Language/French/Grammar/Pronominal-verbs,-the-auxiliary-“être”-and-the-agreement-of-the-past-participle

Pronominal verbs, the auxiliary “être” and the agreement of the past participle

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Definitions

Pronominal Verbs

Pronominal verbs ("Les verbes pronominaux" in French), of which there are several categories, are verbs that are constructed with a reflexive pronoun (me, te, se, nous, vous) of the same person as the subject.

Auxiliaries

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

Compound Tenses

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").

Direct Object Pronoun

A direct object pronoun is a word such as "me", "him", "us" and "them", which is used instead of the noun to stand in for the person or thing most directly affected by the action expressed by the verb.

Reflexive verb

A reflexive pronominal verb expresses an action that the subject does on himself:

• Tu te laves.

You wash yourself.

Reciprocal verb

The reciprocal pronominal verb expresses an action both accomplished and received by each of the actors in the action.

• Toutes les étudiants se sont regardés.

All the students looked at each other.

Pronominal verbs, “être” and the agreement of the past participle

Pronominal verbs are always conjugated with "to be" with compound tenses. We need to know when the past participle is marked for agreement.

While the past participle of non-pronominal verbs that take to always agree with the subject (elle est arrivée, nous sommes arrivés, elles sont arrivées), the participle of pronominal verbs only agrees with a direct object pronoun.

For example:

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Reflexive and direct object pronoun

• Je (feminine) me suis lavée à l'eau froide

I washed in cold water

• Elle était maladroite et s'était fréquemment blessée

She was clumsy and often injured herself

• Suzanne s'est très mal habillée

Suzanne dressed very badly

• Marianne s'est cachée dans l'armoire

Marianne hid in the cupboard

Where the meaning of the pronoun is reciprocal and it is a direct object

• Les deux équipes se sont rencontrées à Paris

The two teams met (each other) in Paris

• Nous nous sommes attendus les uns les autres avant de rentrer

We waited for each other before going home

• Jean-Pierre et Richard se sont rencontrés à Lyon

Jean-Pierre and Richard met in Lyons

• Marianne et sa mère se sont attendues à la gare

Marianne and her mother waited for each other at the station

Where the pronoun has no detectable reflexive or reciprocal meaning, but is an integral part of the verb, and is a direct object

• A la vue de tout ce sang, elles se sont évanouies

At the sight of so much blood, they fainted

• Ils se sont toujours repentis de ces paroles

They always regretted those words

• Ils se sont tus dès qu'ils ont vu le directeur

They kept quiet as soon as they saw the headmaster This includes when the pronominal verb is used as a passive:

• Les jeux vidéo se sont vendus comme des petits pains

Video games sold like hot cakes

BUT the past participle will not agree in any case where the pronoun is an indirect object. In particular this will be the case:

(i) where the non-pronominal version of the verb has a prepositional indirect object e.g. nuire à an, cacher qch à qn, écrire à an and therefore the se is seen as an indirect object:

• Elle s'est nui en faisant de telles demandes

She did herself harm by these requests

• Marianne s'est caché la vérité

Marianne hid the truth from herself

• Les participants se sont écrit

The participants wrote to each other

(ii) where the pronoun is indirect, given that the direct object is a body part:

• Je (fem) me suis lavé les mains avant de déjeuner

I washed my hands before lunch

• Elle s'est coupé le doigt parce qu'elle ne faisait pas attention

She cut her finger because she was careless

• Nathan s'est cassé la jambe en jouant au football

Nathan broke his leg playing football

NB: Where the pronoun is an indirect object (and hence the participle does not agree with it), the participle may nevertheless agree with a preceding direct object, as in:

• Les deux valises qu'il s'est achetées sont cassées

The two suitcases he bought are broken

• Combien de valises s'est-il achetées?

How many suitcases did he buy?

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