitive). It is characteristic of literary rather than colloquial style. In other registers French tends to not use any negation at all in such clauses, e.g., .

The following contexts allow expletive
* the complement clause of verbs expressing fear or avoidance: (to fear), (to be afraid), (to prevent), (to avoid)
* the complement clause of verbs expressing doubt or denial: (to doubt), (to deny)
* adverbial clauses introduced by the following expressions: (before), (unless), (for fear that)
* comparative constructions expressing inequality: (other), (better), (stronger), (less intelligent), etc.

Existential clauses

In French, the equivalent of the English existential clause "there is/are" is expressed with (infinitive: ), literally, "it there has" or "it has to it". As an impersonal verb, the verb may be conjugated to indicate tense, but always remains in the third person singular. For example
* – "There are two shepherds and fifteen sheep in the meadow."
* – "There will be a lot to eat."
* – "There appears to have been (lit. would have) two dead and five injured in the accident." (as in news reporting)
* – "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'':
* – "I saw him two days ago."
* – "It had been a long time since I had seen him."
* – "The language/usage of one hundred years ago is very different from that of today."

In informal speech, is typically reduced to , as in:
*
*
*
*

Word order

The components of a declarative clause are typically arranged in the following order (though not all components are always present):
* Adverbial(s)
* Subject
* (usually a marker for negation, though it has some other uses)
* First- and second-person object pronoun () or the third-person reflexive pronoun ()
* Third-person direct-object pronoun ()
* Third-person indirect-object pronoun ( or )
* The pronoun
* The pronoun
* Finite verb (may be an auxiliary)
* Adverbial(s)
* (second marker for negation) The pronouns (if not subject)
* Main verb (if the finite verb is an auxiliary)
* Adverbial(s)
* Direct object
* Indirect object
* Adverbial(s)

:What is called in English (and above) an ''indirect object'' is in many cases called according to French grammar conventions (e.g., in 'to give sth. to s.o.' or 'to give s.o. sth.'). What the French call is a complement introduced by an essentially void or (at least in the case of a noun) required by some particular, otherwise intransitive, verbs: e.g. 'the robbers took advantage of my absence' — but the essentially synonymous has a direct object instead. Unlike in English, in French neither an indirect object nor a circumstantial can become the subject of the passive voice: has no direct equivalent in French.
The most common word order in French is subject-verb-object (SVO).

* (I love chocolate).

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, (what happened?). Below are examples of each circumstance.

* Formal or administrative text – (students as well as academic staff will receive a ballot paper).
* Response to questions with a focus on the subject – (who ate the cakes?)
** (Marie, Pierre and Stephanie are those who ate the cakes).

Finally, in a comparatively limited number of instances French allows for object-subject-verb (OSV) word order, such as when adding emphasis

* (chocolate I LOVE).

In regard to word order, French is more restrictive than other Romance languages. For example, Spanish allows for all six possible word orders, compared to French’s three. Additionally, unlike other Romance languages, specifically Spanish and Italian, French does not have free inversion, which is often explained by French not being a pro-drop language (while Spanish and Italian are).

Negation

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.

History

Modern French allows for fewer word orders than Latin or Old French

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