Language/French/Grammar/Agreement-of-the-past-participle-when-using-“avoir”-with-a-preceding-direct-object

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Agreement of the past participle with the use of the auxiliary "avoir" and a direct object which precedes.

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Definitions[edit | edit source]

Subject-verb agreement[edit | edit source]

The agreement in French (the agreement) is the way to choose the correct ending for verbs in terms of grammatical persons, gender and number, depending on their subject.

Past participle[edit | edit source]

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.

French Auxilaries[edit | edit source]

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

Compound Tenses[edit | edit source]

Conjugations for the different French verb tenses and moods can be divided into 2 categories:

  • simple and compound.

Simple tenses and moods have only 1 part (e.g., "je mange") whereas compound tenses and moods have 2 (e.g., "j'ai mangé").

Agreement of the past participle with the use of the auxiliary "avoir" and a direct object which precedes: 3 cases[edit | edit source]

There are 3 cases where the past participle agrees with the preceding direct object in compound tenses that use the auxiliary "avoir":

  1. When the direct object above is an unstressed pronoun. For example: "le", "la", "les", "me", "te" etc. "Je les ai vus" (I saw them).
  2. When the preceding direct object is at the start of a relative clause: for example: "La lettre que j'ai écrite" (The letter which I wrote).
  3. in questions, when the direct object has been moved before the past participle, for example: "Quelle lettre a-t-il écrite ?" (What letter did he write?) or " Combien de lettres a-t-il lues?" (How many letters did he read?).


Table of Contents

Nouns


Determiners


Personal and impersonal pronouns


Adjectives


Adverbs


Numbers, measurements, time and quantifiers


Verb forms


Verb constructions


Verb and participle agreement


Tense


The subjunctive, modal verbs, exclamatives and imperatives


The infinitive


Prepositions


Question formation


Relative clauses


Negation


Conjunctions and other linking constructions

Other Lessons[edit | edit source]

Contributors

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