Adjective - A class of words which describe somebody or something and thereby modify nouns. Adjectives appear adjacent to nouns or separated from them by verbs like être, devenir, rester: e.g. un PETIT problème 'a small problem'; une boîte CARRÉE 'a square box'; cette robe est CHÈRE 'This dress is expensive'. Adjectives are commonly inflected to agree with nouns.
Adverb – A class of words which give extra meaning to or modify verbs, adjectives, another adverb, phrases and whole sentences: e.g. Je cours VITE ‘I can run quickly’; Tout est si clair ‘Everything is so clear’; Le train roulait TELLEMENT vite qu’elle n’a pas pu en descendre. ‘The train was going so fast she couldn’t get off’; JUSTE avant le départ du train ‘Just before the train leaves’ SOUDAIN, j’ai entendu un bruit ‘Suddenly I heard a noise’.
Adverbial – A word, phrase or clause that functions as an adverb, e.g. parler BAS ‘to talk quietly’ (bas – an adjective); Je lui rends visite de TEMPS EN TEMPS ‘I visit her from time to time’. (de temps en temps – a prepositional phrase); Elle travaille LE TINMA ‘She works in the mornings’ (le matin – a noun phrase); Le concert m’a beacoup plu PARCE QUE J’AIME CE TYPE DE MUSIQUE (parce que j’aime ce type de musique – a subordinate clause).
Affirmative sentence – A sentence which is not a negative: e.g. Elle parle ‘She is speaking; Parle-t-elle? ‘Is she speaking?’ Parle! ‘Speak’ (as opposed to the negative sentences Elle ne parle pas, Ne parle-t-elle pas?, Ne parle pas!)
Agreement – The way the form of a word changes to align with other words to which it is related. Thus, the verb must change its form to be compatible with a given subject: e.g. Nous mangeons ‘We’re eating’/Vous mangEZ ‘You’re eating’. A determiner and an adjective must change their form to be compatible with a given noun: e.g. un bon repas ‘A good meal’/UNE BONNE BIÈRE ‘A good beer’. A past participle must change its form to be compatible with a preceding direct object: e.g. Le coffre? Je l’ai OUVERT ‘The car boot? I’ve opened it’; La porte? Je l’ai OUVERTE ‘The door? I’ve opened it’; and so on.
Article, definite – definite articles (le, la, les) indicate that the entity/concept referred to by the noun is uniquely identifiable by both speaker and hearer. If you say Passe-moi LA fourchette ‘Pass me the fork’, both speaker and hearer know that there is a unique, identifiable ‘fork’ in the context in which the conversation is taking place.
Article, indefinite – indefinite articles (un, une, des) are used with count nouns (bouteille ‘bottle’, billet ‘ticket’) and indicate that the entity/concept referred to by the noun is not sufficiently ‘known about’ or ‘specified’ to justify the definite article. If you say Passe-moi UNE fourchette ‘Pass me a fork’, this implies that there is no uniquely identifiable ‘fork’ in the context of the conversation (perhaps because there are several of them).
Article, partitive – partitive articles (du, de la, des) serve the same function as indefinite articles but are used with mass and abstract nouns: J’ai acheté du lait ‘I bought (some) milk, Il faut avoir de la patience ‘You must have (some) patience’. The plural partitive article des is used with nouns that are mass or abtract by virtue of their meaning, but happen to be grammatically plural: des tripes (f.pl.) ‘tripe’; des cheveux (m.pl. ) ‘hair’; des renseignements (m.pl.) ‘information’.
Auxiliary Verb – the verbs avoir or être which accompany a past participle in compound tenses or the passive e.g. Elle a mangé ‘She has eaten’; Le vélo A ÉTÉ réparé ‘The bike has been repaired’.
Clause – A string of words which contains just one verb phrase and a subject (whether overt or implied): e.g. Elle part ‘She’s leaving’ – one clause: Depuis janvier les prix ont augmenté ‘Since January, prices have gone up’ – one clause; Il est heureux/parce qu’il est riche ‘He is happy because he is rich’ – two clauses; Elle est prête/à partir ‘She is ready to leave’ – two clauses (in à partir the subject is implied: She is ready, and she will leave); Les circonstances aidant/le parti gagnera les éléctions ‘If the conditions are right, the party will win this election – two clauses; Il dit/qu’on croit/qu’elle va partir ‘He says that they think that she will leave’ – three clauses. Also see coordinate clause, main clause, relative clause, subordinate clause.
Comparative – A way of modifying adjectives and adverbs to draw a comparison between one entity and another: Il veut acheter UNE PLUS GRANDE/UNE MOINS GRANDE/UNE AUSSI GRANDE voiture ‘He wants to buy a bigger car/a car which is not so big/a car which is just as big’; Cette voiture roule PLUS VITE/MOINS/VITE/AUSSI VITE que l’autre ‘This car goes faster/slower/as quickly as the other one’.
Complement – Any phrase which follows a noun, verb, adjective, adverb to form an expression with a cohesive meaning: e.g. un appartement à louer ‘a flat to let’; Ils se réunissent le dimanche au adest ‘They meet on Sundays at the stadium’; Alice est devenue PROFFSSEUR ‘Alice has become a teacher’; Pierre est difficile à VIVRE ‘Pierre is difficult to live with’.
Coordinate clause – A clause linked to another by et, ou, mais: e.g. Il viendra demain ET il nous apportera des gâteaux. ‘He’ll come tomorrow and he’ll bring us some cakes’. These clauses are both main clauses.
Declarative sentence – A sentence which makes a statement (as opposed to a question or an imperative)
Demonstrative – Demonstratives ‘point to’ items in a way which is more specific than the definite articles. Demonstrative determiner = ce, cette, ces e.g. ce bus, cette chatte, ces oignons ‘this bus, this female cat, these onions’. Demonstrative pronoun = celui, celle, ceux, celles. ‘this one’ (m. and f.) and ‘those ones’ (m. and f.)
Determiner – Words which modify nouns in specific ways to indicate definiteness and possession. Articles (un, une/le, la, les/des, etc.), demonstrative determiners (ce, cette, etc.) or possessive determiners (mon, ma/ton, ta etc.) which modify a noun. All determiners have singular and plural forms, and in the singular have different forms depending on whether the noun is masculine or feminine.
Determiner, demonstrative – demonstrative determiners are the forms ce/cet, cette, ces ‘this/these, that/those’. They indicate that the noun is seen as ‘known about’ or ‘speci-fied’ largely in contrast to another noun: Passe-moi cette fourchette ‘Pass me that fork (and not some other fork that might also be visible).
Determiner, possessive – possessive determiners are forms like mon, son, votre ‘my, his/her, your’ that indicate that the noun is seen as belonging to someone.
Direct Object – See Object
Directly transitive verb – see Verb
Ditransitive Verb – See Verb
Finite Verb – See Verb
Formal French – In this grammar ‘formal French’ refers to a style used by speakers of standard and educated French when they are paying particular attention to the form of what they are saying or writing. It is a style usually appropriate when someone is speaking in an official capacity (lectures, sermons, speeches, etc.), or writing in learned, academic or literary style. Features of formal French which are absent from informal French include: the use of the simple past tense (Il sortit ‘He went out’), the use of the past anterior tense (Aussitôt qu’il fut sorti ‘As soon as he had gone out’), retention of ne in ne….pas.
Gender – A division of nouns into two classes: masculine and feminine: The distinction shows up mainly in determiners (le versus la, ce versus cette, mon versus ma etc.) in pronouns (il versus elle) and in the agreement of adjectives with nouns (beau versus belle). Gender distinctions are grammatical and need not correspond to sex distinctions in the real world (although they mostly do): e.g. médecin ‘doctor’ is masculine, but can refer to men or women: personne ‘person’ is feminine but can refer to men or women.
Gerund – see Participle
Imperative – a form of the verb used to give orders, express encouragement or give advice: e.g. Asseyez-vous ‘Sit down’; Allez! ‘Come on!’; Fais attention! ‘Watch out!’.
Impersonal – Refers to a pronoun (usually a subject pronoun) which does not refer to any person, place, thing, idea etc. il, ce, cela, ça can be impersonal pronouns in French: e.g. IL est temps de partir ‘It’s time to leave’; ÇA me fait peur d’y aller la nuit ‘It scares me to go there at night’.
Indicative – The set of forms of the verb which are not subjunctive, imperative, infinitive or participial.
Indirect Object – see Object
Indirectly transitive verb – see Verb
Infinitive – A ‘base’ form of the verb which ends in -er, -ir, -re, -oir, and corresponds to English ‘to’: aimer ‘to like’, finir ‘to finish’, vendre ‘to sell’, recevoir ‘to receive’.
Intransitive verb – see Verb
Main clause – A main clause is complete on its own and can form a complete sentence e.g. Il pleuvait hier vers trois heures ‘It was raining yesterday around three o’clock’.
Modify, to – To add to the meaning of a noun, verb, adjective, etc. by adding another word or phrase to it: e.g. manteau, UN manteau, un manteau gris; oiseau, un oiseau, un oiseau QUI CJAMTE; parle, IL parle, IL parle LENTEMENT; grand, SI grand, PAS SI grand.
Negator – One of the elements aucun, jamais, ni, nul, pas, personne, plus, rien which can make expressions negative (see Chapter 16).
Noun – A class of words which refer to people, places, things, ideas, and so on; a noun is usually preceded by a determiner e.g. UN ami, LA France, UNE bière, LE bonheur. Sub-classes of nouns are: abstract: le bonheur; concrete: un livre; collective: la foule; count: un ami; mass: du beurre; proper: la France, Marie Paule.
Noun Phrase – The phrase consisting of a noun alone, or a noun and the elements which modify it. Each of the following is a noun phrase: Pierre, Le soleil, un cher ami ‘a dear friend’, une bière bien fraîche ‘a really cold beer’, chacun de mes amis les plus chers ‘each of my dearest friends’.
Number – A grammatical distinction between nouns or pronouns which are singular and those which are plural. Number distinctions need not correspond to real singular and plural distinctions in the world, and can differ between English and French (although mostly the grammatical and real-world distinctions coincide): e.g. ‘hair’ (singular) versus cheveux (plural); trousers (plural) versus pantalon (singular).
Number, cardinal – A number in the series un (1), deux (2), trois (3), etc.
Number, ordinal – A number in the series premier (1er), deuxième, (2e), troisième (3e) etc.
Object – A direct object is the noun phrase or pronoun whose referent is affected directly by the action described by the verb: e.g. Il a pris LE TRAIN ‘He took the train’ Il L’a pris ‘He took it’; Je crois CE QU’IL A DIT ‘I believe what he said’. An indirect object is the noun phrase or pronoun whose referent benefits in some way from the action described by the verb. In French, the indirect object noun phrases are always introduced by à: e.g. il a envoyé un cadeau À SA MERE ‘He sent a present to his mother’. An object of a preposition is any noun phrase which follows a preposition: e.g. dans LE HALL ‘In the hall’; à côté DU RESTAURANT ‘beside the restaurant’. See also Preceding direct object.
Ordinal Number – see Number
Parenthetical Expression – An aside made by a speaker to indicate a reservation about what is being said. It is the equivalent of putting something in brackets (‘parentheses’): e.g. Pierre, SEMBLE-T-IL, a gagné le prix ‘Pierre, it seems, won the prize. Parentheticals are kinds of adverbial.
Past Participle – see Participle
Participle – Past participles are forms of the verb which occur with avoir or être e.g. J’ai mangé ‘I’ve eaten’; Elle est partie ‘She has left’. Present participles end in -ant and correspond to English verbs ending in -ing: e.g. disparaissant ‘disappearing’, attendant ‘waiting’. Gerunds are present participles preceded by en: en disparaissant ‘while disappearing’; by disappearing’, en attendant ‘while waiting; by waiting’.
Passive – A form of a normally transitive verb where the direct object becomes the subject and the verb is turned into an être + past participle construction: e.g. Il a réparé le vélo He repaired the bike’/Le vélo a été réparé ‘The bike has been repaired’.
Person – The three categories into which noun phrases or pronouns can be divided depending on whether they refer to the person(s) speaking (je, me, moi, nous – first person), the person(s) being spoken to (tu, te, toi, vous – second person) or the person(s) or thing(s) being talked about (il, elle, lui, ils etc. – third person). Pronouns take different forms in the first, second and third person, and finite verbs change their form to agree with the person of the subject (e.g. je parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, etc.)
Personal Pronoun – A first person, second person or third person pronoun which stands for a noun phrase mentioned or implied elsewhere in a text or discourse. Personal pronouns contrast with Impersonal Pronouns which do not refer to other noun phrases. Personal pronouns are pronouns like je, me, moi, nous; tu, te, toi, vous; il, elle, lui, les etc. They take their name from the fact that they can be classified as first, second or third person and do not necessarily refer to people; e.g. elle is a personal pronoun, but it refers to the inanimate émission in: elle est intéressante, cette émission ‘That programme’s interesting’.
Phrase – Any string of words which gives rise to an expression with a cohesive meaning e.g. mon oncle Jacques ‘my uncle Jacques’ (noun phrase); Pierre marche lentement ‘Pierre walks slowly’ (verb phrase), etc.
Preceding direct object – When a verb is conjugated with avoir the past participle agrees with the preceding direct object. This is usually a preceding unstressed pronoun: Je LES ai vus; the head of a relative clause: l a lettre que j’ai écrite or, in questions, the interrogative form at the beginning of the question: QUELLE LETTRE a-t-il écritE?
Preposition – Words like à, de, dans, en, sur etc. which are followed by noun phrases and indicate the direction, location, orientation etc., of an entity.
Prepositional Phrase – A phrase consisting of a preposition and its complement. The following are all prepositional phrases: à midi ‘at noon’; à chaque virage ‘at every bend’; au chevet de ma mère ‘at my mother’s bedside’.
Present Participle – see Participle
Pronoun – A form which is used in place of a noun phrase when that phrase is already known from the context: e.g. je, tu, nous, le, la, leur etc. Pronouns have different forms depending on whether they are subjects, direct objects, indirect objects or objects of a preposition.
Proper Noun – names such as Marie-Paule, le Canada, are proper nouns.
Quantifier – A determiner-like expression which measures or quantifies a noun or noun phrase: e.g. BEAUCOUP d’argent ‘a lot of money’; LA PLUPART des spectateurs ‘most of the spectators’; TOUS les jours ‘every day’.
Question (direct versus indirect) – A direct question is addressed directly to the hearer or reader: e.g. Viens-tu? ‘Are you coming?’. An indirect question reports the asking of the question: e.g. Il a demandé si tu venais ‘He asked if you were coming’.
Reciprocal – A type of sentence where either the direct object, the indirect object or the object of a preposition refers to the same thing, idea etc. as a plural subject, and the sentence is interpreted so that the subjects are doing things to each other: e.g. Les boxeurs SE sont blessés ‘The boxers injured each other’; Les participants se sont posé des questions ‘The participants asked each other questions’; Les manifestants ont lutté LES UNS CONTRE LES AUTRES ‘The demonstrators fought with each other’.
Reflexive – A type of sentence where either the direct object, the indirect object or the object of a preposition refers to the same person, thing or idea as the subject: e.g. Je ME lave ‘I am washing (myself)’; Elle se cache la vérité ‘She is hiding the truth from herself’; Elle parle CONTRE ELLE-MÊME ‘She is speaking against herself’.
Relative clause – A clause which modifies a noun phrase or a pronoun: e.g. Il y avait deux hommes qui aienttsor du bar ‘There were two men who were coming out of the bar’; C’est lui QUI ME L'A DONNÉ ‘He is the one who gave it to me’.
Subject - The noun phrase or pronoun in a clause about which the verb and its complement say something. (For clauses as subjects see Subordinate Clause.) Subjects usually appear in front of the verb: e.g. LE DINER est serin 'Dinner is served'; SA FEMME parle lentement 'His wife speaks slowly'; DELPHINE a etc battue' Delphine was beaten'. It can appear after the verb in some constructions. See Subject-Verb Inversion
Subject-Verb inversion – Subjects normally precede finite verbs in French. But in questions, and after certain adverbs, the subject and the finite verb may change places: e.g. AIME-T-IL le Roquefort? ‘Does he like Roquefort cheese?’; à peine s ’EST-IL ASSIS qu’on lui a demandé de se déplacer. ‘Hardly had he sat down when someone asked him to move’.
Subjunctive – see Chapter 11 for discussion
Subordinate clause – A clause which is part of a larger sentence, and whose meaning is secondary to that of the main clause. It is useful to distinguish between two kinds of subordinate clauses: Those which serve as adverbials: PARCE QU’IL EST RICHE, Pierre est heureux ‘Because he is rich, Pierre is happy’ – parce qu’il est riche is subordinate to Pierre est heureux and serves as an adverbial. Those which serve as subjects and objects; CE QU’ELLE A FAIT CE JOUR-LÀ me restera toujours dans l’esprit ‘What she did that day will stay in my mind for ever’ – Ce qu’elle a fait ce jour-là is subordinate to me restera dans l’esprit and functions as the subject of the sentence. Je ne vois pas CE QUE JE PEUX FAIRE ‘I don’t see what I can do’ Ce que je peux faire is subordinate to Je ne vois pas and functions as the object of the sentence. For relative clauses see above.
Superlative – A way of modifying adjectives and adverbs to single out an entity as the best or the worst of its kind: e.g. C’est la route la plus dangereuse/la moins dangereuse de la région ‘It’s the most dangerous road/least dangerous road in the region’; Cette voiture-là roule la plus vite/la moins vite ‘That car goes fastest/the least fast’.
Tense – A form of the verb which indicates the time at which an event took place relative to other events being talked about: e.g. je prends [present tense] la route par où nous sommes venus [compound past tense] ‘I’m taking the road along which we came’. Tenses have names like present, future, simple past, compound past, etc. – See Chapter 7 for the forms of verbs in different tenses and Chapter 10 for their uses.
Transitive Verb – See Verb
Verb – A class of words which refers to actions, states, events, accomplishments, and so on, and has different forms to indicate tense and agreement e.g. Elle parle ‘She is speaking’; L’eau scintillait ‘The water was sparkling’.
Verb, intransitive – A verb which has no direct object: e.g. La neige tombait ‘Snow was falling’.
Verb, finite – A verb which is marked for tense and agreement, as opposed to non-finite forms such as the infinitive, imperative, participles: e.g. Je PARLE ‘I’m speaking; J’AI parlé ‘I spoke’; Je SAIS parler français ‘I can speak French’.
Verb, transitive – A verb which has a direct object: e.g. Elle mange une pomme ‘She is eating an apple’.
Verb, indirectly transitive – A verb which has a prepositional complement: e.g. Il parle DE SES PARENTS ‘He is talking of his parents’
Verb, ditransitive – A verb which has two complements consisting of a direct object and a prepositional object: e.g. J’ai envoyé LA LETTRE À MON FRERE ‘I sent the letter to my brother’.
Verb, pronominal – Pronominal verbs are accompanied by an unstressed pronoun which agrees with the subject and is one of me, te, se, nous, vous. The unstressed pronoun may be a direct object e.g. je ME lave or an indirect object: e.g. je ME lave le visage.
Verb Phrase – The phrase consisting of a verb alone, or a verb and the elements which modify it (but excluding the subject). Each of the following is a verb phrase: marchait ‘was walking’; marchait lentement ‘was walking slowly’; a envoyé un cadeau d’anniversaire à sa tante ‘sent a birthday present to his/her aunt’.