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 ; adjectives, for number and gender 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:
Some of these features are combined into seven tense–aspect–mood combinations. The simple forms are commonly referred to as the present, the simple past or preterite, the imperfect, 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 are also conjugated to agree with their subjects in person and number. As in English, the subject must be included ; in other words, unlike other Romance languages, French is neither a null-subject language 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 avoir, but for reflexive verbs and certain intransitive verbs the auxiliary is a form of être. The participle agrees with the subject when the auxiliary is être, and with a preceding direct object when the auxiliary is avoir. Forms of être 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. 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 either a chanteuse or a cantatrice. 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 ; 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 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, while the rest tend to be masculine, but it sometimes can be the opposite. More consistently, some endings, such as -sion, -tion, -aison and -ité occur almost exclusively with feminine nouns, while others, such as -aire and -isme occur almost exclusively with masculine ones. Many nouns ending in -e preceded by double consonants are also masculine. Nonetheless, a noun that seems masculine judging by its ending might actually be feminine or vice versa. Noun clauses are masculine.
A very small number of nouns can be used either in masculine or feminine gender with the same meaning. Often one gender is preferred over the other. Some nouns change gender according to the way they are used: the words amour 'love' and délice '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 ; the plural noun gens '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 refers to a critic, while la critique means criticism. Similarly, le voile means "veil", whereas la voile 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, le pot 'pot' and la peau 'skin' are both pronounced but disagree in gender. Similarly le pet and la paix, both.

Number

As in English, nouns inflect for number. In terms of spelling, the plural is usually formed from the singular by adding the letter -s. Nouns ending in -au, -eu, and -ou often take the ending -x instead. However, the endings -s and -x are mute outside of liaison contexts, so the plural form of a noun generally has the same pronunciation as the singular. Nouns which end in -s, -x or -z in the singular are left unchanged in the plural in both pronunciation and spelling.
In spoken French, therefore, the plurality of a noun generally cannot be determined from the pronunciation of the noun, but it is commonly marked by the form of a preceding article or determiner.
Liaison between a plural noun and a following adjective is only common in careful speech, for example, by newsreaders. In this case the plural ending -s or -x may be pronounced: des fenêtres ouvertes . In common speech this is almost never done, so singular and plural forms of most nouns are homophonous in all contexts.
However, some French nouns have distinguishable spoken plural forms. This includes most of those ending in -al, whose plural form is -aux, as well as a few nouns ending in -ail which also follow this pattern. Three nouns form completely irregular plurals: aïeul > aïeux 'ancestors' ; ciel > cieux 'heavens' ; and œil > yeux 'eyes', des œils-de-perdrix 'calluses' ). Three other nouns have regular plurals in spelling but have irregular pronunciations: bœuf > bœufs 'oxen, cattle'; œuf > œufs 'eggs'; and os > os 'bones'.
As with English, most uncountable nouns are grammatically treated as singular, though some are plural, such as les mathématiques 'mathematics'; some nouns that are uncountable in English are countable in French, such as une information 'a piece of information'.

Case

Nouns in French are not inflected for any other grammatical categories.

Articles and determiners

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, except that the indefinite article has a plural form. 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. un beau jardin, un bel homme, une belle femme, de beaux enfants, de belles maisons '. This fifth form, which is older, is sometimes used elsewhere in set phrases, e.g. Philippe le Bel vs. Philippe le Beau.
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 mute, which makes many masculine and feminine forms homophonous. 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. 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. Irregular feminine forms include beau > 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.
The plural is normally formed by adding -s to the singular. This -s 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 -s, -x, or -z, an adjective is left unchanged in the masculine plural. A few adjectives take the ending -x in the masculine plural. 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. 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 formPronunciationTranslation
masc. sg.un prince turca Turkish prince
fem. sg.une princesse turquea Turkish princess
masc. pl.des princes turcsTurkish princes
fem. pl.des princesses turquesTurkish 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.
Written formPronunciationTranslation
masc. sg.un grand empereura great emperor
fem. sg.une grande impératricea great empress
masc. pl.de grands empereursgreat emperors
fem. pl.de grandes impératricesgreat empresses

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 -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": >, >, >.
Most adjectives, when used attributively, appear after their nouns: le vin rouge. A number of adjectives, come before their nouns: une belle femme. With a few adjectives of the latter type, there are two masculine singular forms: one used before consonants, and one used before vowels. For example, the adjective beau changes form from un beau garçon to un bel homme. 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", whereas un grand homme means "a great man".
Many compound words contain an adjective, such as une belle-mère "a mother-in-law", which is distinct from une belle mère "a beautiful mother". Some of them use an archaic form of the feminine adjective that lacks the final -e. These used to be written with an apostrophe, but a hyphen is now considered more correct: une grand'‍route une grand-route "a main country road", which is distinct from une grande route "a long way", and une grand'‍-mère une grand-mère "a grandmother", which is distinct from une grande' mère'' "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 -ment, usually to its feminine form : e.g. anciennement "anciently", "of old", "in olden times"; grandement "greatly"; lentement "slowly"; though there are some systematic deviations, some adverbs are derived irregularly and others do not derive from adjectives at all.
Adverbs themselves are generally invariable. An exception to this is the adverb tout "wholly, very" which agrees in gender and number with the adjective it modifies when it is in the feminine and begins with a consonant.

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, à côté de, après, au sujet de, avant, avec, chez, contre, dans, d'après, de, depuis, derrière, devant, durant, en, en dehors de, en face de, entre, envers, environ, hors de, jusque, loin de, malgré, par, parmi, pendant, pour, près de, quant à, sans, selon, sous, suivant, sur, vers.

Pronouns

In French pronouns can be inflected to indicate their role in a clause, 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 que may have any referent, while the possessive pronoun le mien may have any role in a clause.
As noted above, French is a non-pro-drop language; therefore, pronouns feature prominently in the language. Impersonal verbs use the impersonal pronoun il.
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 ne attached to the verb, and one or more negative words that modify the verb or one of its arguments. Negation encircles a conjugated verb with ne after the subject and the connegative after 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:
→ Je voudrais regarder un film et ne pas m'endormir. 'I would like to watch a movie and not fall asleep'
Other negative words used in combination with ne are:
Examples:
The negative adverbs follow finite verbs but precede infinitives :
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 :
Several negative words 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 colloquial French, it is common to drop the ne, although this can create some ambiguity with the ne … plus construction when written down, as plus could mean either "more" or "not anymore". Generally when plus is used to mean "more", the final "s" is pronounced whereas it is never pronounced when used to mean "not anymore".
As an example, the informal sentence Il y en a plus 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, ne can express negation by itself. The four verbs that can use this construction are pouvoir, savoir, oser, and cesser.
cf. phrase « Je ne sais quoi » — "I do not know what " remaining in colloquial speech as a fossilized 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 :
Expletive ne is found in finite subordinate clauses. 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., J'ai peur que cela se reproduise.
The following contexts allow expletive ne
In French, the equivalent of the English existential clause "there is" is expressed with il y a, literally, "it there has" or "it has to it". 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, il y is typically reduced to , as in:
The components of a declarative clause are typically arranged in the following order :
  1. Adverbial
  2. Subject
  3. ne
  4. First- and second-person object pronoun or the third-person reflexive pronoun
  5. Third-person direct-object pronoun
  6. Third-person indirect-object pronoun
  7. The pronoun y
  8. The pronoun en
  9. Finite verb
  10. Adverbial
  11. The pronouns pas, rien, personne, aucun.e, peu, que
  12. Main verb
  13. Adverbial
  14. Direct object
  15. Indirect object
  16. Adverbial
French basic word order is thus subject–verb–object although, if the object is a clitic pronoun, it precedes the verb. 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.
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.