Language/French/Grammar/Verb-forms-—-Introduction
As in many languages, verbs in French have different forms for the different functions they perform in sentences. It is traditional (and easiest for reference) to present verb forms in paradigms (i.e. lists), and this is what we do in this chapter. We follow Judge and Healey (1983) in dividing the paradigms into simple forms, compound forms and double compound forms. Simple forms are made up of stems to which endings are attached. Compound forms are made up of forms of the auxiliary verbs avoir and être plus a past participle. Double compound forms are made up of forms of the compound auxiliary verbs avoir eu or avoir été plus a past participle. The set of verb forms that this produces is illustrated below, using the third person singular form of the verb donner 'to give' (stems are in normal type, endings are in bold). Not all books and teachers use the terminology we employ here, so we have added other terms in common use in brackets:
Simple tenses | |
---|---|
Present | II donn-e |
Imperfect | II donn-ait |
Simple past (past historic) | II donn-a |
Future | II donn-era |
Conditional | II donn-erait |
Present subjunctive | Qu'il donn-e |
Imperfect subjunctive | Qu'il donn-ât |
Simple non-finite forms | |
Simple infinitive | donn-er |
Present participle | donn-ant |
Past participle | donn-é |
Imperative | donn-e |
donn-ez | |
donn-ons | |
Compound tenses | |
Compound past (perfect) | Il a donné |
Pluperfect | Il avait donné |
Past anterior | Il eut donné |
Compound future (future perfect) | Il aura donné |
Compound conditional (conditional perfect) | Il aurait donné |
Compound past subjunctive | Qu'il ait donné |
Pluperfect subjunctive | Qu'il eût donnéx |
Compound non-finite forms | |
Compound infinitive | avoir donné |
Compound present participle | ayant donné |
Compound past participle | eu donné |
Compound imperative | aie donné |
ayez donné | |
ayons donné | |
Double compound tenses | |
Double compound past | II a eu donné |
Compound pluperfect | II avait eu donné |
Double compound future | II aura eu donné |
Double compound conditional | II aurait eu donné |
Double compound past subjunctive | Qu'il eût eu donné |
Double compound non-finite forms | |
Double compound infinitive | avoir eu donné |
Double compound participle | ayant eu donné |
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The 3 French verb groups - YouTube[edit | edit source]
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