Language/French/Grammar/Agreement-of-the-past-participle-with-the-subject-of-être

Agreement of the Past Participle with the Subject of être in French Grammar

In French, the past participle of certain verbs is used with the auxiliary verb être to form the passé composé. In this lesson, we will explore the agreement of the past participle with the subject of être.

Formation of the Passé Composé with être

The passé composé is formed by using the present tense of the auxiliary verb être (to be) followed by the past participle of the main verb. The past participle agrees with the subject of être in gender and number. For example:

• Elle est arrivée tard. (She arrived late.)
• Nous sommes partis hier. (We left yesterday.)
• Ils sont nés en France. (They were born in France.)

Agreement with Gender and Number

The past participle must agree with the subject of être in gender and number. When the subject is masculine singular, the past participle is also masculine singular. When the subject is feminine singular, the past participle is also feminine singular. When the subject is plural, the past participle is also plural. For example:

• Il est tombé de vélo. (He fell off his bike.)
• Elle est tombée de vélo. (She fell off her bike.)
• Ils sont tombés de vélo. (They fell off their bikes.)
• Elles sont tombées de vélo. (They [feminine] fell off their bikes.)

Exceptions to the Agreement

There are some verbs that use être as the auxiliary verb in the passé composé but do not agree with the subject. These verbs include:

• Aller (to go)
• Venir (to come)
• Descendre (to go down)
• Monter (to go up)
• Retourner (to return)

For example:

• Je suis allé au cinéma. (I went to the cinema.)
• Elle est venue me voir. (She came to see me.)
• Ils sont descendus de la montagne. (They came down from the mountain.)
• Nous sommes montés sur la tour Eiffel. (We went up the Eiffel Tower.)
• Tu es retourné à la maison. (You returned home.)

Conclusion

Understanding the agreement of the past participle with the subject of être is an important part of mastering the passé composé in French. By knowing how to form the passé composé with être, how to agree with gender and number, and which verbs do not require agreement, you can improve your French language skills and communicate more effectively with native speakers.

Table of Contents

Nouns

• Types
• Gender
• Plural

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Determiners

• Articles
• Typical use of the definite article
• Typical use of the indefinite article
• The partitive article: du, de l', de la, des
• Use of indefinite and partitive articles after the negative forms ne... pas, ne... jamais, ne... plus, ne... guère
• Omission of the article
• Demonstrative determiners
• Possessive determiners

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Personal and impersonal pronouns

• Subject pronouns
• Object pronouns
• Stressed pronouns
• Demonstrative pronouns
• Possessive pronouns

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Adjectives

• Adjectives modifying the noun
• Adjectives which follow verbs or verbal expressions
• Adjectives with complements
• Indefinite and negative noun phrases with adjective complements
• Adjectives used as nouns
• Adjectives used as adverbs
• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives
• Plural forms of adjectives
• Adjective agreement with nouns
• Invariable adjectives
• Compound adjectives
• Comparative and superlative forms of adjectives
• Subjunctive versus indicative in clauses dependent on a superlative adjective
• Absolute use of the superlative

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Adverbs

• Function of adverbs
• Formation of adverbs with the ending -ment
• Adjectives used as adverbs without addition of -ment
• Phrases used as adverbs
• English and French adverb formation
• Types of adverbs
• Location of adverbs

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Numbers, measurements, time and quantifiers

• Cardinal numbers
• Ordinal numbers
• Fractions
• Some differences in the use of cardinal and ordinal numbers in French and English
• Measurements and comparisons
• Dates, days, years
• Clock time
• Money
• Quantifiers

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Verb forms

• Conjugations
• Easy ways of generating some parts of the paradigms
• Changes in the stem form of some -er conjugation verbs
• Verbs whose stems end in c- or g-
• Verb paradigms

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Verb constructions

• Relations between verbs and their complements
• Intransitive constructions
• Directly transitive verbs
• Indirectly transitive verbs
• Ditransitive verbs
• The passive
• Pronominal verbs
• Impersonal verbs
• Verbs which take noun + adjective or noun + noun complements

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Verb and participle agreement

• Subject-verb agreement
• Agreement of the past participle with the subject of être
• Agreement of the past participle of verbs conjugated with avoir with a preceding direct object
• Agreement of the past participle of pronominal verbs in compound tenses

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Tense

• The present
• The past
• The future
• Other tenses indicating the time at which events occur relative to other events
• Combining tenses
• Tenses in direct and reported descriptions of events
• Tenses with si

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The subjunctive, modal verbs, exclamatives and imperatives

• The attitude of the subject to events: the subjunctive
• The use of devoir, pouvoir, savoir, falloir
• The French equivalents of the English modal verbs: 'would', 'should', 'could', 'may', 'might', 'ought to', and 'must'
• Exclamatives
• Imperatives

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The infinitive

• Introduction: what are infinitives?
• Infinitives as complements to other verbs
• Verbs which take infinitive complements without a linking preposition
• Verbs which take infinitive complements preceded by the preposition à
• Verbs which take an infinitive complement preceded by de
• Omission of objects before infinitives
• Infinitives as complements to adjectives
• Infinitives as complements to nouns
• Infinitives in subordinate clauses
• Infinitives as polite commands
• Quick-reference index to verbs taking infinitive complements

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Prepositions

• Introduction
• Prepositions listed alphabetically from à to vers
• French translations for common English prepositions

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Question formation

• Introduction
• Yes/no questions
• Information questions
• Order of object pronouns in questions involving inversion
• Order of negative particles in questions involving inversion
• Use of question words and phrases: qui?, que?, quoi?, quel?, de qui?, avec combien de? etc.
• Indirect questions

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Relative clauses

• Introduction
• Use of relative qui
• Use of relative que
• Preposition plus qui
• Use of lequel in relative clauses
• Use of dont, de qui, duquel/de laquelle/desquels/desquelles
• The use of où as a relative pronoun
• Use of relative quoi
• Free relative clauses and the use of ce qui, ce que, ce dont, ce à quoi, ce sur quoi, etc.
• Translating 'whoever', 'whatever', 'wherever', 'whenever', 'however'
• Indicative and subjunctive in relative clauses

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Negation

• Introduction
• Location of sentence negators
• Order of negators in multiple negation
• Omission of ne in sentence negation
• Order of negative elements in questions and imperatives
• ne... pas
• ne... que
• ne... aucun(e), ne... nul(le)
• ne... jamais
• ne... plus
• ne... guère
• ne... rien
• ne... personne
• ne... ni... ni
• sans used with other negators
• ne used alone

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Conjunctions and other linking constructions

• Introduction
• Coordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions
• Conjunctions sometimes confused by English speakers
• Repeated subordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions used with infinitive clauses
• après avoir/ être + past participle linking an infinitive clause to a main clause
• Past participle phrases used as linkers
• Present participles and gerunds

Other Lessons

• Typical use of demonstrative determiners
• Summary table of subject pronouns
• Nouns which have the same spoken form but two different written forms
• Adverbs
• How to use Be
• Superlative forms of adjectives
• Types of noun
• Position of direct and indirect object pronouns
• French Ditransitive verbs
• ils with arbitrary reference