From parts of speech to sentences

So far, we have seen how to identify and analyse various parts of speech, including determiners, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, pronouns and prepositions. We have also seen how some of these units may form phrases, including the noun phrase (as in le comité), the verb phrase (développe une stratégie), or a prepositional phrase (as in pour le président). We turn now to the next level of complexity: the sentence.

It is useful to think of a sentence as a set of conjoined dependencies among phrases, as in:

The core of the sentence is formed by the subject noun phrase, which may be as simple as a pronoun or a proper name, or more complex, built around a determiner, adjectives and nouns, and by the verb phrase, which may be as simple as a verb, but also more complex, including a direct object, indirect object, and so on. Around this core may be found sentence modifiers which may indicate time, place or attitude, among other things.

Let us look at an example: the sentence Depuis hier, Pierre dort ici.

Notice that the sentence modifiers are optional. Thus, Pierre dort is still a sentence, as are Ici Pierre dort and Pierre dort depuis hier. However, both the noun phrase and verb phrase are required. Thus, Depuis hier dort ici is not a sentence, nor is Depuis hier Pierre ici.

The following table shows some of the possibilities offered by this structure for a sentence. Try to determine the meaning of each sentence and then mouse over the various parts to check your understanding.

It is also important to note that sentence modifiers like those in the table above may be moved either to the beginning or to the end of a sentence.

Noun phrases, verb phrases and agreement

When analysing a sentence, it is useful to start by finding the various noun phrases and the verb phrase. The question then arises: how can we be sure which noun phrase is attached to which verb phrase? Meaning provides one clue: the sentence needs to make sense. Another formal clue is provided by agreement in number and person.

In the case of the first and second persons, singular and plural (je, tu, nous, vous), the ending of the verb should agree, as in je chante or vous dansez. In the case of full noun phrases composed of a determiner, a noun and possibly some modifiers, as in toutes les discussions antérieures ('all the previous discussions'), a verb phrase linked with the noun phrase must be plural, since the noun phrase is plural. So, for example, toutes les discussions antérieures SONT enregistrées ('all the previous discussions ARE recorded') has agreement in the plural, while toute la discussion EST enregistrée ('the entire discussion IS recorded') has agreement in the singular.

Declarative, interrogative, exclamative and imperative sentences

As in English, French provides tools for telling about something, asking questions and giving orders. Among these tools are the various sentence types:

• declarative sentences are the most basic sentence type, used to present information. Almost all the sentences we have seen to now are declarative.
• interrogative sentences are used to obtain some information. They may take the form of yes-no questions or they may use interrogative forms to seek information about who, how, why, when, and so on.
• exclamative sentences mark some degree of emotion. They are rare in learned texts and more frequent in conversation. In oral language, an exclamation can be marked by intonation, while in writing grammatical devices are used.
• imperative sentences are used to produce some behaviour in the person being spoken to. As a result, they are based on persons involving the interlocutor, like tu, vous, nous.

In what follows, we will look at each type in more detail. Pay special attention to the particular marks of each sentence type and to the differences which distinguish them.

Declarative sentences

Consider the following examples:

• Elle dort dans le salon.
• Le danger devient extrême en automne.
• Les membres du comité veulent clore le débat.
• Le verre est un liquide extrêmement épais.

All of these declarative sentences share the following traits:

• they end with a period
• they are composed of a noun phrase followed by a verb phrase

When reading, use these two traits to identify declarative sentences.

Interrogative sentences

Consider the following examples:

• Elle dort?
• Dort-elle?
• Est-ce qu'elle dort?

All three sentences ask whether she is sleeping, but they use different devices to do this. In the first case, the addition of a question mark creates a question. In the second, which can only be used with the combination of subject pronouns and verbs, the pronoun is placed immediately after the verb, and in the third, the form est-ce que is added to the start of the sentence to create a question. And of course, in the second and third cases, a question mark is added.

In all these cases, the appropriate answer to the question will be either oui or non. However, as we noted above, it is also possible to ask for partial information, as the following examples illustrate. Mouse over the sentences to see the various meanings.

Note two things here. First, qui replaces the subject, that is, the person or thing that performs the action of the verb. Second, to ask about aspects of an event (why, how, when, where), two forms are possible. In the first, the verb and pronoun are inverted (as in Où dort-elle?, and in the second, est-ce que is added.

Exclamative sentences

It is sometimes useful in language to show that one is excited. One of the ways of doing this is to use exclamative sentences, as the following table shows.

As you can see, there are two ways of showing exclamation. In one, an exclamation point is added to the sentence. In the other, the form que is added to the start of the sentence.

Imperative sentences

If one wants to issue a command, it must be to someone, and this must happen in the present. So imperative sentences use second person (you) or the first person in the sense of 'me and you'. Look at the following imperative sentences and try to figure out how they work. The corresponding declarative sentences are provided as a point of comparison.

As you can see, the imperative is created by removing the subject pronoun.

Negation

Very early in life, children learn to say no. As we grow up, we retain this ability, but we diversify our means of communication. Like many other languages, French has several devices for negation:

• it can be hidden inside pairs of words like oui/non, vrai/faux and so on;
• it can be shown by means of a prefix, as in imparfait, the opposite of parfait, or non-aligné, the opposite of aligné;
• it can be shown within the structure of a sentence. It is this sentence negation that we will look at now.

The basic form of negation in French uses the adverbs ne and pas placed around a conjugated verb, as the following positive and negative sentences show.

Notice that before a verb beginning with a vowel, ne is written n' and is attached to the verb.

Negation may be used with declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative sentences. To check your understanding of this, look at the following list of sentences and try to guess their meaning. Then mouse over the sentences to check your understanding.

• Ne voulez-vous pas de café?
• Ne partez-vous pas?
• Est-ce qu'ils ne connaissent pas la route?
• Ne buvez pas l'eau.
• Ne dors pas.
• Je ne suis pas fatiguée!

Notice in particular that in the case of inverted forms, where the verb precedes its subject pronoun, as in voulez-vous above, the pas follows the pronoun.

Some negative words to learn

You will remember that we distinguished between questions which have oui or non as an answer, and questions which seek out details on who, how, why, when, where, etc. French provides a way of showing the negative version of this more detailed information, as the following table shows:

Active and passive sentences

French, like English, provides a means of choosing between a focus on the the person or thing which has performed an action, or on the action itself, while taking the focus off the agent. In the first case, we speak of an active sentence, and in the second, of a passive sentence. To see how this works, consider the following sentences:

As you can see, the passive allows us to remove attention from the agent. So how does it work in French. Consider the following active sentence. As you can see, the subject is followed by the verb, which is followed by the direct object:

So how do we turn this into a passive sentence? This involves three operations:

1. the noun phrase subject is either removed or placed at the end of the sentence after par
2. the direct object is placed before the verb
3. the appropriate form of the verb être is placed before the verb, and the end of the verb has -é added to it. The form of être is chosen to agree in number with the object before the verb. So we would write LES mitaines SONT achetées or LA mitaine EST achetée. In addition, the -é after the verb has -s added to it if the object is plural (achetéS), and -e if the object is feminine (achetéE). If the object is both feminine and plural, both -e and s are added (achetéES).

Graphically, we can represent these operations like this:

The passive is particularly useful in contexts like science or administration. To see this, look at the following sentences and try to guess their equivalent in English. Then mouse over them to check your understanding.

• Les produits chimiques sont ajoutés à la solution.
• Une décision est prise à 17h par le comité.
• Toutes les planètes sont influencées par le soleil.
• Des troupes sont engagées par le Parlement.

When reading texts, it is important to consider whether the active or passive is being used. One of the clues will be the meaning, but there are also formal clues to look for. Among other things, check for the sequence of the verb être plus a verb plus an ending like é. (We will see later that other forms of the verb être may be found, and that it is not alway -é that we find after the verb.

Finally, the examples we have seen so far are in the third person. In fact, though, others persons are also possible, as the following examples illustrate:

• Vous êtes ajoutés à la liste.
• Nous sommes attaqués par tout le monde.
• Je suis choqué par cette nouvelle.

Summing up

You should now feel comfortable with the following concepts:

1. dividing simple sentences into noun phrase, verb phrase and sentence modifiers
2. distinguishing declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative sentences
3. recognizing and understanding the various interrogative forms
4. understanding how negation works and the forms used to show negation
5. recognizing active and passive sentences and being able to find the subject and object in each case

In the next module, we will continue looking at sentences, but we will consider different verb tenses which enable us to talk about the past and the future.