Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The passé composé is formed by the auxiliary verb, usually the avoir auxiliary, followed by the past participle.The construction is parallel to that of the present perfect (there is no difference in French between perfect and non-perfect forms - although there is an important difference in usage between the perfect tense and the imperfect tense).
Aside from être and avoir (considered categories unto themselves), French verbs are traditionally [1] grouped into three conjugation classes (groupes): . The first conjugation class consists of all verbs with infinitives ending in -er, except for the irregular verb aller and (by some accounts) the irregular verbs envoyer and renvoyer; [2] the verbs in this conjugation, which together ...
Imperfect (imparfait), simple; Pluperfect (plus-que-parfait): literally "more than perfect", formed with an auxiliary verb in the imperfect; Simple past (passé simple) Conventionally used only in written language (especially in literature) or in extremely formal speech. Past perfect (passé antérieur): formed with an auxiliary verb in the ...
Auxiliary verbs are combined with past participles of main verbs to produce compound tenses, including the compound past (passé composé). For most main verbs the auxiliary is (the appropriate form of) avoir ("to have"), but for reflexive verbs and certain intransitive verbs the auxiliary is a form of être ("to be").
The subjunctive mood only includes four of the tense-aspect forms found in the indicative: present (présent), simple past (passé composé), past imperfective (imparfait), and pluperfect (plus-que-parfait). Within the subjunctive mood, the passé composé and plus-que-parfait use auxiliary verbs in their forms.
A Bescherelle is a French language grammar reference book best known for its verb conjugations volumes. It is named in honour of the 19th-century French lexicographer and grammarian Louis-Nicolas Bescherelle (and perhaps his brother Henri Bescherelle).
An exception is in relating events that took place in the past: the imperfect (or imparfait) has a continuous aspect in relation to the simple (historic) past (or passé simple); e.g. nous mangions quand il frappa à la porte ("we were eating when he knocked at the door").
The passé simple (French pronunciation: [pase sɛ̃pl], simple past, preterite, or past historic), also called the passé défini (IPA: [pase defini], definite past), is the literary equivalent of the passé composé in the French language, used predominantly in formal writing (including history and literature) and formal speech.