French verbs

In French grammar, verbs are a part of speech. Each verb lexeme has a collection of finite and non-finite forms in its conjugation scheme.

Finite forms depend on grammatical tense and person/number. There are eight simple tense–aspect–mood forms, categorized into the indicative, subjunctive and imperative moods, with the conditional mood sometimes viewed as an additional category. The eight simple forms can also be categorized into four tenses (future, present, past, and future-of-the-past), or into two aspects (perfective and imperfective).

The three non-finite moods are the infinitive, past participle, and present participle.

There are compound constructions that use more than one verb. These include one for each simple tense with the addition of or as an auxiliary verb. There is also a construction which is used to distinguish passive voice from active voice.

Conjugation

French verbs are conjugated by isolating the stem of the verb and adding an ending. In the first and second conjugation, the stem is easily identifiable from the infinitive, and remains essentially constant throughout the paradigm. For example, the stem of ("speak") is parl- and the stem of ("finish") is fin-. In the third group, the relationship between the infinitive form and the stem is less consistent, and several distinct stems are needed to produce all the forms in the paradigm. For example, the verb ("drink") has the stems boi-, boiv-, bu-, and buv-.

The ending depends on the mood, tense, aspect, and voice of the verb, as well as on the person and number of its subject. Every conjugation exhibits some degree of syncretism, where the same (homophonous, and possibly also homographic) form is used to realize distinct combinations of grammatical features. This is most noticeable for -er verbs. For instance, the conjugated form parle can be the 1st or 3rd person singular indicative or subjunctive form of parler, or the singular familiar imperative. Furthermore, the 2nd person singular indicative and subjunctive form parles and the 3rd person plural form parlent are pronounced the same way as parle (except in liaison contexts). The prevalence of syncretism in conjugation paradigms is one functional explanation for the fact that French does not allow null subjects, unlike most of the other Romance languages.

Classification Aside from and (considered categories unto themselves), French verbs are traditionallyL. Tasmowski and S. Reinheimer. "Variations dans le radical du verbe roman". In D. Godard (ed), Les langues romanes; Problèmes de la phrase simple. Paris, CNRS Editions, 2003. grouped into three conjugation classes (groupes): The first conjugation class consists of all verbs with infinitives ending in -er, except for the irregular verb and (by some accounts) the irregular verbs and ;Langue française-Questions courantes the verbs in this conjugation, which together constitute the great majority of French verbs, are all conjugated similarly, though there are a number of subclasses with minor changes arising from orthographical and phonological considerations. The second conjugation class consists of all verbs with infinitives in -ir or -ïr and present participles in -issant or -ïssant, as well as the verb . There are somewhat over 300 such verbs, all conjugated identically, with some minor exceptions. The -iss- or -ïss- in much of their conjugation is a reflex of the Latin inchoative infix -isc-/-esc-, but does not retain any aspectual semantics. The third conjugation class consists of all other verbs: aller, arguably (r)envoyer, a number of verbs in -ir (including all verbs in -oir, which is an etymologically unrelated ending), and all verbs in -re. Nonetheless, this class is very small compared to the other two, though it does contain some of the most common verbs. This class has a few dozen subclasses, often differing substantially; indeed, this class is essentially a catch-all for verbs, besides and , that do not fit into the first two classes. There are about 370 verbs in this group, though a much smaller number are still in frequent use.

Moods As with English verbs, French verbs have both non-finite moods (les modes impersonnels), also called verbals, and finite ones (les modes personnels).

Finite moods

The finite moods are the indicative (l'indicatif), the imperative (l'impératif), and the subjunctive (le subjonctif). As discussed below, sometimes the conditional is recognized as a fourth mood. While the rules that determine the correct mood are quite complex, they are simplified and summarized in the following table:

indicativeused in most independent clauses used in affirmative and negative statements and questions used in dependent clauses that are certainly true used when no other mood applies« Où êtes-vous ? » ("Where are you?") « Je suis ici. » ("I am here.") subjunctiveused in many dependent clauses used to express a doubtful, desired, or requested event used to express an event to which the reaction is of most significance used to express a third-person imperative used much more than in English« Il se peut qu'il vienne demain. » ("It may be that he will come tomorrow.") « J'ai demandé qu'il parte. » ("I asked that he leave.") « Je suis heureux qu'il soit venu. » ("I am glad that he came.") « Vive la République ! » ("Long live the Republic!") imperativeused in commands and requests only possible with first-person plural and second-person singular and plural subject the subject is implied almost exactly as in English« Fais tes devoirs ! » ("Do your homework!") « Faisons nos devoirs ensemble. » ("Let's do our homework together.")

Many linguists recognize a fourth mood, the conditional (le conditionnel), which is used in almost exactly the same circumstances as the conditional in English. In French, « Je le ferais si j'avais assez de temps » is "I would do it if I had enough time" in English. The conditional can also be used evidentially, to express reservations about the verb: « Il serait suivi par un psychologue », "He is apparently/is said to be/[etc.] under the care of a psychologist." Other linguists consider the conditional to be a tense of the indicative mood. The two camps do not disagree on the rules for when and how to use the conditional. A third camp recognizes both "conditionnel présent/conditionnel passé" (for use in conditional sentences), and "indicatif futur du passé / indicatif futur antérieur du passé" (for tense concords, "future from a past point of view"; e.g. « Il m'a dit qu'il le ferait le lendemain », "He told me he would do it the next day"), but they recognize also that both are conjugated the same.

Non-finite moods

The infinitive has a present tense, with a perfect: "faire" means "to do", while "avoir fait" means "to have done". There is a present participle, with a perfect construction: "faisant" means "doing", while "ayant fait" means "having done". As noted above, this participle is not used in forming a continuous aspect. Further, it cannot be used as a noun, in the way that present participles in English have the same form as gerunds; the only verbal noun is the infinitive. There is a gérondif ("gerundive", but different from the Latin gerundive), formed with the clitic en and the present participle: "en faisant" means "by doing" or "while doing". (It is analogous to the English "in doing", but in English, since "doing" can act as a noun, "in doing" is taken as a prepositional phrase rather than as a separate verb form. That interpretation is not available for "en faisant".) Similarly, "en ayant fait" means "by having done". There is a separate past participle: "fait" means "done". As in English, it can be used in the passive voice, in the perfect form, or on its own as an adjective. The past participle has no perfect, except arguably in the special surcomposé tense.

Tenses and aspects

Tenses and aspects of the indicative mood

The indicative mood has five "simple" (synthetic) tense-aspect forms, conveying four tenses (times of action) (future, present, past, and future-of-past) and two aspects (fabrics of time) (perfective, conveying an action viewed in its entirety without its time frame being considered in more detail, and imperfective, conveying an action that occurs repeatedly or continuously). The tense-aspect forms of the indicative mood in French are called the present (le présent: present tense, imperfective aspect), the simple past (le passé simple: past tense, perfective aspect), the imperfect (l'imparfait: past tense, imperfective aspect), the future (le futur: future tense, unspecified aspect), and the conditional (le conditionnel: future-in-past tense, unspecified aspect). Note that, as discussed above, in some uses the conditional can be considered a separate mood completely, while in other uses it is the future-in-past tense of the indicative. The use of the various tense forms is described in the following table:

presentlike in English, used to describe habitual, recurring, and "always" true events unlike in English, used to describe ongoing current action unlike in English, used to describe events that started in the past and affect the present (i.e., most cases where simple perfect is used in English) sometimes used to describe upcoming events used in a protasis (if-clause) when the apodosis (then-clause) is in the future tense or imperative mood« Les mardis, je joue au tennis. » ("On Tuesdays, I play tennis.") « En ce moment, je joue au tennis. » ("At the moment, I am playing tennis. ") « Il habite à Paris depuis 15 ans. » ("He has lived/has been living in Paris for 15 years. ") « Demain, je joue au tennis avec Marc. » ("Tomorrow, I am playing tennis with Marc.") « Si je joue au tennis avec vous mardi, jouerez-vous aux échecs avec moi mercredi ? » ("If I play tennis with you on Tuesday, will you play chess with me on Wednesday?") simple past(past perfective)used to describe past events in a perfective or aorist aspect; that is, with a sense of completion, with a definite beginning and end a literary tense that is rarely used in spoken language« Et la lumière fut. » ("And there was light.") « Il naquit en 1930 et mourut en 1998. » ("He was born in 1930 and died in 1998.") « Hier, il plut. » ("Yesterday, it rained.") « Il rangea la salle tandis qu'elle faisait la vaisselle. » ("He cleaned the room while she was washing the dishes.") imperfect(past imperfective)used to describe past events or situations in an imperfective aspect; that is, ongoing, repetitive, or habitual past events or situations often used in conjunction with the simple or compound past to indicate an event that was ongoing while another took place used in a contrary-to-fact protasis (with the apodosis in the conditional) often analogous to English past continuous ("was doing") or to the construction "used to do"« Quand jétais jeune, jhabitais à Paris. » ("When I was young, I lived in Paris.") « Il rangea la salle tandis qu'elle faisait la vaisselle. » ("He cleaned the room while she was washing the dishes.") « Si je le savais, je te le dirais. » ("If I knew [it], I would tell you.") simple futureused to describe future events mostly the same as in English, except that it is a simple (one-word) tense in French« Je le ferai demain. » ("I will do it tomorrow.") conditional (future-in-past)used in an apodosis when the protasis is contrary to fact (in the imperfect) used to describe a past event from the standpoint of an even-earlier event mostly the same as in English, except that it is a simple (one-word) tense in French« Si je le savais, je te le dirais. » ("If I knew it, I would tell you.") « Ils disaient que je réussirais. » ("They said that I would succeed.")