French pronouns
French pronouns are inflected to indicate their role in the sentence, as well as to reflect the person, gender, and number of their referents.
Personal pronouns
French has a complex system of personal pronouns. When compared to English, the particularities of French personal pronouns include:- a T-V distinction in the second person singular
- the placement of object pronouns before the verb: « Agnès les voit. »
- the existence of distinct pronouns for indirect objects and for certain prepositional objects
- the use of a distinct disjunctive form, e.g. for emphasis.
Possessive pronouns
In French, the possessive pronouns are determined by the definite article le, la, les, depending on the gender and number of their referent; nonetheless, they are considered pronouns.
The following table lists the possessive pronouns by the possessor they indicate:
Examples:
- « Est-ce que c'est ta fleur ou la mienne ? »
- « Je parle à mon frère pendant que tu parles au tien. »
Interrogative pronouns
Like English, French has a number of different interrogative pronouns. They are organized here by the English pronoun to which they correspond:- What:
- * As the direct object of a verb, que is used in front of the verb: « Que faites-vous ? »
- * Also as the direct object of a verb, qu'est-ce que is used, without subject-auxiliary inversion. This phrase is analysed as a single word: « Qu'est-ce que vous faites ? »
- * As the object of a preposition, or after the verb, quoi is used: « Après quoi aboie-t-il ? », « Vous faites quoi ? »
- * There is no indirect-object form; rather, a full prepositional phrase is used: « À quoi pensez-vous ? »
- * As the subject form, qu'est-ce qui is used, without inversion: « Qu'est-ce qui vous dérange ? »
- Who, whom:
- * As the subject or direct object of a verb, or as the object of a preposition, qui is used: « Qui vous dérange ? »
- * There is no indirect-object form; rather, a full prepositional phrase is used: « À qui avez-vous donné cela ? »
- Which, which one:
- * The basic form is lequel.
- * Both parts of lequel are inflected to agree with its referent in gender and number: hence, laquelle, lesquels, lesquelles.
- * The prepositions à and de contract with le and les to form au, aux, du, and des, respectively; this is still the case here. Thus, for example, auxquelles means "at/to which ones", and duquel means "of/from which one".
Relative pronouns
French, like English, uses relative pronouns to introduce relative clauses. The relative pronoun used depends on its grammatical role within the relative clause, as well as on the gender and number of the antecedent and whether the antecedent represents a human. Further, like English, French distinguishes between ordinary relative clauses and other types.In ordinary relative clauses
If the relative pronoun is to be the subject of the clause's verb, qui is ordinarily used: « l'homme qui a volé ma bicyclette ». Note that qui in this use does not change form to agree in any way with its antecedent: « les bicyclettes qui ont été volées ». However, it may occasionally be replaced with a form of lequel to specify the antecedent's gender or number. For example, while the phrase « Jean et Marie, qui vole des bicyclettes » is ambiguous in speech, the phrases « Jean et Marie, laquelle vole des bicyclettes » and « Jean et Marie, lesquels volent des bicyclettes » are not: in the former, only Marie is being described, while in the latter, both Jean and Marie are. This substitution is very rare, however.If the relative pronoun is to be the direct object of the clause's verb, que is ordinarily used: « la bicyclette qu'il a volée ». Like qui, que does not change form to agree with its antecedent, and may occasionally be replaced with a form of lequel for the sake of clarity.
If the relative pronoun is to be the grammatical possessor of a noun in the clause, dont is used: « le garçon dont j'ai volé la bicyclette ». Note that unlike in English, the object of possession is not moved to appear immediately after dont; that is, dont, unlike whose, is not a determiner.
Traditionally, if the relative pronoun was to be the object of a preposition in the clause, or the indirect object of the clause's verb, a form of lequel was used, with the preposition placed before it: « la femme de laquelle j'ai parlé ». Nowadays, the form of lequel is typically replaced with qui when the antecedent is a human: « la femme de qui j'ai parlé ». Further, if the preposition is de, even if it is not the de of the possession, dont has started to be used : « la femme dont j'ai parlé »..
Alternatively, if the relative pronoun is to be an adverbial complement in the clause, introduced by the preposition à, où may be used: « la ville où j'habite », « au moment où il a parlé ».
In other relative clauses
When a relative clause is to serve as an inanimate noun, it is prefixed with ce: « ce que j'ai dit ». In a prepositional phrase after ce, the pronoun lequel is replaced with the pronoun quoi: « ce à quoi je pense », except that ce dont is usually preferred to ce de quoi.When a relative clause serves as an animate noun usually a construction like « l'homme qui... » is used, rather than a "he who" construction. However, qui is sometimes used alone: « Qui vivra, verra ».
When a relative clause is to serve as an adverb, it takes the same form as when it is to serve as an inanimate noun, except that ce is omitted before a preposition: « Ils sont allés dîner, après quoi ils sont rentrés » ; « Ils ne se sont pas du tout parlé, ce qui me semblait étrange ».
Demonstrative pronouns
French has several demonstrative pronouns. The pronouns ceci and cela / ça correspond roughly to English "this" and "that"; the pronoun celui corresponds to English "this one, that one; the one ". The major reason why there is confusion by native English speakers is that "this" and "that" are also used in English as demonstrative adjectives that correspond to the single French demonstrative adjectives ce ‘this; that’.The pronouns ''ceci'', ''cela'', and ''ça''
Ceci and cela correspond roughly to English "this" and "that," respectively. Ça is a truncated form of cela, used in standard spoken contexts. Unlike English this, French ceci is quite rare; its most common use is in writing, to refer to something that is about to be mentioned: « Ceci est le problème : il boit trop. » Cela and ça are often used even when English would use "this."The pronoun ''celui''
Celui corresponds to English "the one," "this one," and "that one." Since its purpose is to identify its referent, it is always accompanied by additional identifying information.Like other pronouns, celui is inflected to agree with its antecedent in gender and number. Its forms are as follows:
| singular | plural | |
| masculine | celui | ceux |
| feminine | celle | celles |
As mentioned above, the demonstrative pronoun is always accompanied by additional identifying information. This information can come in any of the following forms:
- the suffix -ci or -là, attached with a hyphen. These suffixes indicate proximity and distance, respectively; celui-ci means "this one," for example, while celle-là means "that one." In writing, celui-ci is often used to mean "the latter," while celui-là means "the former".
- a relative clause. This construction is more common than in English; for example, English's "the blue one" may be rendered in French as celui qui est bleu — except that celui and bleu would be celle and bleue if the referent were feminine, and est "is" might be replaced by était "was" or sera "will be" or serait "would be". "The blue one" can also be rendered, especially in colloquial language, as le bleu, la bleue, which are closer to English, but, depending on context, the latter construction can, in the masculine, mean either "the blue one" or "blue" .
- one of a few common expressions of location. For example, celui de gauche means "the one on the left."
- de, followed by a possessor. For example, « Ceux de Marie sont cassés » of Marie are broken", "Marie's.