French grammar is the set of rules by which the French language creates statements, questions and commands. In many respects, it is quite 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, though in most nouns the plural is pronounced the same as the singular even if spelled differently); adjectives, for number and gender (masculine or feminine) of their nouns; personal pronouns and a few other pronouns, for person, number, gender, and case; and verbs, for tense, aspect, mood, and the person and number of their subjects. Case is primarily marked using word order and prepositions, while certain verb features are marked using auxiliary verbs.
Verbs
Verbs in French are conjugated to reflect the following information: a mood (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, or conditional) a tense (past, present, or future, though not all tenses can be combined with all moods) an aspect (perfective or imperfective) a voice (active, passive, or reflexive) Nonfinite forms (e.g., participles, gerunds, infinitives)
Some of these features are combined into seven tense–aspect–mood combinations. The simple (one-word) forms are commonly referred to as the present, the simple past or preterite (past tense, perfective aspect), the imperfect (past tense, imperfective aspect), the future, the conditional, the present subjunctive, and the imperfect subjunctive. However, the simple past is rarely used in informal French, and the imperfect subjunctive is rarely used in modern French.
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). As in English, the subject must be included (except in the imperative mood); in other words, unlike other Romance languages, French is neither a null-subject nor a pro-drop language.
Auxiliary verbs are combined with past participles of main verbs to produce compound tenses, including the compound past (). For most main verbs the auxiliary is (the appropriate form of) ("to have"), but for reflexive verbs and certain intransitive verbs the auxiliary is a form of ("to be"). The participle agrees with the subject when the auxiliary is , and with a preceding direct object (if any) when the auxiliary is . Forms of are also used with the past participles of transitive verbs to form the passive voice.
The imperative mood, which only has first-person plural and second-person singular and plural forms, usually has forms similar or identical to the corresponding ones in the present indicative.
Nouns Gender
Every French noun has a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine. The grammatical gender of a noun referring to a human usually corresponds to the noun's natural gender (i.e., its referent's sex or 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 , while a female singer is either (a pop singer) or (an opera singer). A plural noun that refers to both males and females is masculine. In some cases, the two nouns are identical in form, with the difference only being marked in neighbouring words (due to gender agreement; see below); a Catholic man is , while a Catholic woman is . Nonetheless, there are some such nouns that retain their grammatical gender regardless of natural gender; 'person' is always feminine, while (at least in "standard" French) 'teacher' is always masculine. In Canadian French, is the standard feminine form, which is becoming more and more common in European French.
A noun's gender is not perfectly predictable from its form, but there are some trends. As a very broad trend, nouns ending in tend to be feminine (e.g., 'a star', 'a car'), while the rest tend to be masculine (e.g., 'a balloon', 'a pen'), but it sometimes can be the opposite. More consistently, some endings, such as , , , and occur almost exclusively with feminine nouns, while others, such as , , and occur almost exclusively with masculine ones. Many nouns ending in preceded by double consonants are also masculine (e.g. ). Nonetheless, a noun that seems masculine judging by its ending might actually be feminine e.g., 'the skin', 'a tooth' or vice versa e.g., 'the elbow', 'a skeleton' are masculine. Noun clauses are masculine.
A very small number of nouns can be used either in masculine or feminine gender with the same meaning (e.g., 'afternoon'). Often one gender is preferred over the other. Some (very rare) nouns change gender according to the way they are used: the words 'love' and 'pleasure' are masculine in singular and feminine in plural; the word 'organ' is masculine, but when used emphatically in plural to refer to a church organ it becomes feminine (); the plural noun 'people' changes gender in a very unusual way, being usually masculine but triggering feminine agreement when certain adjectives precede the word.
Other nouns change meaning depending on which grammatical gender they are used in. For example, (masculine) refers to a critic, while (feminine) means criticism; refers to a book, while means the pound (in the sense of both weight and currency). Similarly, means "veil", whereas means "sail".
The vocabulary of French includes many homophones, i.e., pairs of words with different spellings but the same pronunciation. Grammatical gender, however, may serve to distinguish some of these. For example, 'the pot' and 'the skin' are both pronounced but disagree in gender.
Number As in English, nouns inflect for number.
Orthographically, the plural is usually formed from the singular by adding the letter (cf. 'houses'). Nouns ending in and often take the ending instead (cf. 'games'). However, the endings and are in most cases not pronounced, meaning that in speech the plural form of a noun generally has the same pronunciation as the singular. Nouns that end in or in the singular are left unchanged in the plural in both pronunciation and spelling (cf. 'crosses', both pronounced ).
Liaison between a plural noun and a following adjective is one case where the plural ending or may be pronounced: ("open windows"). However, this form of liaison usually only appears in careful formal speech (for example by newsreaders). In most everyday speech singular and plural forms of most nouns are therefore homophonous in all contexts.
In spoken French, the plurality of most nouns is marked not on the form of the noun itself but by a preceding article or determiner (cf. [la mɛzɔ̃] 'the house' > [le mɛzɔ̃] 'the houses'; [mɔ̃ fʁɛːʁ] 'my brother' > [me fʁɛːʁ] 'my brothers').
French nouns whose spoken plural forms are distinguished from the singular include most of those ending in , whose plural form is (cf. > 'horses'), as well as a few nouns ending in that also follow this pattern (cf. > 'works'). Three nouns form completely irregular plurals: > 'ancestors' (but 'grandfathers'); > 'heavens' (but 'bed canopies'); and > 'eyes' (but 'oculi' (round windows), 'calluses' (on the feet)). Three other nouns have regular plurals in spelling but have irregular pronunciations: > 'oxen, cattle'; > 'eggs'; and > 'bones'.
As with English, most uncountable nouns are grammatically treated as singular, though some are plural, such as 'mathematics'; some nouns that are uncountable in English are countable in French, such as 'a piece of information'.
Case Nouns in French are not inflected for any other grammatical categories. (However, personal pronouns are inflected for case and person; see below.)
Articles and determiners
Articles and determiners agree in gender and number with the noun they determine; unlike with nouns, this inflection is made in speech as well as in writing.
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 (similar to some, though English normally does not use an article before indefinite plural nouns). The partitive article is similar to the indefinite article but used for uncountable singular nouns.
Adjectives An adjective must agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies. French adjectives therefore have four forms: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural. A few adjectives have a fifth form, viz. an additional masculine singular form for use in liaison before a noun beginning with a vowel or a "mute h", e.g. (a beautiful garden, a handsome man, a beautiful woman, beautiful children, beautiful houses). This fifth form, which is older, is sometimes used elsewhere in set phrases, e.g. (Philip the Fair or the Handsome of France, 1268–1314) vs. (Philip the Handsome or the Fair of Castile, 1478–1506).
The masculine singular, an adjective's basic form, is listed in dictionaries. The feminine singular is normally formed by adding to the basic form. This is silent, which makes many masculine and feminine forms homophonous (cf. 'civil', both pronounced ). However, the ending causes "mute" final sounds to be pronounced, whereby masculine-feminine pairs become distinguishable in pronunciation if the masculine form ends in a mute consonant, which is the case with a great deal of adjectives (cf. > 'heavy'). Under certain circumstances, other minor changes occur in the formation of feminine forms, such as the placement of an accent, the doubling of a consonant, or its replacement with another, changes that often reflect the pronunciation of such endings (cf. > 'good'; > 'happy'). Irregular feminine forms include 'beautiful', 'white', and a limited number of others. If an adjective's basic form ends in , it is left unchanged in the feminine (cf. 'rich').
The plural is normally formed by adding to the singular (masculine and feminine). This is usually mute, but pronounced in liaison with a following noun that begins with a vowel. Unlike liaison after plural nouns, liaison after plural adjectives is common and even obligatory in standard usage. If the basic form ends in , or , an adjective is left unchanged in the masculine plural (cf. 'soft, gentle'). A few adjectives take the (also mute) ending in the masculine plural (cf. 'new'). Plural forms that are distinguishable from the singular outside of liaison environments occur only with adjectives ending in . These normally have in the masculine plural (cf. > 'central'). By contrast, the feminine plural is formed according to the general rule: .
Due to the aforementioned rules, French adjectives might have four distinguished written forms which are all pronounced the same. This is the case if an adjective's masculine and feminine forms are homophonous and if there is no liaison between the adjective and a following noun.
Written formPronunciationTranslationmasc. sg.a Turkish princefem. sg.a Turkish princessmasc. pl.Turkish princesfem. pl.Turkish princesses
On the other hand, if the masculine and feminine forms have different pronunciations and liaison does occur, all four forms can be distinguishable in pronunciation. Adjective declension is therefore important in spoken French, though to a lesser extent than in writing. (All forms distinguished in pronunciation are also distinguished in writing, but not vice versa.)
Written formPronunciationTranslationmasc. sg.a great emperorfem. sg.a great empressmasc. pl.great emperorsfem. pl.great empresses