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French has a grammar similar to that of the other Romance languages. French is a moderately inflected language. Nouns and most pronouns are inflected for number (singular or plural); adjectives, for the number and gender (masculine or feminine) of their nouns; personal pronouns, for person, number, gender, and case; and verbs, for mood, tense, and the person and number of their subjects. Case is primarily marked using word order and prepositions, and certain verb features are marked using auxiliary verbs.
Verbs In French, as in English, a verb is the controlling element in most sentences, although it is more common in French than in English for a sentence to have no verb. Verbs are conjugated to reflect the following information: Verbs in the finite moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional) are also conjugated to agree with their subjects in person (first, second, or third) and number (singular or plural), but as in English, the subject must be included excepted in the imperative mood. In other words, French is neither a null subject language nor a pro-drop language. Nouns Every French noun has a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine. The grammatical gender of an animate noun usually corresponds to the noun's natural gender. For such nouns, there will very often be one noun of each gender, with the choice of noun being determined by the natural gender of the person described; for example, a male singer is a chanteur, while a female singer is a chanteuse. In some cases, the two nouns are identical in form, with the difference only being marked in neighboring words (due to gender agreement; see below); a Catholic man is un Catholique, while a Catholic woman is une Catholique. Nonetheless, there are some such nouns that retain their grammatical gender regardless of natural gender; personne ("person") is always feminine, while (at least in "standard" French) professeur ("teacher") is always masculine, regardless of the sex of the person being referred to. A noun's gender is not perfectly predictable from its form, but there are some trends. As a very broad trend, nouns ending in -e tend to be feminine, while the rest tend to be masculine, but there are very many exceptions. More consistently, some endings, such as -tion, occur almost exclusively on feminine nouns, while others, such as -eau, occur almost exclusively on masculine ones. Nonetheless, a noun that seems masculine from its form might actually be feminine (e.g., souris — "mouse"), or less commonly, vice versa (e.g., squelette — "skeleton"). As with English, nouns are inflected for number; the plural noun is usually formed from the singular by adding the suffix -s, or sometimes -x. However, since final consonants are generally not pronounced in French, adding -s or -x does not generally affect pronunciation, so the singular and plural forms of most nouns are generally pronounced the same. Further, nouns that end in -s (e.g., Français — "Frenchman") in their singular forms generally do not change forms even in writing. However, some nouns are pronounced differently in their plural forms: for example, œil ("eye") becomes yeux, cheval ("horse") becomes chevaux, and os ("bone" or "bones") is pronounced differently when it is plural () from when it is singular (); and even with nouns for which this is not the case, a distinction will still usually be made in speech, as there will usually be a neighboring article or determiner whose pronunciation does change with the noun's number (due to number agreement; see below). As with English, most uncountable nouns are grammatically treated as singular, though some are plural, such as les mathématiques ("mathematics"), and some nouns that are uncountable in English are countable in French, such as une information ("a piece of information"). Nouns in French are not inflected for case or person. (However, personal pronouns are; see below.) Articles and determiners Articles and determiners agree in gender and number with the noun they determine; and, unlike with nouns, this inflection is made in speech as well as in writing. Perhaps for this reason, they are required in French much more often than in English: this enables nouns' genders and numbers to be reflected in speech. French has three articles: definite, indefinite, and partitive. The difference between the definite and indefinite articles is similar to that in English (definite: the; indefinite: a, an), except that the indefinite article has a plural form (~some). The partitive article is similar to the indefinite article, but is used for uncountable nouns. Adjectives An adjective agrees in gender and number with the noun it modifies. The adjective's masculine singular form is its default form; this is the form listed in dictionaries, and is typically the form used when the adjective is used as a noun. Most adjectives' feminine singular forms are formed from their masculine singular forms by adding -e, though some common endings have different patterns; adjectives in -eux, for example, typically have feminine singular forms in -euse. Similarly, most adjectives' masculine and feminine plural forms are formed from their corresponding singular forms by adding -s, though sometimes -x is added instead, and nothing is added if the corresponding singular form already ends in -s or -x. Most adjectives, when used attributively, appear after their nouns: le vin rouge ("the red wine"). A number of adjectives, however (often, but not always, having to do with beauty, age, goodness, or size, a tendency summarized by the acronym "BAGS"), come before their nouns: une belle femme ("a beautiful woman"). With a few adjectives of the latter type, there are two masculine singular forms: one used before consonants (the default form), and one used before vowels. For example, the adjective beau ("beautiful") changes form from un beau garçon ("a handsome boy") to un bel homme ("a handsome man"). Some adjectives change position depending on their meaning, sometimes preceding their nouns and sometimes following them; for example, ancien means "former" when it precedes its noun, but "ancient" when it follows it. Many compound words contain an adjective, such as belle-mère ("mother-in-law"; distinct from belle mère, "beautiful mother"). Some of them use an archaic form of the feminine adjective that lacks the final -e, such as grand-route ("main country road"; distinct from grande route, "long way") and grand-mère ("grandmother"; distinct from grande mère, "tall mother"). Adverbs As in English, adverbs in French are used to modify adjectives, other adverbs, and verbs or clauses. Most adverbs are derived from an adjective by modifying its ending and adding the suffix -ment (analogous to the English suffix -ly), though some adverbs are derived irregularly, and many do not derive from adjectives at all. Adverbs are invariable; that is, unlike nouns, verbs, and adjectives, they are not inflected in any way. Pronouns In French, pronouns can be inflected to indicate their role in a clause (subject, direct object, etc.), as well as the person, gender, and number of their referrent. Not all of these inflections may be present at once; for example, the relative pronoun que (that, which, whom) may have any referrent, while the possessive pronoun le mien (mine) may have any role in a clause. As noted above, French — like English — is a non-pro-drop ("pronoun-dropping") language; therefore, pronouns feature prominently in the language. Impersonal verbs (e.g., pleuvoir — to rain) use the impersonal pronoun il (analogous to English it). The French object pronouns are all clitics, and some appear so consistently — especially in everyday speech — that some have commented that French could almost be considered to demonstrate polypersonal agreement. Negation French usually expresses negation in two parts, with the particle ne attached to the verb, and one or more negative words that modify the verb or one of its arguments. For example, simple verbal negation is expressed by ne before the finite verb (and any object pronouns) and the adverb pas after the finite verb: Examples: The negative adverbs (and rien) follow finite verbs but precede infinitives (along with ne): Several negative words (other than pas) can appear in the same sentence, but the sentence is still usually interpreted as a simple negation. When another negative word occurs with pas, a double negation interpretation arises. In colloquial French it is common to drop the ne in fast speech, although this can create some ambiguity with the ne … plus construction, as plus can mean either "more" or "not anymore." Generally when plus is used to mean "more", the final "s" is pronounced, while it is never pronounced when used to mean "not any more". So the informal sentence "Il y en a plus" can be pronounced with the final "s" to mean "There is more", or without to mean "There is none left". In certain, mostly literary constructions, ne can express negation by itself (without pas or another negative word). This is possible with certain verbs (e.g. pouvoir, savoir, oser). Word order The components of a clause are typically arranged in the following order (though not all components are always present): | ||||||||
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