As in English, French verbs agree with their subject in person and number:
If one of the subjects is a first person pronoun, the verb will be in the first person plural form:
If one of the subjects is a second person pronoun and there is no first person pronoun, the verb will be in the second person plural form:
If all the subjects are third person, the verb will be in a third person plural form:
(See also Chapter 3.3.5 for coordinated stressed pronouns.)
French tends to make a distinction between the two kinds of meaning which may be conveyed by these methods of coordination. If the meaning emphasizes the individual and does not 'add them together’, the verb may well be singular:
If, on the other hand, the intention is to consider the two elements as a group, the verb will be plural:
The same principle underlies agreement with ni l’un ni l’autre. Where they are 'additive’ the verb is likely to be plural, where they act as 'alternative individuals’ the verb is likely to be singular:
Normally collective nouns which are singular require the verb to be in a singular form, unlike English where speakers use either a singular or plural verb form:
NB: Tout le monde always agrees with a singular verb:
This may change, however, when the collective noun is followed by a plural complement. The verb may then be in the singular or the plural (although some speakers still have a preference for the singular):
Note that in English there is a preference for a plural verb in these cases.
When fractions (see Chapter 6.3) are subjects and have plural complements, whether they are present or implied, verbs normally agree with those complements:
But when the fraction has a singular complement, whether present or implied, verbs agree with the fraction:
NB: les deux tiers and percentages usually agree with a plural verb:
When numeral nouns like une dizaine ‘ten or so’, une vingtaine ‘twenty or so’, une douzaine ‘a dozen’, etc. (see Chapter 6.5.3) are subjects, the verb can agree with the numeral noun or its complement, depending on where the emphasis lies:
When most quantifiers (like la plupart de ‘most’, (un grand) nombre de ‘a large number of’, quantité de ‘a lot of’, beaucoup de ‘many’) are subjects, the verb agrees with their complement, whether it is present or implied:
With la majorité de ‘the majority of’, une minorité de ‘a minority of’, le reste de ‘the rest of’, the verb can agree either with the quantifier or its complement:
Plus d’un tends to be singular:
But moins de tends to be plural:
Where two nouns are linked by the verb être, the verb normally agrees with the preceding subject, although some speakers will make it agree with what follows:
When ce is the subject of être, there is a choice between using c’est or ce sont. Whereas most nouns and pronouns follow c’est, for example:
| C'est moi/nous | It's me/us |
| C'est toi/vous/lui/elle | It's you/him/her |
| C'est le facteur | It's the postman |
in formal French, plural nouns and third person plural pronouns are supposed to follow ce sont:
| Ce sont mes parents | It's my parents |
| Ce sont eux | It's them |
However, most speakers (and even writers) of formal French use c’est in these cases these days:
Where numbers are involved, c’est is always used:
The c’est/ce sont construction is often used with relative clauses, and it is important to remember that the verb in the relative clause agrees in person and number with the complement of c’est/ce sont:
There are three cases where the past participle agrees with the subject of être: (a) with intransitive verbs which select the auxiliary être in compound tenses; (b) in passives; (c) where the past participle functions like an adjective.
The past participles of aller ‘to go’, monter ‘to go up’, mourir ‘to die’, naître ‘to be born’, sortir ‘to go out’, tomber ‘to fall’, etc (see Chapter 8.2.2 for the full list) agree with the subject in gender and number in compound tenses:
| Les Hoarau étaitent allés à La Réunion | The Hoaraus had gone to La Réunion |
| Suzanne est sortie | Suzanne went out |
| Elles sont tombées | They fell over |
| Samira et Luc sont montés au troisième | Samira and Luc went up to the third floor |
NB: Some intransitive verbs which select auxiliary être in compound tenses can also be used transitively (see Chapter 8.3.4). In this case they select the auxiliary avoir in compound tenses and there is no agreement between the subject and the past participle:
Passives are constructed from transitive verbs by turning the direct object into the subject and making the verb an être + past participle construction (see Chapter 8.6). The past participle agrees with the subject in gender and number in these cases:
When past participles are used like adjectives and follow être, they agree with the subject:
| La piscine est couverte | The swimming pool is indoors |
| Les guichets sont fermés | The (ticket office) windows are closed |
There are three cases where past participles agree with preceding direct objects in the compound tenses of verbs conjugated with avoir: (a) when the preceding direct object is an unstressed pronoun like le, la, les, me, te etc., e.g. Je les ai vus ‘I saw them’; (b) when the preceding direct object is the head of a relative clause: e.g. La lettre que j’ai écrite ‘The letter which I wrote’; (c) in questions, when the direct object has been moved to a position preceding the past participle, e.g. Quelle lettre a-t-il écrite? ‘Which letter did he write?’
In compound tenses, the past participle of verbs conjugated with avoir normally agrees with preceding unstressed direct object pronouns:
NB: le used to refer to a clause is invariably masculine (see Chapter 3.2.8), and so there is no agreement with the past participle:
Past participles do NOT agree with any other preceding pronouns, nor with indirect objects, nor with en:
Whilst English speakers may learn to remember to make the agreement between a preceding direct object pronoun and the past participle without too much difficulty, they often still have problems in recognizing when a preceding pronoun is a direct object and when it is not. This is particularly the case where the pronouns are me, te, nous, vous which can function either as direct object or indirect object pronouns, and when the verbs involved are directly transitive in English but have indirectly transitive counterparts in French (see Chapter 8.4.1). For example, there is no agreement in the following cases because the pronouns are all indirect objects:
| convenir à qn | La situation nous a convenu | The situation suited us |
| désobéir à qn | Lucien vous a désobéi | Lucien disobeyed you |
| nuire à qn | Hubert m'a nui | Hubert did me (fem) some damage |
| succéder à qn | Suzanne m'a succédé | Suzanne succeeded me (fem) |
| téléphoner à qn | Les voisins vous ont téléphoné | The neighbours phoned you |
| résister à qn | Les voleurs nous ont résisté | The thieves resisted us |
When a verb is preceded by a direct object pronoun and followed by an infinitive, it is usually said that the participle only agrees when the pronoun is the subject of the infinitive and is the direct object of the verb containing the participle. There will be no agreement when it is the object of the infinitive. This means that there will be agreement in cases like the following:
But no agreement in cases like the following:
Verbs which are likely to be preceded by direct object pronouns and followed by infinitives are perception verbs like écouter ‘to listen to’, entendre ‘to hear’, voir ‘to see’, etc. (see Chapter 12.3.8).
Verbs of movement like amener ‘to bring’, emmener ‘to take’, envoyer ‘to send’ may also be followed by infinitives with subjects which give rise to agreement:
The verb laisser follows the same pattern:
(But see 9.4 for agreement of se laisser.)
Faire, however, is an exception. When it is followed by an infinitive, its past participle never agrees with a preceding direct object:
(See also Chapter 12.3.9. For object pronouns in this construction see Chapter 3.2.32. See 9.4 for agreement of se faire.)
NB: Perception verbs and laisser may allow a following infinitive with either a preceding or following subject:
In either case, if the subject of the infinitive is turned into an unstressed pronoun, it will give rise to agreement with the past participle:
(See Chapter 3.2.32 for position of pronouns.)
When the head of a relative clause (see Chapter 15.1) is the implied direct object of that clause, and it precedes the verb, a past participle agrees with it in gender and number:
NB: The past participles of impersonal verbs (see Chapter 8.8), such as il y a ‘there is/are’, never agree with a preceding complement:
It is important to distinguish this impersonal use from the personal use where agreement would take place:
Sometimes it is not easy to determine whether the head of a relative clause is a direct object or not. Verbs such as courir ‘to run’, coûter ‘to cost’, dormir ‘to sleep’, marcher ‘to walk’, mesurer ‘to measure’, payer ‘to pay’, peser ‘to weigh’, valoir ‘to be worth’, vivre ‘to live’ can take complements which look like direct objects, but are in fact measure adverbs:
In each of these cases the phrase in bold is a measure adverb and not a direct object. One test you can use to find out if the complement of a verb is a direct object or not is to try to make it the subject of a passive sentence – most direct objects can be turned into passive subjects. None of the above examples can be: you cannot say *Cinquante euros ont été coûté par ce livre, nor *Une dizaine de kilomètres ont été marché, etc.
If the head of a relative clause is an adverb, there is no agreement between it and the past participle:
But to make matters more confusing, some of these verbs can also take direct objects. When direct objects are the heads of relative clauses there is agreement with the past participle:
| J'ai pesé la valise | (direct object) |
| I weighed the suitcase |
As in the case of preceding direct object pronouns (see 9.3.3), when a verb is preceded by a direct object which is the head of a relative clause and followed by an infinitive, the participle only agrees when that head is the implied direct object of the verb containing the participle and the subject of the infinitive. This means that there will be agreement in cases like the following:
But no agreement in cases like the following:
As in the case of preceding direct object pronouns, the types of verb which give rise to these contexts are perception verbs, movement verbs and laisser (but not faire) (see 9.3.3).
Questions can be formed in various ways (see Chapter 14). When they are constructed in such a way that the direct object precedes the past participle in compound tenses, the past participle agrees with it in gender and number:
NB: The past participles of impersonal verbs (see Chapter 8.8), such as il y a ‘there is/are’, never agree with a preceding questioned complement:
This must be distinguished from the personal use where agreement would take place:
Sometimes it is not easy to determine whether a questioned phrase is a direct object or not. Verbs such as courir ‘to run’, coûter ‘to cost’, dormir ‘to sleep’, marcher ‘to walk’, mesurer ‘to measure’, payer ‘to pay’, peser ‘to weigh’, valoir ‘to be worth’, vivre ‘to live’ can take complements which look like direct objects, but are in fact measure adverbs. Where such phrases are questioned there is no agreement with a past participle (see also 9.3.5):
As in the case of preceding direct object pronouns (see 9.3.3), when a verb is preceded by a questioned direct object and followed by an infinitive, the participle only agrees when the questioned phrase is the implied direct object of the verb containing the participle and is the subject of the infinitive. This means that there will be agreement in cases like the following:
But no agreement in cases like the following:
As in the case of preceding direct object pronouns, the types of verb which give rise to these contexts are perception verbs, movement verbs and laisser (but not faire).
Pronominal verbs (see Chapter 8.7) include an unstressed object pronoun which agrees with the subject:
| Je me rase | I'm shaving |
| Elle se lève | She's getting up |
In compound tenses the past participle agrees with this preceding object pronoun only if it is a direct object. The problem is determining when it is a direct object and when it is not.
With verbs where the pronoun is not understood as a reflexive (that is, where it does not mean anything, but is just a part of the verb – see Chapter 8.7.3), the participle always agrees, with one exception:
| Elle s'est levée | She got up |
| Ils se sont tus | They fell silent |
| Nous nous sommes abstenus de tout commentaire | We refrained from making any comment |
Exception: se rire de ‘to make light of’: Ils se sont ri de vos menaces ‘They made light of your threats’.
Where a pronominal verb is used reflexively (see Chapter 8.7.1), it will have a non-reflexive counterpart. If the verb has a direct object in its non-reflexive counterpart, the reflexive pronoun is a direct object, and a past participle will agree with it in compound tenses:
| Reflexive use | Non-reflexive counterpart |
| Je me rase | Le coiffeur rase son client |
| I am shaving | The barber is shaving his client |
| Elle se sert la première | Elle sert sa fille la première |
| She serves herself first | She serves her daughter first |
If the verb has an indirect object in its non-reflexive counterpart, the reflexive pronoun is an indirect object, and there will be no agreement with a past participle:
| 1Reflexive use | Non-reflexive use |
| Elle s'offre un gèteau | Elle offre un gèteau è Jean |
| She treats herself to a cake | She treats Jean to a cake |
| Nous nous cachons la vèritè | Nous cachons la vèritè è nos amis |
| We hide the truth from ourselves | We hide the truth from our friends |
The past participles of pronominal verbs used with parts of the body do not agree with the preceding pronoun where the body part is a direct object:
But where the body part is an indirect object, the pronoun is a direct object and a past participle agrees with it:
There is no agreement between the past participle and the preceding pronoun with se laisser + infinitive, se faire + infinitive or se voir + infinitive: