From simple to complex sentences

Like English, French has the ability to combine simple sentences together into a larger sentence. There are two principal ways of doing this. In one, two or more sentences are attached together with punctuation like a comma, a semi-colon or a colon, and the resulting unit is ended by a period, question mark, or exclamation mark. This is called a compound sentence. To see an example, consider this image:

Notice that each of the simple sentences (Pierre est parti and il était malade) can stand alone as a sentence. However, when attached together in a bigger sentence, they give us the sense that the two simple sentences are related. Here, we can assume that it is because he was sick that Pierre left, but it is up to us to decide how the two sentences are related. Consider, for example, the following sentences. Try to determine the nature of the relation between the two sentences, then mouse over each to check your understanding.

• Marie ouvre la porte, elle entre, elle ferme la porte.
• Marie est polie; Jean est impoli.
• Marie a décrit sa journée: elle a travaillé, elle a fait de l'exercice, elle a mangé son souper.

It is also possible to use a conjunction to make explicit the nature of the relation between the two simple sentences in a compound sentence, as the following example shows:

Here, parce que makes it clear and explicit that it is because of being sick that Pierre left.

Some frequent French conjunctions

French possesses a variety of conjunctions. Study the following table and try to memorize as many of these conjunctions as possible. Fortunately, all of them are invariable so you don't need to learn more than one form.They recur frequently and you will need them to analyze compound sentences.

In the examples we have seen, all of these conjunctions fit between the two sentences. Some, however, may occur before the first sentence, as the two following examples show:

Puisque can also occur between sentences, as in Elle ne peut pas aller au concert puisqu'elle est malade.

Conjunctions in other contexts

In the examples we have seen so far, conjunctions have been used to connect simple sentences. But for many conjunctions, their role can go farther and they can connect two items belonging to the same class among many. Here are a few examples for :

When you are reading a passage, begin by finding the conjunction. Then look to the left and right to determine what kind of structures are being linked (sentences, noun groups, etc.) and then try to determine the meaning of the complex structure built around the preposition.

Complex sentences

Another way of combining simple sentences in French is to have one sentence act as the principal clause and the other as the subordinate clause. The following image illustrates this:

Let us think about how this works. The principal clause says that I believe something. But what? It is that Pierre is ill. Pierre est malade takes the place of the object of the verb. The link that makes this possible is the relative pronoun que. In other words, rather than being at the same level, one sentence fits into another.

Consider another example:

Here, the sentence qui était sur la table tells us something about the book (that it was on the table). The principal clause here could stand by itself (J'ai acheté le livre). On the other hand, était sur la table isn't a full sentence: it's missing a subject. Where is the subject? In fact, it's there in both le livre (think about le livre était sur la table), and in the qui, equivalent to which or that in English.

French has a number of relative pronouns, as the following table shows. As in the case of conjunctions, take some time to memorize them since they will be crucial in what we will see later. All of them serve to attach a subordinate clause to some element of a principal clause.

Let us look at these examples in a bit more detail, beginning with the first one: La fille qui a gagné le prix venait du Canada. The qui here acts as a bridge between two things: the noun group la fille and the subordinate clause X a gagné le prix, where X is the understood subject who won the prize. We can represent this graphically like this:

In other words, the subordinate clause qui a gagné le prix modifies la fille, much like an adjective would (think of la fille intelligente).

Now let us turn to the second example above: Voici le chien que j'ai acheté. The relative pronoun que here is the sign that le chien is the direct object of the subordinate clause, as the following image shows:

The X in the image shows the place of le chien in the structure of the subordinate clause.

The distinction between qui and que here is like the now-disappearing distinction in English between who and whom. English increasingly uses that in both cases: The girl that won the prize was from Canada/Here is the dog that I bought. In French, however, as we have seen, the difference between qui and que has a huge effect on the meaning, so when you come upon forms like these, ask the following questions:

1. qui or que?
2. what does qui or que modify?
3. how does this affect the meaning?

More relative pronouns

We saw earlier that along with direct objects like chien in je vois le chien, there are also indirect objects, attached to the verb by a preposition, as in je donne le livre à Marie, where à Marie is the indirect object. It is possible to have complex sentences based on indirect objects as well.

Imagine the situation where I have some apples and I put them in a bag. The focus of my attention is primarily the apples when I say: J'ai mis les pommes dans le sac. But what if I want to talk about the bag rather than the apples? There is a complex structure for that, as the following image illustrates:

We can do the same thing in English when we say Here is the bag I put the apples in, except that there is no form to show the relation, just the order of the words.

French can produce a complex sentence with almost any combination of preposition and object, as the following examples show. To get a sense of this diversity, read the following examples and try to determine their meaning. Then mouse over the sentences to check your understanding.

• Voilà le parc vers lequel j'ai marché.
• J'ai trouvé le pont sous lequel nous avons marché.
• C'est la poche dans laquelle j'ai laissé mes clés.
• Nous devrions comprendre les problèmes sur lesquels nous travaillons.
• La fille à qui j'ai donnée le livre était au café.
• Les étudiants dont j'ai parlé viennent de partir.

Notice a couple of important things here. First, the relative pronoun agrees in number and gender with the noun phrase it modifies. So we write dans laquelle after la poche, but sous lequel after le pont. The following table summarizes the forms most frequently found. Try to memorize these forms, because they will recur often in any reasonably complex text.

There are also some contracted forms used when lequel or one of its variants is combined with the preposition à or de, as the following table shows:

Finally, there is the form dont, which can replace duquel, desquels, de laquelle, desquelles, as the following examples show:

• les problèmes dont il est question
• les difficultés dont je parlais
• ce dont il est question
• les solutions dont nous avons besoin

As we noted earlier, when you see one of these relative pronouns in a text, use gender and number agreement to find which noun group on the left it is attached to, and then look to the right to see what information is being provided about the noun group.

The subjunctive mood

Usually when we use language to talk about the world, we assume that the things we talk about are real, either physically, or mentally, or in some fictitious world. Even when we use negation, we are saying that something is really not the case. And when we use the future or conditional tense, we are conjecturing that some real state of affairs may exist. All of these forms represent what is known as the indicative mood.

However, in opposition to this indicative perspective, many languages, including French, provide a means of signalling that some state of affairs isn't real. In French, this is called the subjunctive mood. It is marked by a particular set of verb endings. To better grasp the difference between the two, consider the following sentences:

Notice the difference of form in the last three, subjunctive, examples. Instead of avez, we find ayez. When looking for the subjunctive, the form of the verb provides one of the clues. The other clue is provided by the structure of the sentence, as we will see below.

Conjugating verbs in the subjunctive

Some parts of language learning require memory. Some forms of the subjunctive fall into this category, as the following table shows. These are the most frequent irregular verbs in French, in their subjunctive forms. Concentrate on the variations in form, and try to commit their forms to memory. When looking at the glosses, you will note that English has retained a few special forms for the subjunctive (as in should you be), but that even these are disappearing. On the other hand, the subjunctive is alive and well in French.

Among the more regular verb classes, the subjunctive is formed in a variety of ways. The following table shows some of these, but you should note that some verbs ending in these forms use still other endings for the subjunctive. Treat what follows as a guide.

Notice several tendencies. First, the subjunctive will often follow que. Second, the subjunctive often resembles the indicative, but sometimes the imperfect, and sometimes it has its own form. So to find it, first look at the context of the verb, then the meaning of the expression, then at the ending to confirm. And as usual, the more forms you have committed to memory, the easier your task will be.

Sentence structures and the subjunctive

We noted above that the subjunctive is often associated with particular sentence structures. We will examine some of these here.

There are a number of conjunctions that are followed by the subjunctive, as the following table shows. You should try to memorize these as they come up in written texts fairly frequently.

When not to use the subjunctive

The subjunctive is used to talk about events seen as unreal. However, there is one circumstance when it isn't used, even if the event is unreal. That is the case when the same person is represented in the principal clause and in the subordinate clause. To see this, compare the following examples:

• Je veux qu'elle parte.
• Je veux partir.
• Il faut qu'elle parte.
• Il faut partir.

So, in the first sentence, the person who wishes for the departure is not the person who will be departing, and the subjunctive is used. However, in the second sentence, the person wishing is the same person who will be leaving and so the infinitive is used. A similar relation can be found in the third and fourth sentences.

Summing up

You should now feel comfortable with the following concepts:

1. distinguishing simple and complex sentences in French
2. recognizing the basic conjunctions in French and understanding how they connect sentences
3. recognizing the relative pronouns in French and understanding how they connect sentences
4. understanding the distinction between the indicative and subjunctive mood
5. being capable of analysing sentences which use the subjunctive mood

In the next module, we will move beyond the boundaries of the sentence and look at some of the devices French provides to create paragraphs and more complex texts.