Language/French/Grammar/Recognizing-when-an-unstressed-pronoun-is-a-direct-object

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Recognizing when an unstressed pronoun is a direct object

Definitions

Subject-verb agreement

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.

Unstressed/Stressed pronoun

• Unstressed pronouns are connected directly or indirectly to a verb.
• Stressed pronouns are separated from the verb by a preposition usually, or even a comma.

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.

French direct object pronouns are:

French		English	French	English
me	(m’, moi)	me	nous	us
te	(t’, toi)	you	vous	you
le	(l’)	him, it	les	them
la	(l’)	her, it

Recognizing when an unstressed pronoun is a direct object

English speakers can remember to make the agreement between a preceding direct object pronoun and the past participle without too much difficulty. However, they often still have problems recognizing when a preceding pronoun is a direct object or not. This is particularly the case when the pronouns are "me", "te", "nous", "vous" which can act as direct object pronouns or as indirect object pronouns, and when the verbs involved are directly transitive in English but have indirectly transitive equivalents in French. For example, there is no agreement in the following cases because the pronouns are all indirect objects:

convenir à quelqu’un

• La décision nous a convenu

The decision suited us

désobéir à quelqu’un

• Alain vous a désobéi

Alain disobeyed you

nuire à quelqu’un

• Victor m'a nui

Victor did me some damage

succéder à quelqu’un

• Françoise m'a succédé

Françoise succeeded me

téléphoner à quelqu’un

• Les voisins nous ont téléphoné

The neighbours phoned us

résister à quelqu’un

• Les cambrioleurs nous ont résisté

The burglars resisted us

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

Other Lessons

• Subject Verb Agreement — Agreement quantifiers numeral nouns
• How to use half, third and quarter in French
• Negations
• Pronominal verbs and body parts
• me, te, se, nous, vous as part of certain verbs but with no specific meaning
• Use of an année, jour journée, matin matinée, soir soirée
• Subjunctive Mood
• Use of jamais
• Plural forms of adjectives — The normal case
• Well Better Worse
• Differences in the use of numbers in French and English Dates
• Years
• Adverbs
• Meaning of alors
• Position of more than one object pronoun with faire etc. + infinitive