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French has a complex system of personal pronouns (analogous to English I, we, they, and so on). When compared to English, the particularities of French personal pronouns include: a T-V distinction in the second person singular (familiar tu vs. polite vous) the placement of object pronouns before the verb: « Agnès les voit.
As noted above, French (like English) is a non-pro-drop ("pronoun-dropping") language; therefore, pronouns feature prominently in the language. Impersonal verbs (e.g., pleuvoir 'to rain') use the impersonal pronoun il (analogous to English 'it'). French object pronouns are all clitics.
The interrogative words who, whom, whose, what and which are interrogative pronouns when used in the place of a noun or noun phrase. In the question Who is the leader?, the interrogative word who is a interrogative pronoun because it stands in the place of the noun or noun phrase the question prompts (e.g. the king or the woman with the crown).
French personal pronouns (analogous to English I, you, he/she, we, and they) reflect the person and number of their referent, and in the case of the third person, its gender as well (much like the English distinction between him and her, except that French lacks an inanimate third person pronoun it or a gender neutral they and thus draws this distinction among all third person nouns, singular ...
The corresponding pronouns ille, illa, illo and their plurals are identical with the third-person personal pronouns, though they are normally accentuated in speech. Io cognosce ille viro; ille se appella Smith. 'I know that man; his name is Smith.' Illo es un obra magnific. 'That is a magnificent work.'
Sub-types include personal and possessive pronouns, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative and interrogative pronouns, and indefinite pronouns. [1]: 1–34 [2] The use of pronouns often involves anaphora, where the meaning of the pronoun is dependent on an antecedent.
In French, as in English, quantifiers constitute an open word class, unlike most other kinds of determiners. In French, most quantifiers are formed using a noun or adverb of quantity and the preposition de (d ' when before a vowel). Quantifiers formed with a noun of quantity and the preposition de include the following:
Relative clauses (1) using que as an all-purpose relative pronoun, or (2) embedding interrogative pronouns instead of relative pronouns (also found in informal European French): J'ai trouvé le document que j'ai de besoin. (J'ai trouvé le document dont j'ai besoin.) "I found / I've found the document I need." Je comprends qu'est-ce que tu veux ...