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 a very broad trend, nouns ending in -e tend to be feminine (e.g., une étoile 'a star', une voiture 'a car'), while the rest tend to be masculine (e.g., un ballon 'a balloon', un stylo 'a pen'), but it sometimes can be the opposite.
Many nouns ending in -e preceded by double consonants are also masculine (e.g. un cadre, un arbre, un signe, un meuble).
Nonetheless, a noun that seems masculine judging by its ending might actually be feminine e.g., la peau 'the skin', une dent 'a tooth' or vice versa e.g., le coude 'the elbow', un squelette 'a skeleton' are masculine.
Some (very rare) nouns change gender according to the way they are used: the words amour 'love' and délice 'pleasure' are masculine in singular and feminine in plural; the word orgue 'organ' is masculine, but when used emphatically in plural to refer to a church organ it becomes feminine (les grandes orgues); the plural noun gens 'people' changes gender in a very unusual way, being usually masculine but triggering feminine agreement when certain adjectives precede the word.
For example, le critique (masculine) refers to a critic, while la critique (feminine) means criticism; le livre refers to a book, while la livre means the pound (in the sense of both weight and currency).
[2] The vocabulary of French includes many homophones, i.e., pairs of words with different spellings but the same pronunciation.
However, the endings -s and -x 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 -s, -x or -z in the singular are left unchanged in the plural in both pronunciation and spelling (cf.
cheval [ʃəval] > chevaux [ʃəvo] 'horses'), as well as a few nouns ending in -ail that also follow this pattern (cf.
This fifth form, which is older, is sometimes used elsewhere in set phrases, e.g. Philippe le Bel (Philip the Fair or the Handsome of France, 1268–1314) vs. Philippe le Beau (Philip the Handsome or the Fair of Castile, 1478–1506).
Irregular feminine forms include beau > belle 'beautiful', blanc > blanche 'white', and a limited number of others.
If the basic form ends in -s, -x, or -z, an adjective is left unchanged in the masculine plural (cf.
Plural forms that are distinguishable from the singular outside of liaison environments occur only with adjectives ending in -al.
Due to the aforementioned rules, French adjectives might have four distinguished written forms which are all pronounced the same.
However, if we put this etymologic orthography aside and consider only current pronunciation, the formation of French female forms becomes quite irregular with several possible "endings": [ɡʁɑ̃] > [ɡʁɑ̃d], [lɑ̃] > [lɑ̃t], [pɛʁsɑ̃] > [pɛʁsan].
Most adjectives, when used attributively, appear after their nouns: le vin rouge ("the red wine").
Most adverbs are derived from an adjective by adding the suffix -ment, usually to its feminine form (-ment is analogous to the English suffix -ly): e.g. anciennement "anciently", "of old", "in olden times"; grandement "greatly"; lentement "slowly"; though there are some systematic deviations (e.g. patient → patiemment "patiently", malaisé → malaisément "uneasily"), some adverbs are derived irregularly (bon "good" → bien "well") and others do not derive from adjectives at all.
In French, pronouns can be inflected to indicate their role in a clause (subject, direct object, etc.
Some appear so consistently – especially in everyday speech — that some have commented that French could almost be considered to demonstrate polypersonal agreement.
[4] In other registers French tends to not use any negation at all in such clauses, e.g., J'ai peur que cela se reproduise.
The following contexts allow expletive ne In French, the equivalent of the English existential clause "there is/are" is expressed with il y a (infinitive: y avoir), literally, "it there has" or "it has to it".
For example This construction is also used to express the passage of time since an event occurred, like the English ago or it has been: In informal speech, il y is typically reduced to [j], as in: The components of a declarative clause are typically arranged in the following order (though not all components are always present):[5] The most common word order in French is subject-verb-object (SVO).
Finally, in a comparatively limited number of instances French allows for object-subject-verb (OSV) word order, such as when adding emphasis In regard to word order, French is more restrictive than other Romance languages.
In both Latin and Old French, all six potential word orders are possible: While linguistic evolution occurs on a continuum, the major shift towards increased grammaticalization occurred in French most distinctly between the mid 12th century and end of the 15th century.
In French there are four ways to form yes/no questions, each of which is typically associated with a different degree of formality.
The simplest and most informal way to ask a yes/no question is by raising intonation at the end of a declarative sentence.
Examples include: Yes/no questions may also be formed by adding est-ce que to the beginning of a declarative sentence.
The simplest and generally most informal way to form an information question in French is by replacing a word in a declarative sentence with a question word or phrase and adding rising intonation to the end of the sentence.
Finally, information questions in French may be formed by following the steps outlined above in one and two and additionally, inverting the subject and verb.