Language/French/Grammar/Agreement-of-past-participle-if-direct-object-is-placed-before

Agreement of the past participle if the direct object is placed before

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Definitions

Past participle

The past participle is a verb form with several roles. It’s essential in the creation of compound verb tenses/moods and the passive voice, and it can also be used as an adjective. The French past participle usually ends -é, -i, or -u, and is equivalent to -ed or -en in English.

The direct object complement

The direct object complement (French: le complément d'objet direct) directly completes the verb without any preposition. The verb used with a COD is a direct transitive verb.

To find the COD of a verb, it is most often enough to ask questions:

• Quoi ? (What ?)
• Qui ? (Who ?)

The indirect object complement

The indirect object complement (French: le complément d'objet indirect) indirectly completes the verb most often through a preposition. The verb used with an COI is an indirect transitive verb.

To find the COI of the verb, it is most enough to ask questions:

• à qui ? à quoi ? (to whom ?) (to what ?)
• de qui ? de quoi ? (of who ?) (of what ?)

Auxilary

There are only 2 auxiliaries in French: "avoir" or "être". As "avoir", "être" is used to form compound tenses for some verbs.

No Agreement when using "avoir"

The past participle never agrees with the subject when using the "avoir" auxilary.

• Elle a rencontré une célébrité.

She met a celebrity

• Ils ont fini la bouteille.

They finished the bottle.

Agreement when using "avoir"

However, the past participle agrees with the direct object when it is placed before the verb. For compound tenses, the past participle of verbs conjugated with "avoir" generally agrees with the unstressed direct object pronouns which precede:

• J'ai vu Céline: Je l'ai vue

I saw Céline: I saw her

• Les pompiers avaient repéré les pyromanes: Les pompiers les avaient repérés

The firefighters had found the arsonists: The firefighters had found them

• Les policiers ont appelé mon frère et moi (feminine) : Les policiers nous ont appelées.

The police men called my brother and me: The police men called us.

Note: "le" used to designate a clause is always masculine. It does not agree with the past participle:

• Son père est malade : il l'a souvent dit

His father is sick: he has often said so

Exceptions

The past participles do not agree with the other pronouns that precede, nor with the indirect objects, nor with "en".

• J'ai parlé à Céline : Je lui ai parlé (NOT "parlée")

I spoke to Céline: I spoke to her.

• J'ai montré le chemin à Jean-Paul et Claude : Je leur ai montré (NOT "montrés") le chemin

I told Jean-Paul and Claude how to get there: I told them how to get there

• Cet après-midi il y a eu des moutons qui sont passées dans le champ du voisin. J'en ai vu (NOT "vus") ce matin également.

This afternoon there were sheep that passed in the neighbor's field. I saw some this morning as well.

Other Chapters

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