Comparing French and English for GCSE.A view from linguisticsBy Dick Hudson on behalf of the linguistics community. Version of July 2021

Contents1 Preliminaries..................................................................................................................................4

1.1 Why compare foreign languages with English?.....................................................................4

1.2 French and English.................................................................................................................5

1.3 Scope, notation and sources..................................................................................................7

2 Phonics: spelling and pronunciation..............................................................................................7

2.1 Preliminaries..........................................................................................................................7

2.2 Word stress and vowel quantity............................................................................................8

2.3 Vowels...................................................................................................................................9

2.4 Consonants..........................................................................................................................12

2.5 Grapheme-phoneme correspondences...............................................................................13

2.5.1 Vowels.........................................................................................................................13

2.5.2 Consonants and liaison................................................................................................14

2.5.3 'Magic' vowels and consonants....................................................................................17

3 Note on word-final vowels before a vowel..................................................................................18

4 Verbs............................................................................................................................................18

4.1 Inflectional morphology.......................................................................................................18

4.1.1 Conjugation classes......................................................................................................18

4.1.2 Infinitive.......................................................................................................................19

4.1.3 Simple tenses...............................................................................................................20

4.1.4 Periphrastic expressions..............................................................................................23

4.1.5 Subjunctive..................................................................................................................26

4.1.6 Past participle..............................................................................................................27

4.1.7 Present participle and gerund......................................................................................27

4.1.8 Imperative....................................................................................................................28

4.1.9 Irregular verbs and principal parts...............................................................................29

4.2 Modal verbs.........................................................................................................................30

4.3 Word order and grammatical relations................................................................................30

4.3.1 Stemmas......................................................................................................................30

4.3.2 French object pronouns...............................................................................................32

4.3.3 French subject pronouns.............................................................................................32

4.3.4 English bare indirect objects........................................................................................33

4.3.5 Modifying adverbs.......................................................................................................34

4.4 Subjects...............................................................................................................................35

4.4.1 Agreement: person, number........................................................................................35

4.4.2 Impersonal verbs.........................................................................................................35

4.4.3 Postposed subjects......................................................................................................36

4.5 Objects.................................................................................................................................36

4.5.1 Object pronouns..........................................................................................................36

4.5.2 Reflexive verbs.............................................................................................................37

4.5.3 Passives........................................................................................................................37

4.6 Phrasal verbs and stranded prepositions.............................................................................38

4.7 Infinitive complements........................................................................................................38

4.8 Negative...............................................................................................................................39

4.9 Derivational morphology.....................................................................................................40

5 Nouns..........................................................................................................................................40

5.1 Inflectional morphology.......................................................................................................40

5.2 Derivational morphology.....................................................................................................41

5.3 Word order..........................................................................................................................41

6 Determiners.................................................................................................................................41

6.1 Articles.................................................................................................................................41

6.2 Demonstrative.....................................................................................................................43

6.3 Possessive............................................................................................................................43

6.4 Interrogative........................................................................................................................43

6.5 Indefinite.............................................................................................................................44

7 Pronouns.....................................................................................................................................44

7.1 Personal...............................................................................................................................44

7.1.1 What is a personal pronoun?.......................................................................................45

7.1.2 Tu/vous........................................................................................................................46

7.1.3 Subject, object and independent pronouns.................................................................47

7.2 Demonstrative.....................................................................................................................48

7.3 Interrogative........................................................................................................................48

7.4 Relative................................................................................................................................49

7.5 Indefinite.............................................................................................................................49

8 Numerals.....................................................................................................................................50

9 Adjectives....................................................................................................................................51

9.1 Inflectional morphology.......................................................................................................51

9.2 Derivational morphology.....................................................................................................51

9.3 Position................................................................................................................................51

9.4 Comparative and superlative...............................................................................................52

10 Adverbs....................................................................................................................................52

10.1 Types of adverb...................................................................................................................52

10.2 Derivational morphology.....................................................................................................53

10.3 Position................................................................................................................................53

10.4 Comparative and superlative...............................................................................................54

11 Prepositions.............................................................................................................................54

11.1 Fused preposition + article...................................................................................................55

11.2 Stranded prepositions..........................................................................................................55

12 Conjunctions............................................................................................................................56

12.1 Coordinating........................................................................................................................56

12.2 Subordinating......................................................................................................................56

13 Historical hints.........................................................................................................................57

13.1 Cognates inherited from Proto-Indo-European...................................................................58

13.2 Words borrowed from French.............................................................................................59

1 Preliminaries1.1 Why compare foreign languages with English?A recent report on the teaching of modern foreign languages (MFL) concludes that "an effective languages curriculum focuses on the building blocks of language: phonics, vocabulary and grammar." (Ofsted) Although the report hardly mentions English, this conclusion is strikingly similar to the requirements of the 2013-14 National Curriculum for English, which includes two detailed appendices: one on phonics (but called 'spelling'), and the other on vocabulary and grammar. It seems perverse to pursue these three goals in teaching MFL without building in any way on the knowledge and skills learned a few years earlier in English.

Moreover, in both subjects the 'building blocks' are just the start of a much more ambitious project, in which the strictly linguistic elements are embedded in an even larger network of ideas relating to social context, psychological processes of inference, social conventions, literary conventions and so on. But in both subjects it is recognised that these wider links cannot be properly established until the building blocks are solid.

A slightly earlier report made similar recommendations: "There is significant evidence that points to the effectiveness of a combination of approaches which is summarised as follows: An explicit but succinct description of the grammatical feature to be taught, its use/meaning /function, and where appropriate a comparison with English usage (eg when the new language differs in complex ways to English) is conducive to correctly and efficiently understanding the function and meaning of grammar." (Bauckham 2016) [underlining added] Even more ambitiously, it suggests similar comparison with community languages where pupils speak languages other than English at home: "Language teachers should be aware of where this is the case and should, where practical and appropriate, draw on pupils’ knowledge of their home language to make comparisons both with English and with the new language being taught." (ibidem)

The evidence mentioned above includes a large number of studies which showed that children's awareness of their first language played a positive role in learning a foreign language (CLiE 2021). A typical example of this research involves a class of English-speaking children who are being taught French; in learning about a particular topic such as how to form an imperfect verb, they were taught not only about how this works in French but also how English forms past-tense verbs. They were then given a test of what they had learned, and six weeks later they were tested again. The bottom line was that the experimental class outperformed a control class who learned the same French material, but without the English comparison.

One argument for language comparison, therefore, is that it helps pupils to grasp the building blocks of the target language. But even more importantly, perhaps, it is possible to argue that MFL-English comparisons are interesting. Many of the linkages revealed are surprising; for example, an English speaker ought to be astonished that another language might classify objects in the world as masculine and feminine, usually arbitrarily; or that the word toit is historically related to thatch. But all the linkages deepen our understanding of how language works – how it is organised, how it changes, how it is used. And in so doing, "the study of languages opens pupils’ minds and opens doors of opportunity." (Ofsted)

But however persuasive these arguments for language comparison may be, there is an almost overwhelming counter-argument: language comparison makes unrealistic demands on teachers. Most MFL teachers have never been taught about English, whether at school or at university, so they

have very little idea where to begin. This document offers a pool of accessible suggestions tied to very specific details of the target language.

For instance, suppose you (a French teacher) are about to teach about relative pronouns. The document includes a short section (section 7.4) on relative pronouns in French and English which you might find illuminating, and which you might even decide to share with the class. The document doesn't make suggestions about pedagogy; how you use the material is up to you. Nor does it suggest a scheme of work or an ordering of topics; you can dip into the pool at any time, as topics arise in your ordinary teaching. The usual caveats apply about revisiting issues and building on what the learners already know, but most of the comparisons are free-standing in the important sense that, on English, your learners are already experts, so they know the data even if they have never thought about it.

One practical suggestion for using this document: if you are reading it in MS Word, you can reveal the table of contents in a separate panel by hitting 'Find' (Ctrl^F) and then selecting 'Headings'.

1.2 French and EnglishThe following sections will reveal a lot of important similarities between French and English, but why are the languages so similar? Part of the answer is that they are both descended from a language (which we call Proto-Indo-European, or PIE) that was spoken about five or six thousand years ago (and which is the ancestor of many languages in India as well as in Europe). We have no direct evidence of PIE but by triangulating from more recent languages we can guess how it sounded and worked. For example, we can guess that the word for 2 was pronounced /dwoi/ because of modern French deux, German zwei and English two (and related words such as twain and twin which still have the w sound).

Many other European languages (but not all of them) are also descended from PIE, but they didn't all split off at the same time: different groups split off at different times, with the result that some modern Indo-European languages are more closely related to each other than to others. Among the main languages of GCSE, the nearest to English is German; German and English are descended from Proto-Germanic, spoken about two and a half thousand years ago. As for French and Spanish, they are both descended from Latin. All these relationships can conveniently be displayed in the family tree below, together with rough dates and, for the sake of concreteness, the the relevant pronunciations of the word for 2. In terms of this tree, English is a sister of German, but a cousin of French – somewhat distant, but still family.

Proto-Indo-European 4,500-2,500 BC /dwoi/

Proto-Germanic500 BC /twai/

English /tu:/German /tsvai/

Latin100 BC /duo/

French/dø/ Spanish /dɒs/

What this diagram shows is that there are two distinct historical links between French and English. On the one hand, they are both descended from Proto-Indo-European, so some words can be traced back through five thousand years (or more) to the same source, learned by children from their parents with very little change – but enough change cumulatively to make them sound very different, as in the case of deux and two.

But on the other hand, and much more recently, French came across the English Channel in 1066 and has been a major influence on English ever since. William the Conqueror spoke it, although his great-great-great grandfather was actually a Viking invader speaking Norse (like the Viking invaders of England). For several centuries the English Court was entirely French speaking, with kings who barely spoke English, while education and the learned professions (law, medicine and the church) operated in Latin; so French and Latin had the prestige that English lacked. Not surprisingly, English borrowed a lot of words from both languages during the Middle Ages, but even when English established itself as the national language, the flow of loan words continued up to the present (boosted after the Renaissance by a similar flow from Greek). Very recently, the tide turned and French started to borrow English words on an industrial scale. (For more on these historical links, see section 13.)

In short, English inherited words such as two which were also inherited by French, and also borrowed words (as 'loan words') directly from French such as mutton and beauty. But although these two linkages both exist, the numerical balance is very different because there are far more French loan words in English than jointly inherited words. A significant minority (ranging from 30% to 45%, depending on who you consult) of English vocabulary is borrowed from French including ordinary words like market, joy and dance.

But French influence is not limited to simple vocabulary items. Some French loan words included French derivational morphology, with affixes such as the +ous of joy+ous, so English also acquired a set of ultimately French affixes. And it may not be a coincidence that when English emerged from the shadow of French in the late Middle Ages (e.g. in Chaucer) its grammar was much more like French grammar. For example:

Both languages had lost the rich case endings on nouns and adjectives that were still used in both Old English and Latin (section 7.1.3).

Both languages used +s as a default plural marker on nouns. Both used an adverb (plus, more) in the comparative form of an adjective or adverb

alongside a smaller number of morphologically complex forms (meilleur, better). Both used interrogative pronouns as relative pronouns (qui, who).

These complex historical links between French and English guarantee both similarities and differences for learners to marvel at. But comparison isn't just interesting: it can also be useful. For example, there are often regular relationships between sounds which help in guessing unknown words. Take the pair deux and two, for instance. The same relation between French <d> and English <t> crops up in other pairs of related words such as pied and foot. More on this in section 13.

1.3 Scope, notation and sourcesIn this document, the French content comes both from the current (2015) GCSE specifications and also from the specifications in the proposals of 2021, which complement one another nicely. In contrast, the English content is new, as is the overall structure.

The following notation is used below: Each topic is introduced by the relevant wording in the GCSE specifications.

o [...] 2015 French specification for GCSEo [[...]] 2021 proposed French specification for GCSE

Within these specifications,o (H) marks items that apply only to the Higher tier o (R) marks items that currently need only receptive knowledge

CAPITALS are used for lemmas (i.e. dictionary words, ignoring inflectional variation) strikethrough is used for forms that are not grammatical. <...> is for spelling (graphemes), /.../ is for pronunciation (phonemes) + marks boundaries between stems and affixes (e.g. walk+ed, march+ait)

Our main authority, which we recommend strongly, is: Hawkins, Roger, and Richard Towell. 2001. French Grammar and Usage. 2nd ed. London: Arnold.

We have also consulted various articles in Wikipedia, as indicated throughout.

2 Phonics: spelling and pronunciation2.1 PreliminariesThis section distinguishes sounds (or 'phonemes') from written letters (or 'graphemes'). It compares French with English in three areas:

the sound system – what phonemes are used and how they are related to one another. the writing system – what graphemes are used and how they are related to one another. the linkage between the two systems. The National Curriculum for English calls this linkage

the grapheme-phoneme correspondences, but the GCSE MFL proposals use the term sound-spelling correspondences. We use the former term because it is already familiar to pupils.

To keep the phonemes and graphemes clearly distinct, we put phonemes between slants /.../ and graphemes between diamonds <...>; so, for example, the phoneme /t/ is normally written with the grapheme <t>.

One immediate challenge is how to write down the sounds without using the normal graphemes – for example, how to write the vowel sound in French <vent> and <dans> so as to show that it is the same phoneme in spite of the different spellings. By far the best solution is to use the

standard notation called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) – which, incidentally, was invented in the nineteenth century by French, German and English language teachers. This allows us to say that the phoneme / / may be written in French as either <an> or <en>. ɑ̃

The IPA also allows us to introduce a little elementary phonetics, which is probably already familiar to many readers. This will allow us to make generalisations such as that a French vowel grapheme is pronounced as a nasal vowel if followed by a nasal consonant grapheme (without a following vowel grapheme). This generalisation treats the pronunciation of <vent> and <dans> as an example of a much more general phenomenon which is also exemplified by <bon> (but not <bonne>) and by <brun> (but not <brune>).

Another issue related to pronunciation is the choice of accents – what kind of French or English is to be taught. (To avoid confusion, we use the term accent marks for the 'accents' of writing – the acute and grave accents.) As far as French is concerned, the accent is left open by the specifications, subject to the general requirement that it is "accurate pronunciation and intonation such as to be understood by a native speaker". In most cases this will be a modern Parisian accent, though even this allows some variation.

For English, however, it is important to be aware of the rich variety of accents used by children; there is no point in comparing French pronunciation with an English pronunciation that learners don't even recognise, let alone use themselves. For example, it is tempting to point out that English uses nasal vowels in French loan words such as restaurant, but for most English speakers this word has no nasal vowel. This document is intended for use in all parts of the country, so it cannot compare French with any particular local accent and has to assume the only non-regional standard of pronunciation, Received Pronunciation (RP). It has to be left to teachers to mediate the comparisons in terms of the accent(s) of their pupils.

The most important issue of accent is whether <r> is pronounced in words like farm: does this word rhyme perfectly with calm? In RP and many other accents it does, because some time ago /r/ disappeared ('was dropped') except immediately before a vowel (as in red or very). In accents that kept postvocalic /r/, the number of vowels is fewer than in RP because words like fear have the same vowel as feat, in contrast with RP where the vowels are different.

The data in the following comparisons comes from external sources: French and English.

2.2 Word stress and vowel quantityA fundamental difference between French and English pronunciation is that English has variable word stress, but French does not. For example, we have pairs like the noun and verb both spelt convict, but with the stress on different syllables: conVICT for the verb and CONvict for the noun. In fact, we have a lot of such noun-verb pairs distinguished by the location of the stressed syllable (and in each case, with the stress on the second syllable of the verb and on the first syllable of the noun). Moreover, the contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables affects the quality of the syllable's vowel and even its length, with a mere schwa /ə/ or even a syllabic nasal (explained below) in the unstressed syllable of conVICT, which is so short that it is hardly pronounced. French has nothing like this, and English learners need to learn not to apply the English pattern in French words.

To see the difference, compare the English word environment with its French translation environnement. The English word has one clearly prominent syllable, with three other much shorter and less prominent syllables attached: enVIRonment /ən'vaɪrənmənt/ or /n̩'vaɪrn̩mn̩t. In contrast, the French word treats the syllables much more equally, though with a slight stress on the last one: / viʁɒnəm /. Stress on the final syllable is automatic for all French words, so this stress simply ɑ̃ ɑ̃marks the end of the word, and can't distinguish this word from others.

/i/ /u/

/a/

/ə/

teeth throatfront back

open

closed

/ɑ/

We shall see that this fundamental difference between French and English has consequences for their vowels. Since all French syllables are equal, the same is true of the vowels that occur in these syllables, in contrast with a hierarchical classification of English vowels from very big vowels to very small ones which are only found in unstressed syllables. The most notable very small vowel is schwa /ə/ but some syllables are so small that they have no vowel at all. The word environment contains three examples – syllables which can be shortened to a mere syllabic nasal – a nasal consonant /̩n̩/ or /m̩/ which provides just enough vowel-like noise to constitute a syllable, as in button or bottom. Another kind of syllabic consonant is /ɫ̩/, as in bottle. The little mark under the letter shows that it constitutes a syllable. Such things are quite foreign to French.

Linguists call French a 'syllable-timed' language because the syllable is the unit of timing, in contrast with 'stress-timed' languages like English, where the stressed syllable plus its attached unstressed syllables is the unit of timing. Romance languages like French and Spanish tend to be syllable-timed, whereas Germanic languages like English and German are mostly stress-timed. This fact about English means that the National Curriculum is unhelpful when it says that "each syllable is like a ‘beat’ in the spoken word"; and one consequence of the fundamental difference between French and English is that their rules for poetic metre are quite different, with French simply counting syllables while English counts the 'iamb', a combination of an unstressed and a stressed syllable.

2.3 Vowels[[a, i/y, eu, e, au/eau/closed o/ô, ou, u, silent final e, é (-er, -ez), en/an/em/am, on/om, ain/in/aim/im, è/ê/ai, oi/oy, -ien]]

Phoneticians classify vowels according to where they are formed in the mouth – i.e. more technically, according to the size and location of the smallest gap between the top of the tongue and the roof of the mouth. In these terms, /a/ and /ɑ/ (as in hat and heart) are 'open' vowels, because the gap is wide; /ɑ/ is the sound that the doctor traditionally asks you to make when your throat needs to be checked in order to get your tongue as low and as far back as it can be. In contrast, /i/ and /u/ (as in beet and boot) are 'close' vowels, with rather narrow gaps. The location of the gap distinguishes /i/, a 'front' vowel, with the gap just behind the teeth, from /u/, a 'back' vowel with the gap at the back of the mouth. This classification is usually displayed as a vowel trapezium like the one in this diagram, which includes not only the limiting vowels /i/, /u/, /a/ and /ɑ/, but also the neutral /ə/, called 'schwa' – the sound at the beginning of about. (The characters ə and ɑ are examples of special IPA characters which go beyond the ordinary alphabet; we shall meet others below.)

/i, y/ /u/

/a/

/e, ø/ /o//ə/

ski, rue

blé, neuf

mais, (jeune), brun, vin

tas

/ɛ, (œ), , /œ̃ ɛ̃/ɒ, (ɑ,) /ɑ̃

/ /ɔ̃

roue dos bon poste, (tâche), grand

le

This classification provides two dimensions on which vowels can be classified: frontness and openness. There is a third important dimension, called 'lip-rounding'. As its name suggests, this classifies sounds according to whether the speaker's lips are rounded, as for /u/ (or for a kiss), or spread, as for /i/ (the sound in cheese¸ which is supposed to make us look in a photograph as though we are smiling). Of the vowels shown in the above trapezium only /u/ is rounded, but rounding can be added to the others, and French exploits this possibility to distinguish unrounded and rounded versions of several vowel sounds; for example, du is /dy/, where /y/ is a rounded close front vowel – i.e. the same as /i/ but with lip rounding.

Finally, French requires us to recognise another contrast: nasality. Most vowels are pronounced just in the mouth, with the passage through the nose closed off; but some French vowels are nasal, meaning that the nose passage is open. These are all vowels that have <n> or <m> in their spelling, as in <vin>, <grand>, <bon> or <un>.

The following trapezium displays the vowels of French classified by position (frontness and openness), with lip-rounding and nasality handled in the lists. In some positions, more than one vowel sound is possible, so the possibilities are all listed. The first is generally the expected one – an oral vowel which is lip-spread if it is in the front of the mouth and lip-rounded if it is in the back. The next vowel in the list is lip-rounded, and the last is nasal (shown by the ~ symbol). The only exceptional position is the third one down on the right, which is only nasal; this is the sound in the English word ought, but with nasalisation. Two vowels (/œ/, /ɑ/) are enclosed in brackets, as are their example words, because they are marginal in modern spoken Parisian French.

The French vowels reviewed so far are all 'pure' in the sense that they keep the same position right through, in contrast with diphthongs; these start in one place and move to another. French has only one diphthong relevant at GCSEC: /ua/, with its unexpected spelling <oi> as in roi, and the matching nasal /w /, as in ɛ̃ coin.

English vowels are rather different. As noted above, we have no front rounded vowels (apart from the Scottish /y/) or nasal vowels. But more importantly, English vowels are organised in terms of two further contrasts that have no real equivalent in French: length and what we might call 'R'. Here are the vowels of English classified by length:

short: pit, pet, pat, putt, pot, put; butter, happy long: peat, near, pear, nurse, palm, thought, boot; bite, face, choice, mouth, goat; fire, hour;

newLong vowels are normally indicated in the IPA by a colon, so /i:/ is a long /i/, but here they will be shown by doubling the vowel symbol: /ii/ in order to reveal the similarity between long pure vowels and diphthongs, of which English has several.

There are two reasons why vowel length is important, both of which involve spelling. First, it is part of the elementary spelling rule for doubling consonants: if a single consonant at the end of a word follows a short vowel, we double the consonant when adding a suffix (e.g. <hit> turns into

<hitting>), but there is no doubling after a long vowel (e.g. <heat> - <heating>). This rule is not matched in French.

The other part played in modern English by the length distinction is relevant to French. An important historical event in the development of English was a massive series of sound changes called the Great Vowel Shift which affected long vowels (but not short vowels) in English between about 1400 and 1700 – i.e. at about the time when our spelling started to be standardised. This meant that the spelling tended to reflect the old pronunciations. This one-sided change meant that the long-short pairs that were previously similar, and therefore written with the same grapheme, moved apart. That's why we have vowel graphemes such as <i> which have completely different pronunciations in short and long positions, as in <hide> and <hidden>. What about French?

Between about 900 and 1600, French underwent a similar upheaval of vowels, but in this case the changes were tied to nasalisation. As in the English Great Vowel Shift, the normal vowel sound changed completely when nasalised, but the spelling maintains the earlier identity; so the vowel phonemes in pairs like <fin> - <fine >, <bon> - <bonne> and <brun> - <brune> are quite different. The results of these changes in English and French are shown in the table below. The main point is that the spelling and pronunciation of vowels are out of step in rather similar ways in the two languages.

French Englishnot nasal nasal short long/i/ fine /ɛ̃/ fin /ɪ/ spit /aɪ/ spite/y/ une / / œ̃ un /ɛ/ met /ii/ mete/a/ année / / ɑ̃ an /a/ mat /eɪ/ mate/ɒ/ bonne / / bonɔ̃ /ɒ/ cop /əʊ/ cope

/ʌ/ cut /iu/ cute

The other distinctive contrast that applies to English vowels, apart from length, is 'R-ness'. This is the distinction between pairs like beard and beed. In eighteenth century England, the <r>

sound /ɹ/, which by this time had already been exported to the USA (but not yet to Australia) started to disappear in words like beard – words where it was not immediately followed, and protected, by a vowel, as in red and very. But although the <r> sound disappeared, its effect on the preceding vowel persisted, so we now have a set of vowels which sound as though the next sound is going to be /ɹ/ even though this sound has in fact disappeared. We can call these vowels 'R-full', in contrast with the 'R-less' ones which never had a following /ɹ/. This contrast cuts right across the length contrast, so we now have four different categories as shown in the next table.

R-full R-lessshort butter pit, pet, pat, putt, pot, put, happylong near, pear, nurse, palm, thought, fire,

hourpeat, boot, bite, face, choice, mouth, goat, new

The reason why the R contrast is important in English is its role in 'r-insertion', the addition of /ɹ/ before a vowel, as in hear+ing. At one time this could be seen as simply blocking or reversing the earlier loss of /r/, so for example the /r/ lost in hear would be reinstated in hear+ing thanks to the effect of the following vowel. But the process has now been extended beyond the words which used to have /r/, to include all words containing the same vowels even when there was no historical /r/; so we now have a rule of R-insertion which applies even to words like pizza, which has the same final vowel as butter, and which receives an unhistorical /r/ when followed by a vowel. (Try

saying This pizza is nice without inserting /r/!). R-insertion applies after any of the R-full vowels, even where there is no <r> in the spelling, including words like Shah and saw. In other words, English has a rule of liaison rather like the liaison rules of French.

2.4 Consonants[[silent final consonant, ch, ç (and soft 'c'), qu, j, -tion, s-liaison, t-liaison, n-liaison, x-liaison]]

The consonants of French and English are broadly similar, but there are important differences both in the way they are spelt and also in the details of their pronunciation. Once again a phonetic classification is more helpful than an alphabetical listing. Unlike vowels, consonants obstruct the flow of air in some way, so we classify them according to how and where the air is obstructed. Another difference between consonants and vowels is that vowels are generally 'voiced', which means that the the speaker's larynx (Adam's Apple) vibrates, whereas for consonants this is optional and distinctive.

The following table therefore classifies consonants on three dimensions: voicing: voiced (e.g. /v/, /d/) or voiceless (e.g. /f/, /t/). manner – how they're made:

o stops (e.g. tip), fricatives (ship), affricates (chip): for a stop , the air is stopped completely; for a fricative it is allowed to pass with enough constriction to produce friction; and for an affricate it starts as a stop and then turns into a fricative.

o semi-vowels (woke, yoke), nasals (mere, near) and liquids (lake, rake): these are more like vowels than the other consonants, but still involve some constriction.

position: consonants, unlike vowels, always obstruct the flow of air by a blockage, so 'position' is the position of the blockage between the front and back of the mouth, like the front-back contrast in vowels.

IPA French Englishvoiceless stops /p, t, k/ petit, quand pet, top, kingvoiced stops /b, d, g/ bon, dans, gare bad, do, getvoiceless fricatives /f, s, ʃ/ faire, suis, chant fit, sip, ship

/θ, h/ -- thing, housevoiced fricatives /v, z, ʒ/ vrai, rose, gens very, zoo, treasure

/ð/ -- thenvoiceless affricates /ʧ/ -- chinvoiced affricates /ʤ/ -- Johnsemi-vowels /j, w/ travail, oui yet, wet

nasals/m, n/ mais, notre mum, no/m̩, n̩, ŋ/ -- bottom, didn't, sing/ɲ/ montagne manure

liquids/ʁ/ versus /ɹ/ /ʁ/ rouge /ɹ/ red

/l/ versus /l/~/ɫ/ /l/ long, belle /l/ long, /ɫ/ bell/ɫ̩/ -- table

You can see immediately that there are gaps in the 'French' column where English has a consonant sound that isn't found in French - /θ, h, ð, ʧ, ʤ, m̩, n̩ ŋ, ɫ̩/ - but none in the English column. Moreover, the row near the bottom shows that, at least in England, English has two

versions of the <l> sound – a clear /l/ before a vowel, and a dark /ɫ/ elsewhere – whereas French

only uses the clear /l/. Moreover, the pronunciation of <r> is quite different in the two languages, so this is likely to be one of the main challenges for a learner.

2.5 Grapheme-phoneme correspondencesHow do spelling and pronunciation relate in the two languages? The first general difference to notice is that French spelling uses a slightly expanded alphabet with

three accent marks (acute, grave and circumflex: é, è, ê) a cedilla (ç) a diaeresis (looking just like the German umlaut), as in naïve and Noël two ligatures (œ, æ). The second is rare and can be ignored at GCSE.

In contrast, English glories in an unexpanded alphabet. Otherwise, however, they use much the same alphabet and punctuation marks.

2.5.1 VowelsAs far as vowels are concerned, each language has a fairly complex system with multiple

ways of spelling the same sound. According to the table below, on average a French phoneme corresponds to about 3.5 different graphemes, which means that a word's spelling is hard to predict from its pronunciation. On the other hand, pronunciation is relatively easy to guess from spelling because only two clusters of vowel graphemes are phonetically ambiguous, and their ambiguity is only marginally important at GCSE because the sounds involved are similar (/e/ - /ɛ/, and /ø/ - /œ/). One particular feature is worth noting: the only way to write the phoneme schwa /ə/ is the grapheme <e>.

phoneme

graphemes examples

/i/ <i, î, ie, y> ski, gîte, vie, style/y/ <u, û, ue> rue, sûr, rue/e/ <é, ai, es, er> blé, vrai, les, aller/ø/ <eu, œu> neuf, œufs/ɛ/ <ai, aî, aie, e, é, è, ê, ei> mais, maître, monnaie, quel, événement, lève, tête,

neige(/œ/) <eu, eû, œ, œu> jeune, jeûne, œil, œuf/a/ <a, à> tas, là/ɒ/ <o> poste(/ɑ/) <â> tâche/o/ <o, au, eau, ô> dos, autre, eau, côte/u/ <ou, où, oû, oue, aoû, oo> roue, où, goût, roue, août, football/ə/ <e> le/ua/ <oi, oê, oî, oy> roi, poêle, croîs, royaume

nasal vowels/ /œ̃ <un, um> brun, parfum/ /ɛ̃ <in, im, ain, aim, en, ein, eim,

ym>vin, important, bain, faim, bien, plein, Reims, sympa

/ /ɑ̃ <an, en, am, em> grand, vent, lampe, trembler/ /ɔ̃ <on, om> bon, ombre/u /ɛ̃ <oin> coin

Turning to the vowels of English, the vowels in the next table follow the classification given above according to R-ness and length, and (as anticipated in section 1.3) it departs from normal practice in using two symbols for long vowels even when they are pure. So a vowel is long if it is written (in IPA) with two (or occasionally three) characters.

phon-eme

graphemes examples

/ə/ <er, ar, e, a, o, u, ur, ure, our, ar, re, ai, ough, eig, ia> (and many reduced words)

butter, grammar, the, a, station, suppose, surprise, treasure, humour, awkward, centre, certain, thorough, foreign, parliament (to, was, your, ...)

/ɪə/ <ear, ere > near, here/ɛɛ/ <air, ear, ar, are, ere, a> hair, pear, various, bare, there, parent/ɜɜ/ <er, ir, ur, or, ear > her, first, nurse, word, early/ɑɑ/ <ar, al, a, ear> car, palm, ask, heart/ɔɔ/ <or, oor, ore, au, aw, ough, augh,

a, ar, ure >for, door, more, author, saw, thought, caught, all, war, sure

/aɪə/ <ire, ie> fire, variety/aʊə/ <our, ower> hour, flower/ɪ/ <i, a, o, e, u, y, ui, i-e, ie > pit, language, women, pretty, busy, Egypt, build,

promise, mischievous/ɛ/ <e, ea, ie, ei, a, ai > pet, head, friend, leisure, any, again/a/ <a > pat/ʌ/ <u, o, o-e, ou > putt, stomach, some, young/ɒ/ <o, a, ow, ou, ach> pot, want, knowledge, cough, yacht/ʊ/ <oo, u, o, oul > book, put, woman, could/i/ <y, ey > happy, key/ii/ <e-e, ee, ea, ie, ei, e, eo > these, tree, peat, chief, deceive, even, people/uu/ <ue, u-e, oo, ou, ough, ew, o-e,

o, ui >blue, rude, boot, you, through, flew, move, who, fruit

/aɪ/ <i, ie, i-e, igh, eigh, y, y-e, eye > I, lie, bite, night, height, by, rhyme, eye/eɪ/ <ai, ay, a-e, ea, aigh, eigh, eig, a > rain, day, face, break, straight, eight, reign, famous/ɔɪ/ <oi, oy > choice, boy/aʊ/ <ou, ow, ough > mouth, now, plough/əʊ/ <o, o-e, oa, oe, ow, ou, ough > most, home, goat, goes, own, shoulder, though/iu/ <u, ue, u-e, ew, eau, ui, eue > occupy, Tuesday, use, new, beautiful, nuisance,

queue

At least according to these two tables, English is significantly more irregular than French, with an average of 5.5 graphemes per phoneme; so it is even harder in English to guess a word's spelling from its pronunciation than in French. The contrast with French is especially striking with the phoneme schwa /ə/, because where French schwa has only one grapheme, English has fifteen. Worse still, most graphemes can be used to spell more than one phoneme, so it is much harder in English than in French to guess a word's pronunciation from its spelling.

This outcome should be good news for pupils, because their challenge is to learn French, not English. They have already more or less mastered the English system, and are used to enormous inconsistencies and irregularities, so they may appreciate the relative regularity of French. They might also enjoy considering the difficulties of English for French learners.

2.5.2 Consonants and liaisonA similar review of the consonants reveals a similar difference in favour of French. French not only has fewer distinct consonants than English – 19 as opposed to 27 – but on average each French consonant phoneme has only 2.3 possible spellings, contrasting with 3.0 for English. The tables below display the evidence.

phoneme

graphemes examples

/p/ <p> petit/t/ <t, tt, pt> toit, mettez, compter/k/ <c, q, qu, k, x> cœur, coq, quand, kilo, texte/b/ <b, bb> bon, abbaye/d/ <d, dd> dans, addition/g/ <g, x> gare, exiger/f/ <f, ff, ph> faire, affaire, photo/s/ <s, ss, ç, c, sc, x> suis, baisser, ça, ceux, science, six/ʃ/ <ch> chant/v/ <v> vrai/z/ <s, z, x> rose, zéro, exiger/ʒ/ <j, g> jouer, gens/j/ <il, ill> travail, travailler/w/ <ou, w> oui, weekend/m/ <m, mm> mais, pomme/n/ <n, nn> notre, panne/ɲ/ <gn> montagne

/ʁ/ <r, rr> rouge, pierre

/l/ <l, ll> long, aller

phoneme graphemes examples/p/ <p, pp> pet, happy/t/ <t, tt> top, pretty/k/ <k, ck, c, cc, q, ch, lk, que> king, back, cup, according, quick, school, walk, unique/b/ <b, bb> bad, rabbit/d/ <d, dd> do, sadder/g/ <g, gg, gu, gue> get, bigger, guarantee, tongue/f/ <f, ff, gh, ph> fit, off, enough, phonics/s/ <s, ss, ce, sc> sip, miss, once, science/ʃ/ <sh, ti, ci, si, ssi, ch, ss, sci> ship, station, social, tension, discussion, machine,

pressure, conscious/θ/ <th> thing/h/ <h> house/ʧ/ <ch, tch, t, ti, te> chin, catch, nature, question, amateur/v/ <v, ve> very, give/z/ <z, zz, s, ss> zoo, buzz, catches, dessert/ʒ/ <s, si> treasure, television/ð/ <th> then/ʤ/ <j, ge, dge, di, dj, g, gge> John, age, badge, soldier, adjust, gym, suggest/j/ <y> yet/w/ <w, u, wh> wet, quick, when/m/ <m, mm> mum, humming/n/ <n, nn, kn> no, running, knee/n̩/ <n'> didn't/ŋ/ <ng, n> sing, sink/ɲ/ <n> manure

/ɹ/ <r, rr, wr, rh> red, carrot, write, rhyme

/l/~/ɫ/ <l, ll> /l/ long, /ɫ/ bell

/ɫ̩/ <le, al, el, il> table, metal, travel, pencil

However, there is more to say about the two spelling systems. Starting with similarities, both languages have 'silent' consonants – consonant graphemes without any matching phonemes. In English we find a bunch of words which, for various historical reasons, are spelt with silent consonants: knee, wrap, Christmas, cupboard, answer, Wednesday, island, aisle, library, often, reign, foreign, autumn, doubt, lamb, solemn, thistle, government, vehicle, yacht, sandwich, ... And then, of course, we have our <r>, which in some accents of English is always 'silent' except when the silence is blocked by a following vowel (as in four pears but four apples). As mentioned in section 2.4, this is an example of liaison, because the final sound of one word only appears when the next word starts with a vowel. So studying English <r> is a good preparation for teaching about French liaison, in which certain final consonants in the spelling are only pronounced before a vowel.

Unfortunately, the rules for liaison are a good deal more complicated in French than in English. The rules have to say, first, which final consonants are affected. In English, the only relevant consonant is <r>, but in French most (but not all) consonants are subject to liaison – i.e. they are normally silent but can be pronounced by liaison. However there is a good deal of variation from word to word; for example, six is subject to liaison, but sept is not, so <six pommes> is pronounced /sipɒm/ but <six hommes> is /sizɒm/, in contrast with <sept pommes> and <sept hommes>, where the <t> of <sept> is pronounced in both cases. But in addition to the uncertainties

about which final consonants are subject to liaison, the learner also faces the challenge of knowing when to restore the silent consonant. For example, it is obligatory after a determiner but impossible after a verb's non-pronoun subject: <les enfants> is /lez f / but <mes amis arrivent> isɑ̃ ɑ̃ /mezamiariv/.

A rather special kind of liaison applies to inverted verbs – i.e. verbs whose pronoun subject follows them. When inversion would result in two adjacent vowel graphemes, <-t-> is added. For instance inverting <il a> produces not <a il> but <a-t-il>, and the inverted form of <elle aime> is <aime-t-elle>. This liaison rule clearly fits comfortably alongside the other rules which avoid adjacent vowels, but it is different for two reasons: the added <t> is otherwise absent (unlike, say, the <t> at the end of <petit> which surfaces before a vowel as in petit enfant), and the vowels concerned are graphemes, not phonemes, because they include the unsounded <e> in ER verbs like <aime>.

2.5.3 'Magic' vowels and consonants Approaching the comparison from a different angle, there are two important similarities which are worth highlighting: the languages share two important generalisations which apply to the phonics of vowels and consonants. In both cases, the pronunciation of a letter is affected by a following 'magic' vowel.2.5.3.1 Magic <e>Both languages allow a final <e> not to be pronounced, as in English gate and French grande. In English phonics this is often called a 'magic' <e>.

In English, the magic <e> lengthens the preceding vowel, as in pet (short /ɛ/) versus Pete (long /i:/); hat (short /a/) versus hate (long diphthong /eɪ/); or spit (short /ɪ/) versus spite (long diphthong /aɪ/). But we have noticed the complicated changes in vowel quality that accompany the lengthening of the vowel.

In French, the magic <e> protects the preceding consonant against deletion. as in grand /gʁ / versus ɑ̃ grande /gʁ d/ or ɑ̃ cousin /kuzɛ̃/ versus cousine /kuzin/. This process also affects the preceding vowel if it is nasal.

2.5.3.2 Magic <n/m> or <r>Both languages have a consonant which is either pronounced in the ordinary way or pronounced via the preceding vowel; the term 'magic' is not normally used, but it may be helpful in teaching. In French the magic consonant is either <n> or <m> (both nasals), as in vin – vinaigre, and in English it is <r>, as in hear – hearing. In both languages, the crucial factor is whether or not the magic consonant stands before another vowel (but of course in English the preceding vowel is always R-full because of the <r>).

Before a vowel, the magic consonant is pronounced as a consonant (vinaigre, hearing). But the two languages apply different rules: the following vowel is a phoneme in English, so the magic <e> in fire doesn't count; but it is a grapheme in French, so the magic <e> in fine does protect the <n> against deletion.

Otherwise, the magic consonant first affects the preceding vowel, then vanishes (vin, hear).o In French, <n/m> turns the preceding vowel into a nasal vowel, but with complex

changes of vowel quality, as in fine /fin/ versus fin /fɛ̃/.o In English, <r> turns the preceding vowel into an R-full vowel, as in first versus fist or

hear versus hearing.

In short, both languages have 'magical' vowels and consonants in their spelling systems which learners should be aware of: the magic <e> of <grande> and <hate>, and the magic <n> and <r> of <vin> and <beer>.

3 Note on word-final vowels before a vowel[[Contraction of definite article (le/la/l’) before singular nouns that start with a vowel or h muet. Contraction of pronouns (me/m’, te/t’, le/la/l’) before a vowel or h muet. Contraction of de to d’ when before a word beginning with a vowel.]]

Some words (classified variously as pronouns, determiners, subordinating conjunctions) change to a special 'prevocalic' form when the next word begins with a vowel or h:

le fils but: l'autre fils ma maison but: mon ancienne maison ce garçon but cet enfant Je crois que Jean arrive. but: Je crois qu'Albert arrive. Que dit-il? but: Qu'a-t-il dit? le livre que je lis but: le livre qu'elle lit.

The words that have a special pre-vocalic form generally end in a vowel – either schwa /ə/ (le, que) or /a/ (la, ma) – so it is unsurprising that a special form is provided for use before another vowel, given all the other apparatus that French grammar provides for avoiding adjacent vowels (not least all the apparatus of liaison discussed in 2.5.2). However, it is surprising that the possessives replace ma by the masculine form mon, rather than by simply deleting /a/ (as happens in the articles); and it is even more surprising that the demonstrative recruits a homophone of the feminine to replace the masculine ce, especially given that the latter has a suitably short form for use before a vowel in c'est ....

For the articles and possessives, these changes take priority over the normal rules for gender agreement listed in sections 6 and 7. For instance, the usual contrast between le fils and la fille is suspended when the word after the article starts with a vowel: l'autre fils, l'autre fille, and likewise for mon fils, ma fille, but mon autre fils and mon autre fille. In these cases, the prevocalic forms will be listed in brackets after the masculine and feminine forms: le, la, (l'), les.

English also has two special forms for use before a vowel: the indefinite and definite articles. indefinite: two distinct pronunciations and spellings: <a>, <an> as in a pear but an apple definite: two distinct pronunciations /ðə/, /ði/, but only one spelling <the>.

This contrast is at least enough to give learners a conceptual fingerhold on the much richer and more widespread range of prevocalic forms provided by French.

4 Verbs[[ Verbs that do not fit into the grammar detailed here can still be listed in the Vocabulary List to be learnt in the infinitive form only]]

4.1 Inflectional morphology[[ Specific irregular inflected forms (e.g. faites, vont), as a minimum those specified below, will be listed in the Vocabulary List under a section called ‘Irregular inflected verb forms’. Some verbs change the spelling in their stems (e.g., accents change (mener, je mène); consonants are doubled (jeter, je jette), softened (manger, nous mangeons; commencer, nous commençons) or lost (mettre, je mets). Such spelling changes will not be credit-bearing.]]

4.1.1 Conjugation classes[[Regular -er and high frequency patterns in 1st, 2nd, 3rd persons in singular and plural for: Seven clusters of high frequency verbs that all pattern following seven ‘anchor’ verbs: choisir, entendre,

lire, offrir, prendre, partir, venir (the infinitives within each of these clusters will be listed in the Vocabulary List). Inflected forms of four very high frequency irregular verbs (aller, avoir, être, faire) will be listed in the Vocabulary List.]]

French verbs belong to a number of conjugation classes (CCs). By far the largest of these classes is the group whose infinitive ends in +er, called ER verbs, which account for 80% or 90% of all French verbs, but other classes exist, with decreasing numbers, notably IR verbs (e.g. choisir). If ER and IR verbs are taken as the 'regular' verbs, there are about 350 verbs that count as irregular. Traditionally there is also a third class of regular verbs, the RE verbs (e.g. entendre), and the remainder are therefore classed as irregular, but this cut-off is fairly abritrary as other 'anchor verbs' such as lire represent significant numbers of verbs – hence the assumption in the 2021 specifications that there is only one regular class (the ER verbs), plus seven minor classes defined by 'anchor' verbs, plus a number of isolated irregular verbs. At GCSE, learners are expected to know the ER conjugation system, seven minor classes and a handful of common irregular verbs.

English too has one dominant regular pattern, but also a number of sub-patterns among the irregular verbs; e.g. SING, RING, DRINK, BEGIN all show the same irregular pattern (e.g. sing – sang – sung). And, like French, English has several hundred irregular verbs. Moreover, in both languages the ten most frequently used verbs are all irregular – an unfortunate fact for learners. But the main point for the learner of French is that English also has its fair share of irregular verbs.

4.1.2 Infinitive[(H) perfect infinitive] [[three clusters of high frequency verbs that all pattern following the ‘anchor’ verbs: connaître, écrire, reçevoir (the infinitives within each of these clusters will be listed in the Vocabulary List]]

This is the form used in dictionaries, so it is arguably the most important form of a verb for learners. It also predicts the verb's CC, and provides the base on which the future and conditional tenses are built (though some irregular verbs have a different base, as in ser+ for ÊTRE and ir+ for ALLER). English verbs are often named by a combination of to and the infinitive, as in the verbs to be and to have, but this practice arose because a French or Latin infinitive is generally translated with to, so the term infinitive was applied to the combination of two words. But there is no grammatical justification for including to in the infinitive, so in English the infinitive is simply the bare form of the verb, and to is a separate word which, despite the ban on so-called 'split infinitives', can even be separated from the verb (as in the famous to boldly go).

As explained above, traditionally grammars of French have recognised three regular CCs: ER verbs (e.g. PORT+ER), IR verbs (e.g. FIN+IR) and RE verbs (e.g. VEND+RE). All French verbs, even the most irregular, have a suffix marking the infinitive (including ÊT+RE, AV+OIR, ALL+ER), whereas in English, infinitives have no suffix, whether regular or irregular (including BE, HAVE and GO). This difference illustrates a much more general difference: that French verbs, at least in their written form, have very few 'bare forms', without any suffix, whereas all English verbs have a bare form which has several different uses – as an infinitive (e.g. I will do it quickly), a present tense (I do it quickly) and an imperative (Do it quickly!).

One complication in using the infinitive as the 'name' of the verb is that English modal verbs have no infinitive (see 4.2). For example, the modal verb CAN only has a present tense and a past tense, so there is no "verb to can".

4.1.3 Simple tenses[[present ... imperfect ... future .... conditional ....]]

A verb's inflectional morphology distinguishes its simple tenses.

French EnglishFour tenses (for GCSE) present (porte)

imperfect (portait)future (portera)conditional (porterait)

Just two tenses. present (carries)past (carried)

4.1.3.1 Present[use of depuis with present tense] [[Present indicative, as equivalent of the English simple (I walk) and ongoing (I am walking) functions. Other irregular inflected forms: Present indicative forms in 1st, 2nd, 3rd persons in singular only of eight high frequency verbs (boire, connaître, courir, croire, écrire, rire, suivre, and voir) ... . (H) Present indicative (in 1st, 2nd, 3rd persons, singular and plural) ... of three clusters of high frequency verbs that all pattern following the ‘anchor’ verbs: connaître, écrire, reçevoir (the infinitives within each of these clusters will be listed in the Vocabulary List). Present tense with depuis (as equivalent of ‘have been + ing’ for ‘x time’) ]]

In the following table, sg1 means 'first person singular', and similarly for the other abbreviations. The following discussion separates the 'form' of the present tense from its 'functions'. This is an important distinction because the differences of form are entirely independent of the different functions.

FormFrench English

PORT+ER FIN+IR VEND+RE ÊT+RE regular WALK BEsg1sg2sg3pl1pl2pl3

port+eport+esport+eport+onsport+ezport+ent

fin+is "fin+itfin+iss+onsfin+iss+ezfin+iss+ent

vend+s "vendvend+onsvend+ezvend+ent

sui+se+ses+tso+mmesê+tesso+nt

walk "

amareis

are

walk+swalk " "

FunctionThe main difference in the use of the present tense is that French allows it to be used for a single incomplete event happening now, which in English requires the present progressive; so Il se lève is translated as He is getting up rather than as He gets up. The latter form is possible, but it is only used for generalisations (as in He generally gets up early). In contrast with events, states can be in the present tense in both languages: Il aime la France and He likes France.

Another difference is that, like many European languages, French uses the present tense for a state or event that occupies a period that includes some past time as well as the present. In English, this requires the present perfect, so Elle est ici depuis hier (where hier defines the start of the period) corresponds in English not to She is here since yesterday but to She has been here since yesterday.

meaning French Englishstate:single incomplete event:repeated events:scheduled event:state/event since ...:

Elle parle français.Il se lève.Il se lève chaque jour à 9 heures.Elle arrive demain.Elle est ici depuis hier.

She speaks French.He gets up.He gets up at 9 every day.She arrives tomorrow.She is here since yesterday.

4.1.3.2 Imperfect [avoir, être and faire; other common verbs in the imperfect tense (R); (H) imperfect] [[Regular -er pattern in 1st, 2nd, 3rd persons in singular only for: Imperfect for habitual (only for equivalent of English ‘used to + verb’) and ongoing (BE + ing) functions. Four high frequency irregular verbs (allais, allait; avais, avait; étais, était; faisais, faisait) will be listed in the Vocabulary List. Additional English equivalent functions will be listed in the Vocabulary List as follows: étais, était (to mean ‘was + adjectival complement’); avais, avait (to mean ‘had’); il y avait (to mean ‘there was / were’, as a multi-word unit) . (H) Imperfect for regular -er plural forms, for equivalent of English habitual (‘used to + verb’) and ongoing (‘BE -ing’).]]

We pair the French imperfect here with the English past because both are marked by inflection of a single verb, but as noted under 'function', the semantic match is poor.

FormFrench English

PORT+ER FIN+IR VEND+RE ÊTRE regular WALK BEsg 1sg 2sg 3pl 1pl 2pl 3

port+aisport+aisport+aitport+i+onsport+i+ezport+ai+ent

fin+iss+aisfin+iss+aisfin+iss+aitfin+iss+i+onsfin+iss+i+ezfin+iss+ai+ent

vend+aisvend+aisvend+aitvend+i+onsvend+i+ezvend+ai+ent

ét+aisét+aisét+aitét+i+onsét+i+ezét+ais

walk+ed

waswerewas

were

FunctionThe French imperfect, like the English past, is used for past states, as in Elle parlait français and She spoke French, referring in both cases to her state of being able to speak French. Since states include habits, the imperfect can also be used for these, but here English provides two forms: the simple past or the modal verb USED, so Il se levait d'habitude à 9 heures could be translated either with got up or with used to get up. The imperfect is also used for the state of being in the middle of an event, for which English uses the past progressive: il se levait matching he was getting up. But what the imperfect is not normally used for is single complete events; for these, French offers the perfect: Il s'est levé avant 9 heures. It also offers the passé simple, se leva, but this is irrelevant at GCSE. Moreover, the French imperfect can be used for single completed events, but this is a narrative device for making the past event feel more immediate, as though it was still in progress, so it too is probably not relevant at GCSE.

French Englishstatesingle complete eventsingle incomplete eventrepeated events

Elle parlait français.Il se levait avant 9 heures.Il se levait quand je suis arrivé.Il se levait d'habitude à 9 heures.

She spoke French.He got up by 9 o'clock.He was getting up when I arrived.He generally got up at 9 o'clock.

4.1.3.3 Future (R)[(H) future] [[Il y aura to mean ‘there is going to be’ or ‘there will be’ will be listed in the Vocabulary List as a multi-word unit. (H) Inflectional future for regular -er, singular and plural forms (1st, 2nd, 3rd persons), as equivalent of both ‘BE + going to’ and ‘will’. Singular forms of four high frequency irregular verbs (aurai, auras, aura; ferai, feras, fera; irai, iras, ira; serai, seras, sera) will be listed in the Vocabulary List.]]

English has no inflected future tense but its nearest semantic equivalent is will + infinitive.

Form Notice that in every verb the suffixes are those of the present tense of AVOIR, and in regular verbs these are added to the infinitive. There are no irregular future inflections, so every verb, without exception, has the same suffixes though some bases are irregular.

French: infinitive + ai, etc English: will + infinitiveregular PORT+ER+ ÊTRE regular WALK BE

sg 1sg 2sg 3pl 1pl 2pl 3

port+er+aiport+er+asport+er+aport+er+onsport+er+ezport+er+ont

ser+aiser+asser+aser+onsser+ezser+ont

will walk will be

FunctionThe function of the French future is similar to that of the English future except in subordinate clauses: here, French chooses the tense strictly according to its normal meaning, whereas English defaults to the present when the time is the same as that of the main clause. For example,

Quand elle viendra, je le lui dirai. When she comes, I'll tell her.

However, this difference is probably not relevant at GCSE.

4.1.3.4 Conditional [vouloir and aimer; conditional] [[Conditional forms in 1st, 2nd, 3rd persons in singular only of five high frequency verbs (aurais, aurait; ferais, ferait; irais, irait; serais, serait; voudrais, voudrait), as equivalent of English ‘would + verb’, will be listed in the Vocabulary List . (H) Conditional of regular -er singular forms only (1st, 2nd, 3rd persons)]]

Again English has no inflected conditional, but its nearest semantic equivalent is would + infinitive.

Form Notice that, as with the future, the base of the conditional is generally the infinitive and the suffixes are those of the imperfect of AVOIR. And as with the future, every verb, without exception, has the same suffixes.

French: infinitive + ais, etc English: would + infinitiveirregular VOULOIR ÊTRE regular WALK BE

sg 1sg 2sg 3pl 1pl 2pl 3

voudr+ai+svoudr+ai+svoudr+ai+tvoudr+i+onsvoudr+i+ezvoudr+ai+ent

ser+ai+sser+ai+sser+ai+tser+i+onsser+i+ezser+ai+ent

would walk would be

FunctionThe meaning of the French conditional is virtually the same as English would + infinitive, and at GCSE they may be considered identical. Both refer to a situation which is conditional on some other situation – e.g. Nous mangerions bien could describe a hypothetical situation dependent on eating in a particular place, just like We would eat well.

4.1.4 Periphrastic expressionsThis section brings together various combinations of a verb with other words which are sometimes presented as 'forms' of this verb. The existence of such combinations is another similarity between the languages.

4.1.4.1 Periphrastic/immediate future [immediate future] [[Periphrastic future expression (aller + infinitive), as equivalent of the English ‘BE + going to + verb’ and ‘will + verb’]]

The term immediate future is unexplained in the 2015 GCSE specification, but it generally refers to ALLER + infinitive, as in Je vais partir. As expected from the different meanings of the French and English present tenses, the English equivalent of Je vais partir is the present progressive I am going to leave, rather than the simple I go to leave.

FormFrench English

ALL+ER + infinitive regular WALK + to + infinitivesg 1sg 2sg 3pl 1pl 2pl 3

vai+sva+svaall+onsall+ezv+ont

partir

am goingare goingis goingare goingare goingare going

to leave

FunctionThe French and English forms can be treated as identical in meaning at GCSE. We set the periphrastic or immediate future in a slightly broader context in section 4.1.4.4 below.

4.1.4.2 Perfect/Compound past[[Perfect tense, as equivalent of the English simple past (I walked, he went) and present perfect (I have walked, he has gone); including past participle formation for -er verbs and the seven verb clusters listed above.]]

The combination of an auxiliary with a past participle is called 'perfect' in the KS2 National Curriculum for English, so it is useful to use the same term for the French equivalent though its meaning is somewhat different.

FormIn both languages, the perfect is formed by combining the present tense of an auxiliary verb with the main verb's past participle (section 4.1.6). In most French verbs, and in all English verbs, the auxiliary is AVOIR/HAVE, but some French verbs of movement, and all reflexive verbs, take ÊTRE (e.g. je suis allé, Je me suis levé). This complication is not mentioned in the specifications, so presumably it can be ignored at GCSE.

French: AVOIR or ÊTRE + past participle English: HAVE + past participlemostly AVOIR ÊTRE with verbs of going (+

agreement)HAVE + walked

sg 1sg 2sg 3pl 1pl 2pl 3

ai port+éa+s port+éa port+éav+ons port+é av+ez port+éont port+é

sui+s all+é(e)e+s all+é(e)es+t all+é(e)s+ommes all+é(e)sêtes all+é(e)ss+ont all+é(e)s

have walk+ed

ha+s walk+ed

have walk+ed

FunctionIn both languages, the present perfect can be used for a single event or state in the past (e.g. I have had breakfast or I have lived in Berlin), but English imposes two other conditions:

the time of the event should be indefinite – i.e. either not known by the hearer, or irrelevant; consequently the present perfect does not combine with definite time expressions as in I have had breakfast at 9.00.

the event is relevant now; so in principle it can be followed by so ... explaining this relevance. For example, I have had breakfast, so I'm ready for you.

If either of these conditions is not met, English uses the simple past, so we have a contrast between I have slept well and I slept well which does not exist in French.

On the other hand, French limits the perfect to events or states that are complete, whereas English allows them still to be ongoing, as in I have lived in France for ten years (said while still living there). For this, French requires the present tense: J'habite en France depuis dix ans. Since an incomplete event or state is by definition still happening, it must still be relevant. This leaves six possible combinations of definiteness, relevance and completeness, as shown below. As can be seen from the table, there is only one condition under which both languages would use the perfect: this is the highlighted combination of indefinite time, present relevance and completeness.

defin-ite?

relev-ant?

com-plete?

French English

yes yes yes Je l'ai vu hier. I saw him yesterday.yes yes no Je suis ici depuis hier. I have been here since yesterday.yes no yes Je l'ai vu hier. I saw him yesterday.no yes yes Je l'ai vu récemment. I have seen him recently.no yes no Je suis ici depuis quelque temps. I have been here for some time.no no yes Je l'ai vu une fois. I saw him once.

4.1.4.3 Pluperfect [pluperfect (R) (H) pluperfect]

Pluperfect is the traditional name from Latin grammar for the tense that is translated by what modern grammars would call the past perfect. As its name implies, this has the same form as the perfect except that the auxiliary is in the past tense.

FormThe form of the past perfect is exactly like that of the present perfect (including the details about the choice of auxiliary), except that the auxiliary is in the imperfect or past tense.

French: AVOIR or ÊTRE + past participle English: HAVE + past participlemostly AVOIR ÊTRE with verbs of going (+

agreement)HAVE + walked

sg 1sg 2sg 3pl 1pl 2pl 3

av+ai+s port+éav+ai+s port+éav+ai+t port+éav+i+ons port+é av+i+ez port+éav+ai+ent port+é

ét+ai+s all+é(e)ét+ai+s all+é(e)ét+ai+t all+é(e)ét+i+ons all+é(e)sét+i+ez all+é(e)sét+ai+ent all+é(e)s

ha+d walk+ed

FunctionHowever, in spite of the parallel forms, the functions of the English past perfect are less restricted than those of the present perfect because the past perfect builds not only on the present perfect but also on the simple past. For example, had been parallels both has been and was in the following table. Notice that BE TO only exists in the present perfect (you can't say I was to Paris, but you can say I've been to Paris), but I have been to Paris in 2019 is impossible in the present perfect; but both are possible in the past perfect. The only condition on the past perfect, in both languages, is that it establishes a point in time which is intermediate between the time of speaking (i.e. now) and some event or state in the past – so in the following examples, the time of being in Paris is before the time of speaking French which is before now.

He has been to Paris. He spoke French because he had been to Paris.He was in Paris in 2019. He spoke French because he had been in Paris in 2019.

In short, the English past perfect has the same range of functions as the French past perfect, in contrast with the English present perfect, which is restricted to indefinite times and present relevance.

4.1.4.4 Other periphrastic expressions[[(H) Periphrastic time expressions être en train de (as equivalent of ‘BE [in the process of] + verb-ing’) and venir de (as equivalent of ‘HAVE just done + verb’) ]]

The two examples given in the GCSE specifications speak for themselves. In each case, a single verb (ÊTRE or VENIR) can combine with any infinitive to form a complex meaning which is also expressed periphrastically in English. Another such periphrastic expression is the immediate future (ALLER + infinitive = BE going to ... – section 4.1.4.1). All three of these expressions relate the time of the event described to 'now' (the time of speaking), and all three allow the word just in their English translation:

ÊTRE en train de ... focuses on the fact that the event is happening while the speaker is saying the sentence. For example, Nous sommes en train de manger locates the sentence in the middle of the meal, whereas Nous mangeons is much less clear about the meal's timing. A translation might include just: We're just eating.

VENIR de ... also translates with just: Nous venons de le faire = He's just done it. ALLER ... means that the future event is about to happen; so Elle va avoir un bébé implies an

imminent delivery in contrast with Elle aura un bébé, which could refer to when she grows up. Once again, the meaning of just is relevant, as in She's just going to have a baby.

These three constructions, between them, provide a mechanism for picking out events in the present, the past or the future which are located in time relatively near to now. English has an equivalent range of possibilities with HAVE just done it, BE just doing it and BE just going to do it. The three periphrastic constructions could be called 'near', in contrast with the normal tenses which are less specific about how near the event is to now.

French Englishnear past Nous venons de manger. We've just eaten.near present Nous sommes en train de manger. We're just eating.near future Nous sommes sur le point de manger. We're just about to eat.past Nous avons mangé. We ate.present Nous mangeons. We're eating.future Nous mangerons. We'll eat.

4.1.5 Subjunctive[(H) subjunctive mood: present, in commonly used expressions (R)]

Modern English only has a few traces of the earlier subjunctive: the bare form of the verb used where an inflected form might be expected, as in It's important that he come/be early. Indeed, it seems likely that these traces of the subjunctive come with high degrees of literacy, so it is quite likely that many speakers of English have no subjunctive at all in their grammars. This is very different from the French subjunctive, which is alive and well throughout society and boasts more than one tense (only one of which is relevant at GCSE).

FormFrench English

PORT+ER FIN+IR VEND+RE ÊTRE regular WALK BEsg 1sg 2sg 3pl 1pl 2pl 3

port+eport+e+sport+eport+i+onsport+i+ezport+ent

fin+iss+efin+iss+e+sfin+iss+efin+iss+i+onsfin+iss+i+ezfin+iss+ent

vend+evend+e+svend+evend+i+onsvend+i+ezvend+ent

soi+ssoi+ssoi+tsoy+onssoy+ezsoi+ent

walk be

FunctionIn both languages, the subjunctive or its traces are only used in subordinate clauses. In English these are generally attached to a verb or noun such as insist or insistence, as in I insist that she be invited or His insistence that she be invited aroused our suspicions – meanings similar to those of the French constructions that require the subjunctive such as after il faut. However, at GCSE the subjunctive is only required in common expressions.

4.1.6 Past participle[passive voice: present tense (R); (H) passive voice: future, imperfect and perfect tenses (R)] [[Irregular past participles of high frequency verbs (été, eu, fait) and any other irregular past participles (e.g., lu) will be listed in the Vocabulary List.]]

FormBoth languages have past participles which are more or less distinctive in form. In English, although regular verbs have a past participle which is identical in form to the past tense (e.g. walked), some irregular verbs distinguish the two (e.g. taken but took). In Standard English, the suffix +en is only found in past participles. French past participles are more clearly distinct, at least in writing.

French EnglishPORT+ER FIN+IR VEND+RE ÊTRE regular WALK BE irregular TAKEport+é fin+i vend+u ét+é walk+ed be+en tak+en

FunctionThe languages also make similar uses of their past participles:

In periphrastic perfects and pluperfects/past perfects (see 4.1.4.2 and 4.1.4.3): Elle a nag+é. She has swum.

In passives: Le fromage est mang+é. The cheese is eat+en.There are other uses, but at GCSE these can probably be ignored.

4.1.7 Present participle and gerund[present participle (R). (H) present participle, including use after en] [[(H) Present participle of regular (-er, and the ten ‘anchor’ verb patterns) verbs after en]]

FormBoth languages also have distinct present participle forms, which end in +ant in French and in +ing in English. However, English present participles have the same morphology as gerunds, which are syntactically different as explained below.

French: base + ant English: base + ingPORT+ER FIN+IR VEND+RE ÊTRE regular WALK BE irregular TAKEport+ant fin+i+ss+ant vend+ant ét+ant walk+ing be+ing tak+ing

FunctionIn English, both present participles and gerunds end in +ing, and both are verbs, but there the similarity ends:

present participles are like adjectives, e.g. in She is dancing, the verb dancing describes her, and could be replaced not only by adjectives (e.g. She is happy) but also by a (passive) past participle (e.g. She is admired by many).

gerunds are like nouns, e.g. in She likes dancing, the verb dancing defines what she likes, and could be replaced by nouns (e.g. She likes ice-cream) but not by adjectives (e.g. She likes happy).

English gerunds generally correspond to French infinitives (e.g. Elle aime danser), so French cannot match the subtle semantic contrast between She likes dancing and She likes to dance.

But present participles are used in similar ways in French and English: As adjectives (with agreement): une histoire passionante – an exciting story As adverbs (no agreement): Elle est entrée, parlant à haute voix. - She came in talking loudly. With en/while: En parlant elle est sortie. – While talking she went out.

The use of en is odd, because it looks like the preposition en, but a participle (as opposed to a gerund) cannot normally be used as the object of a preposition. The English while is one of the subordinating conjunctions which allows a participle or an adjective (but not a noun) – like when (as in when tired/working, but not when lunch).

4.1.8 Imperative[imperative] [[Imperative (2nd person singular and plural only; not être; not reflexive). (H) Imperative of 2nd person singular and plural of être (sois and soyez, each listed in Vocabulary List), and of regular verbs 1st person plural (not reflexive), with the function ‘Let’s + verb!’]]

Grammarians usually recognise three imperatives: second person (singular and plural) and first person plural.

FormIn French all three have the same form as the present tense except for the loss of final +s in ER verbs, and except for four verbs that have irregular bases for the imperative. In English, on the other hand, the second-person imperative always has the same form as the infinitive, while the first-person plural imperative is formed with let's followed by the bare infinitive.

Another difference involves the rules for negation (section 4.8), which apply normally in French but which are special in English. Normally, English verbs negate differently according to whether they are auxiliary verbs or not: +n't for an auxiliary (She isn't sleeping), but don't/doesn't otherwise (She doesn't sleep). But imperatives always use don't even if they are auxiliary verbs (Don't be silly, not Ben't silly.)

French: same as present except loss of +s for ER verbs English: same as infinitive or let's + infinitive

PORT+ER FIN+IR VEND+RE ÊTRE regular WALK BEsg 2pl 1pl 2

port+eport+onsport+ez

fin+isfin+iss+onsfin+iss+ez

vend+svend+onsvend+ez

soissoy+onssoy+ez

walklet's walkwalk

belet's bebe

FunctionImperatives are used in much the same way in both languages, to issue commands, suggestions, advice, invitations and so on. However one difference worth noting is in showing that an imperative is a request rather than an order: where English uses the adverb please (Please take a seat. Take a seat please. Will you please take a seat.), French uses a special imperative form of VOULOIR: veuille, veuillez, followed by the infinitive (Veuillez vous asseoir).

4.1.9 Irregular verbs and principal parts[regular and irregular verbs, including reflexive verbs]

The term irregular verbs is generally limited to morphological irregularity, though morphologically regular verbs may in fact be syntactically irregular. For example, most verbs can freely take any noun as their subject, but S'AGIR de only allows il as its subject.

For some languages there is a tradition of teaching irregular verbs in terms of their 'principal parts', which are selected forms from which other forms can reliably be predicted. This tradition is well developed in Latin, where a verb is said to have four principal parts (e.g. amō, amāre, amāvi, amātum – first-person singular present, infinitive, first-person singular perfect, neuter singular nominative past participle). For English, grammarians generally recognise three principal parts (e.g. sing, sang, sung – present tense, past tense, past participle). Principal parts are a boon for the learner if the target language has complex inflectional morphology, as Latin does, because they reduce the challenge to learning just a handful of forms rather than the entire collection of hundreds of forms.

For French, there is no tried-and-tested tradition to fall back on but the following suggestion (by Roger Hawkins) for a four-part list may be helpful: infinitive, sg1 present, pl1 present, past participle, sg1 simple past. The next table applies it to a selection of verbs.

Infinitive 1st pers sing present

1st pers plur present

Past participle 1st pers sing simple past

donner donne donnons donné donnaivendre vends vendons vendu vendisfinir finis finissons fini finisdormir dors dormons dormi dormisrecevoir reçois recevons reçu reçus

This list can immediately be reduced for GCSE purposes by removing the last column, since the simple past is not required. It does not cover every possible form of every possible verb; for example, it does not predict the 3rd person plural present tense of OIR verbs which have a stem change, such as pouvons – peuvent. But it offers a good balance between brevity and completeness.

4.2 Modal verbs[[Modals in in 1st, 2nd, 3rd persons in singular and plural. Use of modals in present indicative (devoir, pouvoir, savoir, vouloir) + infinitive (with highly irregular inflected forms of the modals listed in the Vocabulary List). Perfect tense of modals (devoir, pouvoir, savoir, vouloir) (with past participles listed in the Vocabulary List) ]]

The term modal verb is an important part of English grammar, where it names a very clearly defined class of verbs. In French grammar, however, there is no such class so the term may not be helpful except as a loose parallel with English, naming the verbs which translate English modal verbs.

In English, the modal verbs are CAN, WILL, SHALL, MAY, must, used and ought. The first four are in capitals to show that they have inflected forms, their respective past tenses could, would, should and might. These verbs are all auxiliary verbs, so they accept the negative marker +n't (e.g. can't, couldn't, won't, wouldn't, ...) and they allow their subject to follow (e.g. Can you ..., would it ..., and so on). The verbs used and ought are different from the others as they take to, as in We used to do that and We ought to do that, and maybe for that reason they are currently losing the properties that qualify them as auxiliary verbs; for instance, you may feel uncomfortable with usedn't and oughtn't, preferring didn't used and didn't ought.

However, in addition to these properties which identify them as auxiliary verbs, modal verbs have three special characteristics:

They are always finite – i.e. either present or past tense – so for most English speakers they have no infinitive, participles or gerund. For instance, will can is grammatically impossible for most speakers, though fine in Scotland. But even in Scotland it is impossible to say It's important to can swim.

Even in the present tense they don't add +s when the subject is singular, so we say He can swim, not He cans swim.

They take a bare infinitive, without to, as in can swim, might rain, must work. (As noted already, ought and used are exceptions.)

Another marginal modal verb is BE when followed by to, as in You're to come in at once. This has the first of the properties listed, but not the other two.

In French, various verbs are semantically similar to the English modal verbs: VOULOIR, DEVOIR, POUVOIR, SAVOIR, FALLOIR. However, this group is syntactically very diverse and hardly constitutes a grammatical class worth teaching at GCSE.

4.3 Word order and grammatical relationsFrench and English have quite similar word order rules, so for example a simple French sentence such as Jean visite Marie translates literally into English without any change of order: John visits Mary. However, there are differences which are relevant at GCSE, so we need to be able to talk about them; but in order to talk about word order we first need to talk about grammatical relations, because these are what every word-order rule builds on. For example, in order to explain why Jean stands before visite we need the concept 'subject', because the relevant rule only applies to subjects. We can't avoid this extra layer of analysis by talking about nouns (e.g. "nouns stand before verbs") because that would leave Marie unexplained. This section, therefore, introduces a simple way of talking about grammatical relations.

4.3.1 StemmasGrammatical relations link words together, and traditional grammar includes terms for classifying the relations: subject, object, indirect object, complement, modifier. In Jean visite Marie, we have a

Jean

visite

Marie

subject object

John

visits

Mary

subject object

noun

verb

noun

subject object

Jean visite Marie. John visits Mary.

subject (Jean) and an object (Marie), but what about the verb visite? And what are the two nouns subject and object of? These questions divide grammarians, but the simplest answer is that Jean is the subject of visite and Marie is the object of visite. More generally, grammatical relations link individual words, but not all words are equal so in any relation, one word is subordinate to the other. In our example, the nouns are subordinate to the verb. In technical terminology, the nouns are dependents and the verb is their head. In this view, therefore, subjects and objects are particular kinds of dependent.

A famous French linguist, Lucien Tesnière (1893-1954), developed a way of displaying dependency relations as a teaching tool for language teachers. He suggested that a sentence could be diagrammed as a 'stemma' in which

lines represent the dependency relations the vertical dimension shows subordination the horizontal dimension shows word order, so each word in a sentence can be linked by a

vertical line to its box in the stemma. Here are two stemmas for our French and English examples, showing their similarity, together with a single schematic stemma which presents the word order rule: subject before the verb, object after it.

In comparing French and English, the main conclusion is that both languages rely heavily on word order to distinguish grammatical relations – in contrast with languages like Latin and German (and Old English, incidentally) where word order could be relatively free because grammatical relations are shown by case inflections on nouns (for 'case' see 7.1.3). However, although the word-order rules of the two languages are similar there are also differences. In this section we are only concerned with the dependents of a verb, and we can list these differences before showing them in stemma form.

Object pronouns stand before the verb in French (section 4.5.1) (e.g. Jean l'aime).

Jean

visite

laa

subject

object

John

visits

her

subject object

noun

verb

pronoun

subject

object

noun or pronoun

verb

subject object

noun or pronoun

Non-pronoun subjects can follow the verb in English (section 4.4.3) (e.g. Is John here?). Indirect objects (without a preposition) stand between the verb and its direct object in

English (e.g. He gave Mary a present). Modifiers (aka adjuncts or adverbials) can stand next to the verb in both languages, but after

it in French and before it in English (e.g. Jean visite parfois Marie but: John sometimes visits Mary).

We can now display these differences in stemmas.

4.3.2 French object pronounsFrench treats personal pronouns and ordinary nouns differently whereas English treats them (more or less) in the same way. This is true of object pronouns, which French puts before the verb whereas English puts them in the same place as ordinary nouns (except for the small differences noted in section 4.5.1).

4.3.3 French subject pronounsFrench also treats subjects differently according to whether they are pronouns or nouns, whereas English makes no such distinction; so although both languages allow a subject to be inverted (i.e. to follow the verb), as in questions, in French this privilege is reserved for pronouns in contrast with English where it is available to (almost) any kind of subject. For example, French A-t-il visité Marie? shows the same word order as Has he visited Mary?, but the English Has John visited Mary? requires a pronoun in French: Jean a-t-il visité Marie?

visité

il

subject

noun or pronoun

a-t-

Marie

object

visited

he

subject

has

Mary

object

pronoun

subject

verb

subject

verb

4.3.4 English bare indirect objectsThe English sentence He gave Mary a present introduces a grammatical relation which is effectively unique to English: the relation between gave and Mary. This is often called the 'indirect object', but the same term is used for the French translation, à Marie, which is confusing because this could equally well apply to the English to Mary in He gave a present to Mary. The fact is that Mary and to Mary are grammatically different. For instance,

Mary is located rigidly between gave and a present, whereas to Mary has the flexibility which is available to any preposition phrase. This means that although to Mary can swap places with a long direct object, producing He gave to Mary everything that remained, the same option is not available for Mary even if we make it much longer: He gave a present the girl he had been courting ever since they were school children together.

Some verbs allow one but not the other; for example, we can ask someone a question, but we can't ask a question to someone.

The conclusion is that we need different names for Mary and to Mary. Since to Mary is similar to the French à Marie, and the GCSE specifications use the term indirect object, we reserve this term for to Mary. For the object without to, the obvious term is bare indirect object.

The next collection of stemmas shows the peculiarity of the English bare indirect object by means of a solid arrow linking it to the following object.

un cadeauIl

subject

donne

object

à Marie

indirect object

MaryHe

subject

gives

a present

bare indirect object

object

noun

verb

object

à noun

indirect object

noun or pronoun

verb

bare indirect object object

noun or pronoun

parfois

subject

modifier

object

Jean

visite

Marie sometimes

subject

modifierobject

John

visits

Mary

adverb

modifier

verb

adverb

modifier

verb

4.3.5 Modifying adverbsFinally we come to the position of a one-word modifier of the verb such as parfois or sometimes. These modifiers may stand at the start or the end of the sentence (e.g. Parfois Jean visite Marie or: Jean visite Marie parfois; Sometimes John visits Mary or: John visits Mary sometimes), but when they are located in the middle of the sentence, the languages apply different rules: after the verb in French, and before it in English: Jean visite parfois Marie but: John sometimes visits Mary. In the stemmas below, the solid arrow is meant to indicate position after or before the verb.

4.4 SubjectsIn both languages, a verb with a tense has to have a subject; e.g. we can say Il pleut or it rains, but we can't omit il/it, even though it adds nothing to the meaning. But some inflected forms of a verb allow the subject to be understood rather than overt: imperatives, infinitives, participles. The rules for French and English subjects are very similar except for postposing (see 4.4.3), so in both languages, a verb's subject normally stands before it, though there is some flexibility (which is probably irrelevant at GCSE).

4.4.1 Agreement: person, numberIn both languages, some verbs agree with their subject in number and person, but agreement is much more important in French than in English. Indeed, there are dialects of English that have dispensed with subject-verb agreement completely, giving either I walk – she walk or I walks – she walks; and of course most dialects have abandoned agreement in the past tense of BE, using either was or were with all subjects.

French: all verbs with tense, all tenses English: only present (and past BE)present PORT+ER present ÊTRE regular WALK present BE past BE

sg 1sg 2sg 3pl 1pl 2pl 3

je port+etu port+e+selle port+enous port+onsvous port+ezelles port+ent

je sui+stu e+sil es+tnous s+ommesvous êt+esils s+ont

I walkyou walkshe walk+swe walkyou walkthey walk

I amyou arehe i+swe areyou arethey are

I wasyou wereshe wa+swe wereyou werethey were

One interesting similarity is that both languages ignore grammar of expressions that define a quantity, such as beaucoup de and la plupart de, allowing a plural verb even though the subject looks singular (e.g. La plupart des étudiants ont réussi). But unlike French, English also allows a plural verb with nouns that denote a collectivity such as family when the members are thought of as individuals. For example, we can say Her family are all tall, but Her family is an ancient one. This much freedom is not possible with French agreement.

4.4.2 Impersonal verbs[impersonal verbs (il faut)] [[Il y a (listed in the Vocabulary List as a multi-word unit to mean ‘there is’ and ‘there are’). Il (fait) + weather-related expressions (as listed in the Vocabulary List, as multi-word units where necessary). Il faut + infinitive. Il est for telling the time . (H) Impersonal verbs in phrases (il est difficile/facile/interdit de + infinitive; il manque + noun; il vaut mieux/ la peine de + infinitive)]]

In both languages, some verbs need il or it as their subject, as shown in the table below.

French EnglishFALLOIRPLEUVOIRFAIRE chaudetc.

Il faut arriver à temps.Il pleut.Il fait chaud.

It's time to ...RAINBE hotetc.

It's time to go.It rained.It's hot.

4.4.3 Postposed subjects[interrogative forms] [[Interrogatives expressed through: intonation with SV word order, including when followed by a wh-word (i.e., question words including ‘how’); (wh-word followed by) est-ce que followed by SV word order; (wh-word followed by) VS word order]]

In both languages, interrogative verbs are exceptional in standing before their subject; but the restrictions on this 'inversion' are different.

French: Any verb allows inversion, but only personal pronouns can be inverted, so Mangez-vous? is possible, but Mange Marie? is not.

English: Only auxiliary verbs allow inversion, but any subject may be inverted, so Has Mary eaten? is possible, but Eats Mary? and Eat you? are not.

4.5 Objects In both languages, a verb's object normally follows it: Marie parle fran ç ais . Mary speaks French.

4.5.1 Object pronouns[reflexive; object: direct (R) and indirect (R); use of y, en (R); position and order of object pronouns (R)] [[(H) Preverbal use of pronouns y, en (not juxtaposed with other object pronouns, except in the phrase ‘il y en a’ and ‘il y en avait’). Preverbal position of direct object pronouns (nous, vous, les) (not juxtaposed with indirect object pronouns). Preverbal indirect object pronouns (nous, vous, leur) (not juxtaposed with direct object pronouns)]]

Among objects, personal pronouns are different in both languages, though the differences are much more important in French than in English. Starting with English, although in general pronouns are just like other objects, they are special in two small details:

Particle + object. A verb may have a dependent 'particle' such as up (see 4.6) as well as a direct object; in that case, in principle the particle and object can come in either order (e.g. look up the word, look the word up) but if the object is a personal pronoun, it must precede the particle (look it up, not look up it).

The position of two objects where both are nouns or pronouns, without an introductory preposition, as in I gave Mary the book. (In 4.3.4 we suggested the term bare indirect object for Mary.) Normally this is the only possible order, so I gave the book Mary is impossible (see section 4.3). But if both the objects are personal pronouns, either order is possible: I gave her it or I gave it her.

These tiny details arer enough to show that even English treats personal pronouns differently from full nouns.

As far as French is concerned, personal pronouns are exceptional as objects because they stand before the verb. The GCSE syllabus excludes the relative order of a sequence of object pronouns so we can ignore the mutual ordering of multiple pronouns. The elements preposed to the verb are

personal pronouns, used both as direct and indirect objects the adverbs y and en, corresponding to the prepositions à and de + pronoun (e.g. y = à +

le/la/les) – see also 11.1. the negative marker ne.

The possibilities for single preposed pronouns are shown in the next table. In contrast, English treats pronouns just like ordinary nouns (except for the two tiny restrictions mentioned above).

French Englishsg 1sg 2sg 3 directsg 3 indirectpl 1pl 2pl 3 directpl 3 indirectyen

Pierre me visite.Pierre te visite.Pierre le/la/se visite.Pierre lui donne un cadeau.Pierre nous visite.Pierre vous visite.Pierre les visite.Pierre leur donne un cadeau.Pierre y va.Pierre en vient.

Peter visits me.Peter visits you.Peter visits him/her/himself.Peter gives a present to her. Peter visits us.Peter visits you.Peter visits themPeter gives a present to them.Peter goes there (to it).Peter comes from there (from it).

For more details on personal pronouns, see section 7.1.3.

4.5.2 Reflexive verbs[[Reflexive use of verbs. Singular only, for 1st, 2nd, 3rd persons. (H) Preverbal position of plural reflexive pronouns (nous, vous, se). Verbs used with plural reflexive pronouns, with reflexive and reciprocal meanings (e.g., nous nous écrivons; vous vous parlez; ils se regardent)]]

Reflexive verbs are simply verbs that have a reflexive pronoun as object. The French reflexive pronouns are just the same as the personal pronouns in the first and second persons, but have the form se in the third person. Moreover, any pronoun which is reflexive can also be used as a reciprocal, meaning 'each other', so a sentence like Nous nous sommes regardés can be translated either as We looked at ourselves or as We looked at each other.

In contrast, English has a full range of distinct reflexive pronouns containing +self or +selves, and also an invariant reciprocal word-pair each other or one another. Notice that this is the one place in English grammar where singular and plural are distinguished formally in the second person.

French EnglishJe me regarde. I look at my+self.Tu te regardes. You look at your+self.Il/Elle se regarde. He/She/It looks at it+self.Nous nous regardons. We look at our+selv+es. We look at each other.Vous vous regardez. You look at your+selv+es. You look at each other.Ils/Elles se regardent. They look at them+selv+es. They look at each other.

4.5.3 Passives[[Passive voice in the present (full form only i.e., with par)]]

Both languages allow active sentences to be made passive in very similar ways, but the restrictions are different. Suppose we start with the active sentence Émile bat toujours Nicole. or Émile always beats Nicole. In both languages,

the active verb is replaced by a past participle, and its tense is assigned to a form of ÊTRE, so bat is replaced by est battue (to agree eventually with the new subject, Nicole).

the active subject is 'demoted' to being an optional dependent introduced by a preposition (par or by), so Émile becomes par/by Émile.

the active direct object is 'promoted' to being the subject of the active sentence, so Nicole takes over as subject.

The result is a passive sentence: Nicole est battue toujours par Émile or Nicole is always beaten by Émile.

This much may be enough for GCSE, but it is interesting to note that French limits passives much more tightly than English does. English allows the 'prepositional passive', in which the promoted element is not the direct object but the object of a preposition, so promoting this noun to the subject role leaves the preposition 'stranded'. For example, The Beatles performed in this theatre can turn into This theatre was performed in by the Beatles, in which in is stranded. Nothing like this is possible in French. (For more on stranded prepositions in Englih, see the next section.)

4.6 Phrasal verbs Although it is not mentioned in the GCSE specifications, there is an important difference between French and English which English-speaking learners should be aware of: the absence of 'phrasal verbs', which are an important part of English. These are verbs that need to be learned along with a number of other words, such as LOOK up or LOOK after. English contains thousands of phrasal verbs which often have one-word synonyms borrowed from French – for instance, LOOK up – CONSULT and LOOK after – TEND, and which tend to be translated by a single verb in French; for example GO up = MONTER, GO out = SORTIR.

However it's also important to be aware that phrasal verbs are not just strings of words, but that they follow the usual rules of syntax. For instance, LOOK up and LOOK after are syntactically distinct:

LOOK up: up is a 'particle' – a preposition without an object – so an accompanying noun is not its object and can therefore stand either before or after up: I looked up the word or I looked the word up.

LOOK after: after is a preposition which needs an object, so an accompanying noun is its object, and must therefore stand immediately after it: I looked after the kitten but not: I looked the kitten after.

Phrasal verbs are common in English but much more limited in French, so a phrasal verb in English should set alarm bells ringing for a learner. Phrasal verbs also encourage what are called 'stranded prepositions' (discussed in 11.2).

4.7 Infinitive complements[verbs followed by an infinitive, with or without a preposition] [[À/de needed in certain multi-verb phrases before an infinitive. These verb + preposition combinations will be listed in the Vocabulary List alongside the verb entry (e.g., finir ‘to finish’; finir de + infinitive ‘to finish + verb’). Where the preposition changes or adds to the meaning of the verb, English translations will be listed (e.g., arriver ‘to arrive’; arriver à ‘to manage to’). ]]

Continuing the topic of the previous section, even French has verb + preposition combinations which have to be learned as a pair – a small step in the direction of English phrasal verbs. This applies mainly to verbs which take an infinitive as complement, such as COMMENCER which requires either à or de before the infinitive: Il commence à/de pleuvoir. Only two prepositions are involved here: à and de, so verbs which take an infinitive fall into three classes:

those that do not need any preposition, e.g. DEVOIR, CROIRE, SEMBLER, FAIRE those that take à, e.g. ARRIVER ('manage'), CHERCHER, RÉUSSIR, OBLIGER, INVITER those that take de, e.g. ESSAYER, DÉCIDER, OUBLIER, CRAINDRE, DIRE, CESSER

Unfortunately for the learner, the list of verb-preposition pairs to be learned is a long one, though it is no doubt short at GCSE.

English offers similar challenges, but the alternatives are different. with a bare infinitive: CAN, MAY, HELP, SEE with to: ought, used, WANT, LIKE, PROMISE, SEEM, TRY, CEASE with a gerund: LIKE, ENJOY, STOP, CEASE

As with French, the amount of detail to be learned is mind-blowing, but fortunately a native speaker of English already knows (almost) all of it.

4.8 Negative[negative forms] [[Word order of verbal negation with ne … pas and ne … jamais. Jamais, rien, and personne will be listed in the Vocabulary List as they can occur as isolated words (never, nothing, nobody). (H) Negative subject pronouns personne ne + verb and rien ne + verb (as equivalent of English nobody + verb and nothing + verb) . Syntax of negation with ne … rien (as equivalent of ‘not verb anything’ and ‘verb nothing’), ne … personne (as equivalent of ‘not verb anyone/body’ and ‘verb nobody’), ne… plus, ne … ni … (ni …), ne…pas encore, ne … que ]]

In both languages, verbs can be marked as negative by adding a negative word, but the restrictions are different.

As with inverted subjects (section 4.4.3), the English pattern only applies to auxiliary verbs whereas the French pattern applies to any verb; so Marie nage negates as Marie ne nage pas, but in English, Mary swims does not negate as Mary swims not, but rather as Mary does not swim, where does is an extra, meaningless, auxiliary verb which is provided just to hold the negation. In contrast, Mary is here negates as Mary isn't here.

The French pattern is particularly interesting for English learners because of its similarity to the 'double negatives' which are normal in non-standard English but proscribed in Standard English. For instance, Marie ne mange rien translates literally as Mary doesn't eat nothing, because the negation is marked by two words, ne and rien. English used to have similar double marking until this was proscribed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by interfering grammarians, but it persists in non-standard English.

Comparing French with Standard English, ne ... personne can be compared with not ... anyone, so this is an opportunity to explore the other English pronouns like anyone – the indefinite pronouns (see section 7.5), which include negative pronouns such as no-one. It could be argued that personne is more like anyone than no-one, but the table below shows that personne is actually more like no-one, so Standard French does indeed have double negatives. The key evidence is the choice of pronoun in subject position, where French uses personne and English requires no-one. The corresponding forms are shown in the following table. This includes a column for non-standard English, where there is actually a great deal of regional variation, so the class may have expert views on its accuracy.

French Englishformal casual non-standard

Je ne le veux pas I do not want it. I don't want it. I don't want it.Je ne vois personne. I can see no-one. I can't see anyone. I can't see no-one.Personne ne dort. No-one is sleeping.Je ne dors jamais. I never sleep.Je ne dors que là. I only sleep there.

As a historical note, the class may be interested to know that historically English passed through stages that were remarkably similar to modern French:

Old English (before 1066) added ne before the verb: Ic ne þence = I don't think. This ne could merge with the following verb, as in ne will > nill – hence our expression willy nilly (will he not-will he). Similarly, Latin and Old French had just one preverbal negator (non in Latin, ne in Old French).

Middle English (Middle Ages) added a further negative after the verb to reinforce ne; this second negative was spelt in various ways including nawt, naht and noʒt (the ancestor of modern not): ne muge we noht singe þe blisfulle songes (We may not sing the blissful songs).

Modern English dropped pre-verbal ne and kept the post-verbal not. French seems to be doing the same with ne ... pas, though at present this is only in informal colloquial speech.

4.9 Derivational morphology[[Verbs: dé- only where the English equivalent is ‘de-’ or meaning ‘not’ ]]

Derivational morphology in verbs can probably be ignored at GCSE except for the handful of verbs formed with dé+, such as DÉCOUVRIR, DÉPLACER, DÉMONTER and DÉBARRASSER. However, there are interesting general differences between the languages; for example, conversion (change of word class without morphological change, as in walk > have a walk) is much more common in English than in French (though examples exist such as googler, to google).

5 Nouns 5.1 Inflectional morphology [singular and plural forms] [[Formation of plural nouns (highly frequent irregulars will be listed in the Vocabulary List: oeil, yeux). Add -s to most nouns. Add -x to masculine nouns ending in -(e)au and -eu. Masculine nouns ending in -al change to -aux. No change for nouns ending in -s, -x, -z ]]

The similarities between the languages are striking: in both languages, the default rule for forming plurals adds +s. The similarity is particularly striking because German, a much closer relative of English, has no default rule for forming plurals, but half a dozen different ways from which each noun has to select. The same was true in Old English so it is easy to imagine that French provided a model for the development of our default +s in Middle English, though this attractively obvious account is contested by experts.

However the languages are more similar in their writing than in speech, because the effect of adding <+s> is cancelled by the omission of final consonants so that pairs like <chien> and <chien+s> sound the same. In contrast, the English <+s> suffix is always audible, though it has three different pronunciations in cats, dogs and horses: /s/, /z/, /ɪz/. Both languages also have a certain

amount of irregularity and special subcases for forming plural nouns, such as those listed in the specifications and (in English) children, men, people, cacti and species.

5.2 Derivational morphology[gender] [[Formation of feminine nouns (highly frequent irregulars will be listed in the Vocabulary List as separate items, e.g., chef, cheffe; héros, héroïne; Juif, Juive; travailleur, travailleuse). Add -e. No change (article changes only). -eur, -rice. -er -ère. -el -lle. -en -nne. Infinitive used as a noun i.e., as equivalent of -ing (gerund) in English.]]

Morphology marks some nouns as feminine/female in both French and English, for example ami+e, chienn+e, princ+esse, chant+euse in French, and actress, Englishwoman and woman doctor in English. As already noted (section 4.1.7), the French infinitive is often equivalent to an English gerund in ing, as in Se détendre, c'est important translating Relaxing is important.

5.3 Word orderWhen one noun is modified by another, the modifier tends to follow the modified in French but to precede it in English. In the following examples, the modified word is underlined:

homme-grenouille (frogman), mot-clé (keyword), papier-toilette (toilet paper), timbre-poste (postage stamp)

Moreover, if a noun is formed from a verb plus its object, the verb-based noun comes first in French, but second in English:

appui-tête (headrest), cache-nez (scarf), couvre-lit (bedspread), essuie-mains (hand towel), gratte-ciel (skyscraper)

In general, nouns tend to stand in French before all the words that modify them. In English, the reverse tends to be true when the modifying word is a noun or an adjective, but all other modifiers follow the noun; so in both languages, modifying prepositions follow the noun, e.g. bouteille de vin, bottle of wine.

However, the rules for positioning adjectives are more complicated in French than in English. In English they always stand before the noun, but in French, some precede while others follow (see section 9.3 for further discussion).

6 Determiners In both languages, singular countable nouns require a determiner (e.g. Je vois un chien, but not: Je vois chien). This rule provides a simple criterion for identifying determiners (and distinguishing them, in particular, from adjectives). However, it is sometimes helpful to adopt a less purist definition of determiner in order to include words which are in other ways similar to clear determiners. This is the policy followed here and in the GCSE specifications.

6.1 Articles [Articles: definite, indefinite and partitive, including use of de after negatives.] [[Agreement of articles with noun for gender and number (le, la, les; un, une, des). Functions of definite and indefinite articles, including where their use or omission differs from English (e.g. La santé est importante; le mercredi). Contraction of definite article (le/la/l’) before singular nouns that start with a vowel or h muet. Partitive articles when distinguishing between parts and wholes; after jouer with musical instruments; after faire with sports. Use of de (and omission of article) before nouns following a verb in negative and after expressions of quantity. Partitive articles with uncountable and abstract nouns. Use of article with dans; omission of article with en.]]

Both languages make similar distinctions between definite and indefinite, and for indefinites, between singular countable nouns (e.g. un homme, a man) and mass nouns (du vin, some wine) or plural nouns (des hommes, some men). They also provide special indefinite forms for use in negative contexts (e.g. Je n'ai pas d'argent, I haven't any money) – see section 4.8; but they mark these distinctions in different ways: with de in French, but with any in English.

FormsFrench English

definite le, la, (l'), les

le fils, la fille, (l'ami, l'amie), les fils

the the /ə/ pear, the /i/ apple

indefinite countable singular

un, une un ami, une amie a, an a pear, an apple

indefinite mass/plural

de + definite

de la viande, de l'argent, des livres

some, _

(some) meat, (some) books

indefinite negative de de viande, d'argent any any meat, any books

One of the complications for learners of French is that the rules for determiners interact with those for fusing de with a following definite article (section 11.1), so de le > du and de les > des.

FunctionsThe languages use their articles in similar ways:

definite if the referent (the person or thing referred to) is known to the listener, and otherwise indefinite.

count if the unknown referent is an individual item (person or thing), mass if it is a substance (stuff).

singular if the referent is a single individual or a mass, plural if it is a collection of individuals. negative if the sentence is negative, e.g. Elle n'a pas d'argent. She hasn't got any money.However, the languages also have different rules for detailed uses of the articles (or for using no

article at all). The main differences are summarised in the next table.

use French Englishgenerics Elle aime le vin/les chiens.

but: Elle vend des chaussettes.She likes _ wine/dog+s.She sells _ sock+s.

country names Elle aime la France.but: Nous allons en France.

She likes _ France.We're going to _ France.

languages Elle étudie le français.but: Elle parle _ français.but: Elle parle bien le français.

She studies _ French.She speaks _ French.She speaks _ French well.

days of the week Elle y va le lundi. She goes there on _ Monday+s.quantities Les pommes sont un euro le kilo. The apples are a euro a kilo.abstract qualities Elle admire le courage.

but: Elle a un courage extraordinaire.

She admires _ courage.She has _ extraordinary courage.

activities Elle fait du piano. She plays the piano.after some prepositions

sans _ mancheavec _ difficulté

without _ handlewith _ difficulty

6.2 Demonstrative [demonstrative (ce, cet, cette, ces)] [[Demonstrative adjectives (ce, cet, cette, ces) ]]

Both languages have demonstrative determiners (which are definite), but they make different distinctions: French distinguishes number and gender, while English distinguishes number and distance. In French, the distance contrast is optionally made by adding -ci or -là to the noun, but in English it cannot be avoided.

The English pronouns provide a clear example of agreement with a noun, exactly like the French agreement between an adjective and its noun.

French Englishgender, number

ce, cette, (cet), ces

ce fils, cet homme

near, number this, these this boy, these boysfar, number that, those that boy, those boys

6.3 Possessive[possessive] [[Possessive adjectives (mon, ma, mes, ton, ta, tes, son, sa, ses, notre, nos, votre, vos, leur, leurs)]]

Both languages have possessive determiners, but again they make different further distinctions. French shows the gender of the possessed object (in the singular), but doesn't show the gender of the possessor, while English shows the gender of the possessor but not of the possessed. All the French possessives also show the number of the possessed, which English doesn't show at all.

French Englishsg 1sg 2sg 3, mascsg 3, femsg 3, neuter pl 1pl 2pl 3

mon, ma, (mon), meston, ta, (ton), tes

son, sa, (son), ses

notre, nosvotre, vosleur, leurs

myyourhisheritsouryourtheir

6.4 Interrogative [interrogative (quel, quelle)] [[Interrogative adjectives (quel, quelle, quels, quelles) ]]

Both languages have interrogative determiners, but once again they make different distinctions. As usual, French distinguishes the gender and number of the noun, whereas English shows whether the item is selected from a known set (e.g. which book) or not (what book).

English also provides a possessive interrogative which French does not have. This means that an English sentence like Whose house shall we visit? cannot be translated directly because the interrogative qui is separate both from the possession marker de and from the related noun maison: De qui devons-nous visiter la maison?

French EnglishQUEL quel livre which which book

what what book -- -- whose whose book

6.5 Indefinite[indefinite (chaque, quelques)] [[Agreement patterns for indefinite adjectives (chaque, plusieurs, même(s), autre(s), tout, toute, tous, toutes, quelque(s)). (H) Use of negative adjective determiner aucun, aucune. Use of indefinite adjective determiners tel, telle, tels, telles and certain, certaine, certains, certaines]]

Both languages have a collection of roughly similar determiners which may not actually form a definable class but which may be lumped together as 'indefinite determiners' or 'quantifiers'. Here French ignores gender (except with TOUT) but shows number.

chaque: Once again, as with interrogative determiners, English shows whether the object is selected from a known set (each day) or not (every day). French makes no such distinction.

QUELQUE: This can be singular (depuis quelque temps) or plural (avec quelques amis), and in both cases it is often nearer in meaning to English some than to a few, which is often given as its translation. It implies that the quantity (in our examples: of time or friends) is unknown, but not specially large or small. In contrast, a few implies an unexpectedly small quantity.

plusieurs: This is very similar to English several, which indicates an unexpecedly large number.

MÊME: When used as an attributive adjective MÊME may stand either before or after the noun. When before it means the same as English same (le même jour), but when after it means very (le jour même = the very day).

AUTRE: This generally means the same as other, but it is not used where another is the countable counterpart of more, as in another coffee – more coffee; here encore is used (encore un café, encore du café).

TOUT: This translates either all or any: all in definite contexts, and any in indefinite. For example: with a definite determiner, as in tout le vin, toute la maison, tous les enfants; or without a determiner as in Elles empêchent tout développement et tout combat contre la pauvreté.

7 Pronouns [[Pronouns will be listed in the Vocabulary List (including on, and vous as formal ‘you’). Their grammar (agreement, position) are laid out in this Grammar Annex.]]

7.1 Personal[[ (H) Use of emphatic pronouns (lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles) for emphasis and with même(s) ]]

7.1.1 What is a personal pronoun?Both languages have personal pronouns, so-called because they contrast in person as well as number: moi, toi, ....; me, you, .... The following table includes all the pronouns and determiners which show person although only those in the first columns would normally be classified as 'personal pronouns'.

French Englishsubj obj reflexive independ

-entpossessive personal reflexive possessive

sg1 je me me moi LE MIEN ME myself minesg2 tu te te toi LE TIEN YOU yourself yourssg3 masc

il lese

lui

LE SIEN

HIM himself his

sg3 fem

elle la elle HER herself hers

sg3 neut

-- -- -- IT itself its

pl1 nous nous nous nous (autres)

LE NÔTRE US ourselves ours

pl2 vous vous vous vous (autres)

LE VÔTRE YOU yourselves yours

pl3 masc

ils les se euxLE LEUR THEM themselve

stheirs

pl3 fem

elles elles

Is this list complete? To answer this question we need clear criteria for classifying words as personal pronouns. Each language provides its own clear test for personal pronouns:

French: only personal subject pronouns can invert with the verb (Vient-il?, but not: Vient Jean?)

English: in tag questions, the inverted subject must be a personal pronoun (That happened, didn't it?, but not: That happened, didn't that?)

If we use these criteria as tests for personal pronouns, then we can add on and ce to French, and one qualifies marginally in English.

On: on is often inverted as in Doit-on résister à la guerre?; since inversion is only allowed for personal pronouns (see section 4.4.3), on must be a personal pronoun. But it is only used as a subject, so for reflexive and possessive forms it relies on the general-purpose sg3 forms se and SON.

Ce: ce too is easily inverted, as we are reminded by est-ce que. (Since ce sont is possible without inversion we might expect an inverted sont-ce, but this is somewhat less certain.) But ce joins on as a personal pronoun which is solely used as the subject of a verb; in fact, ce (in contrast with ça) is even more limited, because it is only used as subject of the verb ÊTRE. Interestingly, English also has a pronoun which is restricted to a single verb, and this verb is BE (the English equivalent of ÊTRE); in fact, even more precisely it is BE used to mean '=', as in That building is the postoffice, but not the one in John is a linguist or John is clever (where X is Y means that Y is a description of X). The pronoun is it, which is normally only used to refer to things, and not to people. Using it for a person would be offensive, as in It is a linguist or It is clever. But if BE means '=', it can refer to a person, as in It was my wife or It is Mary who should do it; so we have a special version of IT which can refer to people and which is only ever used as the subject of a special version of BE (meang '='). Even more interestingly, two other English pronouns have exactly the same property: this and that. In the singular, these normally only refer to things, but when used with BE meaning '=' they can refer to people: This is my wife, That's the new champion. Returning to French, this and that correspond to French CE, which (as we have just seen) is a personal pronoun.

One: This is strongly associated with the British royal family, so its use by mere commoners smacks of pretention. Its social associations may reflect its origins in Middle English (the OED's earliest citations are from the 15th century) when French was still the language of the court, so (as a matter of conjecture rather than fact) our one may be based on the French on. The grammatical question is whether after a sentence such as One does one's best, the tag question is doesn't one? or doesn't he? (or even don't they?). If it is doesn't one, then one is a personal pronoun, because tag questions only allow personal pronouns as subjects; but of it is doesn't he or don't they, one cannot be a personal pronoun. There is no right answer, but it may lead to an interesting discussion of person-to-person variation in grammar. And just to state the obvious, the best translation for French on is you, which can be used generically just like on (as in When you have a baby you go to hospital, as said to a male); apart from its meaning, this use of you is just like all the uses where you refers to the addressee.

It seems, therefore, that 'personal pronouns' ought to include on and ce in French, and (for some speakers) one in English. In contrast, ça does not qualify because it does not invert as in Va-ça? (based on the very common Ça va).

An obvious point about the table is that the gender distinctions in the third person are quite different in French and in English: grammatical and natural gender in French, just natural gender in English. Moreover, the possessive pronouns of French show the gender of the possessed, but not of the posessor – the exact opposite of English. (We already noted the same difference in the possessive determiners – section 6.3.)

7.1.2 Tu/vous[modes of address: tu, vous]

Like many other European languages, but not Modern English, French has two ways of addressing a single person: tu or vous. These have been called 'the pronouns of power and solidarity' because the choice reflects the complex social relations between speaker and addressee (person addressed): power (tu is used when the addressee is less powerful) and solidarity (tu is also used when the addressee is socially and emotionally close); in contrast, vous is used when the addressee has more power and/or is socially distant, so it is often called a 'polite' pronoun. In many of the languages that make this contrast, the polite pronoun is also the ordinary plural pronoun, used when talking to more than one person; this is the case in French, so it is convenient to call VOUS simply 'plural', bearing in mind that it is often used for addressing and referring to a single individual.

The same used to be true in English where the choice was between thou and you (as in Shakespeare's plays), with you as the polite and plural pronoun; some traditional English dialects still use the contrasting pronouns in this way, but most English speakers only use you. The consequence is that English, very unusually among languages, makes almost no number distinction in the second person: you can refer to one person or several, and tells us nothing about the speaker's relatonship to the person or people concerned. This may be why phrases such as you guys are popular. The only place where one addressee is distinguished from more than one is in the reflexive pronouns yourself and yourselves (see 4.5.2).

In French verb inflections, the choice between the forms labelled 'singular 2' and 'plural 2' follows the choice of pronoun, so a plural verb such as portez may actually have a single person as its subject. Similarly in Standard English, the past tense of BE has two forms: was and were. Here you always takes the plural were, even though it may refer to a single person.

In comparing French and English, therefore, we find a big difference in the personal pronouns. But it would be wrong to leave the impression that English doesn't care about power and

solidarity: it does, but just not in the pronouns. The area to explore here is the choice of names. We all have names that potentially include a title, a given name and a family name (e.g. Mr John Brown, Professor Ann Smith). But the full name is at one end of a scale with just the given name, or even a nickname, at the other:

Mr John Brown – Mr Brown – John Brown – John – Jack.The same is of course true in French, and, as in French, we choose names according to how we see our relationship to the person concerned; and, as with personal pronouns, the relevant relationships involve power and solidarity. So, roughly speaking, Mr John Brown or Mr Brown are for people who, in French, we would call vous, and Jack and John for those we would call tu.

7.1.3 Subject, object and independent pronouns[personal: all subjects, including on. reflexive; object: direct (R) and indirect (R); use of y, en (R); position and order of object pronouns (R). disjunctive/emphatic] [[Subject pronouns of the third person distinguish grammatical gender in French, and natural gender in English (albeit only in the singular). Preverbal position of direct object pronouns (me, te, le, la) (not juxtaposed with indirect object pronouns). Preverbal position of indirect object pronouns (me, te, lui) (not juxtaposed with direct object pronouns). Preverbal position of singular reflexive pronouns (me, te, se). Use of emphatic pronouns moi and toi after prepositions (as listed in the Vocabulary List)]]

Both languages have personal pronouns which constitute almost the only surviving trace of an earlier 'case' system which has otherwise vanished from the modern languages (unlike German and Russian, where it is alive and well). Case is the name for a branch of inflectional morphology in which the morphology of a noun shows, among other things, whether it is acting as subject or object, and typically words that agree with nouns also show different cases. The next table gives examples of nouns and related words whose form shows the noun's case. The two languages chosen are Latin and Old English, each of which is the ancestor of one of our languages, but neither French nor Modern English uses case. (The Old English grapheme þ corresponds to modern voiceless <th>.)

case Latin Old Englishnominative amic+us bon+us

venit.A good friend came.

se gōd+a cyning singþ

The good king sings.

accusative amic+um bon+um vidi.

I saw a good friend.

þone gōd+an cyning ic lufie

I love the good king.

Both French and English could have inherited a case system from their ancestral languages, but didn't. All that is left from this history is located in the modern pronouns, which still distinguish subjects and objects. But there the similarity ends. In English, personal pronouns are just like nouns and other pronouns, so for example we can coordinate a personal pronoun with a noun: you and the student sitting next to you. In contrast, French has two parallel series of pronouns:

the ordinary pronouns that distinguish subjects from objects and that are glued firmly onto a verb. These are part of the syntactic structure but they are expressed in the verb's morphological structure and since morphology never allows coordination, these pronouns don't allow coordination such as il et elle viendront. Subject and object pronouns cluster together before the verb (except for questions and affirmative imperatives), and follow special rules when they combine with one another (though these rules are irrelevant at GCSE).

the independent pronouns (aka disjunctive or emphatic pronouns) which do not distinguish subjects from objects, but which can be used independently like ordinary nouns, including

coordination: moi et toi, nous pourrions aller ensemble. Unlike the ordinary pronouns, the independent ones only refer to people, not things.

Another difference between the two sets of French pronouns is that the ordinary ones are always not only attached to a verb but also depend (see section 4.3) on the same verb. In contrast, independent pronouns cannot be dependents of a verb, but can depend on another kind of word such as a preposition; this means that there is never a free choice between the two:

Marie me connait, not: Marie connait moi. Marie vient avec moi, not: Marie vient avec me. or: Marie me vient avec.

Nothing like this double pronoun series exists in English. The two systems are laid out in the next table, which shows how awkwardly they match each other. Here are some comments on the details:

The classifications don't match: French has a demonstrative (ce) without a corresponding English pronoun, and the ubiquitous French on corresponds to a socially limited one in English. Conversely, English has a neuter pronoun it, whose nearest French equivalent is the syntactically limited ce. There is no independent pronoun meaning 'it' without any commitment to a grammatical gender; so there is no easy translation for a sentence such as I moved towards it.

The table could have included French y and en, which are generally treated as 'object pronouns' because they form part of the pronoun cluster attached to a verb; this would have further increased the mismatches between French and English.

French Englishindependent subject direct

objectindirect object

subject object

sg1 moi je me I mesg2 toi tu te yousg3 masculine lui il le lui he himsg3 feminine elle la she hersg3 neuter -- -- -- -- itsg3 generic -- on -- -- (one)sg3 demonstrative

-- ce -- -- -- --

pl1 nous we uspl2 vous youpl3m eux ils les leur they thempl3f elles

7.2 Demonstrative[demonstrative (ça, cela)]

Both languages provide a range of demonstrative pronouns, but at GCSE only singular distal ('distant') pronouns are expected, corresponding to that.

7.3 Interrogative[interrogative (qui, que)]

Both languages have interrogative pronouns which force a major split between humans and everything else: qui or who for humans, que or what for everything else. However, the French equivalent of what is more complicated because (like the relative pronoun que – see section 7.4) it

can only be used as the verb's object. For subjects, the pronoun is replaced by qu'est-ce qui (which cleverly uses a relative clause to convert the subject into a complement: 'what is it that ...'), and after a preposition the pronoun is quoi, reminiscent of the independent pronouns moi, toi and so on.

French English

function pronoun example pronoun example

person

subject

qui

Qui dort? who Who is sleeping?

object Qui invite-t-il?who(m)

Who is he inviting?

object of preposition

De qui parlez-vous? Of whom are you speaking?Who are you speaking of?

thing

subject qu'est-ce qui

Qu'est-ce qui arrive?

what

What's happening?

object que Que fait-il? What's he doing?

object of preposition

quoi Avec quoi le fait-il? With what does he do it?What does he do it with?

7.4 Relative[relative: qui; relative: que (R)] [[Use of relative pronoun qui in subject relative clauses. (H) Subject relative clauses using wh- pronouns (où, quand). Object relative clauses using que.]]

Both languages use relative pronouns which also double as interrogative pronouns (Qui dort? L'homme qui dort; Who is sleeping? The man who is sleeping), but English offers other ways of introducing a relative clause: that and no pronoun at all (the book that I bought; the book _ I bought). At GCSE the pronouns used as object of a preposition (e.g. avec qui, with whom) are irrelevant. The main relevant difference between the languages is that French distinguishes subjects and objects (qui, que) whereas English distinguishes people from things (who, which).

func-tion

person/ thing

French English

pronoun example pronoun example

subjectperson

qui

l'homme qui dort who, that the man who is sleepingthe man that is sleeping

thing le livre qui le contient

which,that

the book which contains itthe book that contains it

object

person

que

l'homme que j'invite who(m), that, [no pronoun]

the man who(m) I invitethe man that I invitethe man _ I invite

thing le livre que je veux which, that, [no pronoun]

the book which I wantthe book that I wantthe book _ I want

7.5 Indefinite[indefinite (quelqu’un)]

Indefinite pronouns, like indefinite determiners (6.5), are rather hard to classify and define, but they include quelqu'un and quelque chose in French, and someone/somebody and something in English.

The next table shows that the English indefinite pronouns are more clearly structured, with every member composed out of some, any, no or every followed by one, body, thing or where. Moreover, English makes a distinction between the some- and any- words which plays no part in French; for example, both I saw something unusual and Did you see anything unusual? would correspond to a French sentence containing quelque chose: J'ai vu quelque chose d'anormal and Avez-vous vu quelque chose d'anormal? As we saw in section 4.8, the English any- words are used in negation, but they are also used in questions: so I haven't seen anything and Have you seen anything?, but not I've seen anything. It also follows that French can't match the subtle distinction between Have you seen anything? and Have you seen something?

French Englishquelqu'un quelque

chosequelque part

someone somebody something somewhereanyone anybody anything anywhere

personne rien nulle part no-one nobody nothing nowheretout le monde tout partout everyone everybody everything everywhere

8 Numerals[Number, quantity, dates and time]

The GCSE specifications say no more about quantity, dates and time, so this note focuses on the numerals, which constitute a relatively clear semantic field that invites comparison between languages. In the following table for numerals from 1 to 100,

B = base (i.e. 10) U = unit * = varies with gender of noun counted. + = morphological boundary not shown in spelling

French EnglishU* un/une U oneU deux,trois,... neuf two, three, ... nineB dix B ten

U+zeon+ze, dou+ze, trei+ze, quator+ze, quin+ze, sei+ze

UB eleven, twelve

U+teenthir+teen, four+teen, fif+teen, six+teen, seven+teen, eigh+teen, nine+teen

B+U dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf

2B vingt U+ty twen+ty2B et U* vingt et un/une U+ty U twen+ty one, twen+ty two, ...2B-U vingt-deux, ...U+ante tr+ente, quar+ante, ... U+ty thir+ty, for+ty, ... U+ante-B soix+ante-dix, ...U-2B+s quatre-vingt+sU-2B-U* quatre-vingt-un/une, ... U+ty U eigh+ty oneU-2B-B quatre-vingt-dix, ... U+ty nine+tyBB cent a BB a hundred

The French and English languages both combine a mixture of helpful and unhelpful guidance for their young speakers in learning about numbers, but the mix is different in each language. For example,

French is more helpful with 11 and 12, which are opaque in English; so in English 10 doesn't stand out as the base, whereas in French dix does.

English is more helpful with 70, 80 and 90 which in French replace base 10 by base 20 ('2B'). The French system shows traces of an older system in which 'score' (20) was the base, so it can be compared with the older English three score and ten.

English is also more helpful in the teens, where French changes from one morphological pattern to another at 17.

But French is more helpful from 17-19 because the pattern dix-sept anticipates the later pattern of vingt-deux and so on, whereas the English pattern in thir+teen is confusingly similar to that in thir+ty, in spite of the mathematical differences.

9 Adjectives In both languages it is important to distinguish two uses of adjectives:

predicative, after a verb such as ÊTRE or BE: She is happy. attributive, attached directly to a noun: a happy person

9.1 Inflectional morphology [Adjectives: agreement] [[Agreement for gender and number with nouns following regular patterns (of adjectives listed in the Vocabulary List): Gender add -e no change with adjectives ending in mute -e; -x > -se; -el > -elle; -en > -enne; -f > -ve; -er > -ère; -et > -ète. (High frequency irregulars, or those that follow regular patterns other than those listed above, will be listed in the Vocabulary List as separate items, e.g., net/te, bon/ne, nouveau/elle, pareil/le, travailleur/euse). Number: add -s; no change for masculine forms already ending in -s, -x, -al, -aux for masculine. (Irregulars beau/x and nouveau/x in the Vocabulary List as separate items)]]

French adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun to which they apply, whether predicatively or attributively; but English shows no agreement in either case. (But English does show agreement between a demonstrative determiner and its noun, as in this book – these books; see 6.2.)

Formnormal ...EUX ...N ...EAU ...AL

sg, masc petit heureux bon beau normalsg, fem petit+e heureus+e bonn+e bell+e normal+epl, masc petit+s heureux bon+s beau+x normau+xpl, fem petit+es heureus+es bonn+es bell+es normal+es

9.2 Derivational morphology[[Adjectives: in- only where the English equivalent is ‘un-’, or meaning ‘opposite of’ ]]

French has a great deal of derivational morphology for creating adjectives, but most of it is irrelevant to GCSE. The specifications recognise only pairs like utile/in+utile and possible/im+possible.

9.3 Position[position] [[ Position of adjectives in relation to the nouns they refer to: mostly after nouns; before nouns only for the defined set in the Vocabulary List.]]

French tends to locate attributive adjectives after the modified noun (e.g. livre français), but a small number of French adjectives stand before the noun (e.g. AUTRE, BEAU, BON, MAUVAIS, BREF, JOLI, PETIT, VIEUX). A further small number can stand either before or after, but with different meanings (e.g. un grand homme 'a great man', un homme grand 'a tall man'). In contrast, English almost always locates adjectives before the noun (e.g. English book, tall man, great man). The only exceptions are syntactic rather than lexical:

If an adjective has a following dependent (as in keen to do well) the adjective follows its noun: Any student keen to do well is welcome.

If the modified word is a pronoun rather than a noun, the adjective follows (as in somebody nice, anything legal).

A handful of archaic fixed phrases borrowed from French have a following adjective (e.g. Princess Royal, Theatre Royal)

9.4 Comparative and superlative[comparative and superlative: regular and meilleur; (H) comparative and superlative, including meilleur, pire] [[Use of regular comparative structures (plus…que, moins…que, aussi…que), with irregulars (meilleur, meilleure, meilleurs, meilleures and pire, pires) listed in the Vocabulary List. (H) Use of regular superlative adjective structures (irregulars (le mieux and le pire) listed in the Vocabulary List).]]

Another similarity between the languages is in their provision for comparative and superlative forms. Two patterns are possible: morphological (with a suffix) and syntactic (with a modifying word such as plus or more). Both languages provide both patterns (e.g. meilleur, better, plus grand, more intelligent) but there are important differences as well as similarities.

Both languages allow 'equal' comparisons: aussi grand que ..., as big as ...

Both allow 'less' comparisons: moins grand que ..., less big than ... Both allow 'more' comparisons, but the rules are very different:

o French: plus Adjective que ... except for two irregular one-word forms: meilleur and pire which replace plus Adjective.

o English: comparative morphology (+er) for short adjectives (e.g. bigger, prettier), including some irregulars (e.g. better, worse) and more Adjective for long adjectives (e.g. more intelligent, more complete); in both cases, than follows the adjective.

Both allow superlatives, but again the rules are very different:o French: LE comparative (e.g. le plus grand, le meilleur). The definite article is

compulsory with predicative as well as attibutive superlative adjectives: la plus grande fille. Elle est la plus grande; but the same is true in English: the tallest girl. She is the tallest.

o English: as for comparatives, but with +est instead of +er: biggest, best, most intelligent. Since THE is not part of the superlative, it is available for its usual functions, as in the distinction between the bigger book (just two books) and the biggest book (more than two books). This flexibility in English also allows determiners other than the to combine with superlatives, as in my biggest book (contrasting with my bigger book).

10Adverbs 10.1 Types of adverb[regular; interrogative (comment, quand); adverbs of time and place (aujourd’hui, demain, ici, là-bas); common adverbial phrases; Quantifiers/Intensifiers: très, assez, beaucoup, peu, trop] [[Adverbs and adverbial phrases will be listed in the Vocabulary List.]]

Adverbs are very diverse in both languages, and even at GCSE this diversity will be evident. As the name suggests, they tend to be attached to a verb, so they enrich the verb's meaning by providing further information about the state or event described. Here is a minimal list of types:

time: aujourd’hui, demain – today, tomorrow; longtemps – briefly place: ici, là-bas – here, there; up, down manner: bien – well; vite – fast quantity: peu, trop, assez – little, too (much), enough

The details of use vary from language to language; for example, French trop can be used like a noun (e.g. Je mange trop) but too has to combine with a noun such as much: I eat too much.

10.2 Derivational morphology [[Adverbs: -ment or -ement only where the English equivalent is -ly.]]

In both languages, adverbs are often derived from adjectives, though many are not. For this, French uses the suffix +ment while English uses +ly: douce+ment, gentle+ly (i.e. gently). The histories of these suffixes are interesting:

the French +ment is a reduced form of the feminine Latin noun mente, meaning 'mind' (which explains why +ment is generally added to the feminine form of the adjective).

the English +ly is related to like, lych-gate (a traditional structure over a church gate for holding a coffin) and German Leiche meaning 'corpse' – so our +ly probably derives from a word meaning 'body', contrasting with the Latin-based 'mind'.

As expected there are a number of irregular adverbs in both languages which avoid these suffixes although they correspond in meaning to an adjective:

those with no formal similarity to the adjective: bien (bon), well (good) those which have exactly the same form as an adjective: soudain, droit in French, and fast,

hard in English. And then there are a large number of adverbs which have no relationship to an adjective: bientôt, alors, ici, assez; soon, then, here, enough.

10.3 Position[[Position of adverbs of time, manner, place.]]

As in English, adverbs may occupy various positions in the sentence (initial, medial or final), but the details are different. In particular, medial adverbs tend to follow verbs in French where in English they would precede the verb (see further section ): On ramène parfois des souvenirs but: We sometimes bring back souvenirs. Moreover, adverbs of manner are typically medial in French but final in English: Elle parle bien français but: She speaks French well.

An interesting similarity involves the definite time expressions such as demain, aujourd'hui and hier, and in English tomorrow, today and yesterday. There are good reasons to believe that these words are actually nouns rather than adverbs; more precisely they are proper nouns, like Monday. Most obviously, they can all be used as the object of a preposition: depuis hier – since yesterday, jusqu'à demain – until tomorrow. Moreover in English they can be used in a possessive construction with +'s: today's milk, tomorrow's weather; this is normally possible only for nouns or pronouns. And in French the list of words seems to include la veille and le lendemain, which are clearly nouns, while the English list includes expressions like this morning, last night and the day before yesterday – again clearly nouns.

If this classification is correct, then it explains another oddity in the behaviour of these words: that they cannot be used in the medial position, which is reserved for adverbs. In French, hier can occur either at the beginning or the end of a sentence (Hier j'ai ramassé les clefs. J'ai ramassé les clefs hier.) but not where we expect adverbs such as parfois in the middle of the sentence (J'ai ramassé hier les clefs). Similarly for English: yesterday is fine in initial or final position (Yesterday I collected the keys. I collected the keys yesterday), but not in the middle (i.e. before the verb): I yesterday collected the keys).

Conveniently, therefore, it turns out that the possibility of occurring in the medial position (just after the verb in French, just before it in English) is a good test for membership of the class of adverbs (though it doesn't help with adverbs that can't depend on a verb, such as très and very).

10.4 Comparative and superlative[Adverbs: comparative and superlative; (H) comparative and superlative, including mieux, le mieux] [[Use of regular comparative structures (plus…que, moins…que, aussi…que), with the irregular forms (mieux and pire) listed in the Vocabulary List. (H) Use of regular superlative adverb structures (and irregulars as listed in the Vocabulary List).]]

The rules for both forming and using comparatives and superlatives of adverbs are very similar to those for adjectives. The following examples build on the classification used in section 9.4.

equal comparatives: aussi bien que ... – as well as ... less comparatives: moins bien que ... – less well than ... more comparatives: plus vite que ... – more quickly than ... ; mieux que ... – better than ... superlatives: le plus vite – fastest; le mieux – best.

11Prepositions [Prepositions: common prepositions e.g. à, ...; de, ...; après; avant; avec; chez; contre; dans; depuis; derrière; devant; entre; pendant; pour; sans; sur; sous; vers. Common compound prepositions e.g. à côté de; près de; en face de, à cause de; au lieu de]

Both languages have a rich stock of prepositions. In the following list, compounds are marked with *.

French Englishtime après, avant, depuis, pendant after, before, since, duringplace à, de, dans, derrière, devant, sur, sous,

vers; *à côté de; *près de; *en face deto, from, in, behind, in front of, on, under, towards, *by the side of, *next to, facing

interpersonal avec, sans, contre, entre, pour, chez with, without, against, among, for, *at/to X's

causal malgré, *à cause de, *au lieu de *in spite of, *because of, *instead of

As noted previously (section 7.1.3), French poses problems for pronouns with prepositions. Take a preposition such as vers. Translating 'towards him' is easy: vers lui. But 'towards it' is very hard, because independent pronouns, the only personal pronouns available after a preposition, are only used for people, not things. Consequently, although (say) la maison can generally be replaced by an ordinary subject or object pronoun, this is not possible after vers, as in Je me suis dirigé vers la maison. For some prepositions there is a corresponding adverb which can fill this gap; for example, dedans means 'inside' or 'in it', so dedans can be used instead of dans followed by a pronoun meaning 'it'. But vers is one of the prepositions which has no such matching adverb, so this solution is not available. In contrast, of course, English has no such communication gaps because all our object pronouns can be used freely after prepositions.

Although both languages have a similar list of mutually translatable prepositions, the choice of prepositions is often determined by convention rather than by their normal meanings. As might be expected, the conventions of the two languages are different, so there are many cases where the languages demand different prepositions. These are often called 'false friends'. The table below gives a few examples.

French Englishrempli de cidre filled with cidertenir ... à la main hold ... in one's handC'est gentil à vous It's kind of you.bon en langues good at languages

11.1 Fused preposition + article [common prepositions e.g. à, au, à l’, à la, aux; de, du, de l’, de la, des] [[Contraction of definite article when used with à and de to agree with the gender and number (à, à la, au, aux; de, de la, du, des) ]]

French, like many other European languages (but not English), gives special treatment to certain prepositions when followed by a definite article: à and de. For both prepositions when combined with a definite article, there is no change before l' or la (e.g. à la ville, de l'église). The only changes involve le and les:

à le > au, à les > aux de le > du, de les > des

These changes apply whether the preposition has its usual meaning or is used as an indefinite article (see 6.1, e.g. du fromage meaning 'some cheese'). It is worth pointing out that these two prepositions could also be imagined in fused form in the 'pronouns' y and en (standing for à LE and de LE; see 4.5.1).

In contrast, Standard English has no fusion of prepositions with articles.

11.2 Stranded prepositionsAnother major difference between French and English involves 'stranded prepositions' (aka dangling prepositions), which are commonplace in English but impossible in French. A stranded preposition has an object, but this is either relocated earlier in the sentence, or merely understood. Here are some examples:

This bed was slept in by the Queen. This paper has been written on one side of. This seat is too hard to sit on. The chair I was sitting on broke. Who did you go with? Being pointed at is uncomfortable.

None of these sentences translates word-for-word into European French (though similar patterns have apparently been borrowed from English into the French of Québec, e.g. J’avais pas personne à parler avec).

Preposition stranding was frowned on by prescriptive grammarians precisely because it was foreign to the prestige languages French and Latin, but modern linguistics accepts it as an important part of English.

12Conjunctions 12.1 Coordinating [common coordinating conjunctions e.g. car; donc; ensuite; et; mais; ou; ou bien; puis]

Coordinating conjunctions combine words or longer word-groups on equal grammatical terms, and allow shared material to be omitted rather than repeated.

[He came in] and [he went to bed] > He [came in] and [went to bed]. a picture of [the bride] and [the groom] > a picture of the [bride] and [groom].

Moreover, the conjunction belongs equally to the two conjoined pieces (shown between square brackets), so it has to stand between them and never stands first: And he went to bed he came in. The next table shows the French and English words that allow the omission of shared material and therefore qualify as coordinating conjunctions.

French Englishet Marie [mange une pomme] et

[boit du vin].and Mary is [eating an apple] and [drinking

wine].ou, ou bien

Marie [mange une pomme] ou (bien) [boit du vin].

or, or else

Mary [eats an apple] or (else) [drinks wine].

mais Marie [aime le vin] mais [déteste la bière].

but Mary [likes wine] but [hates beer].

puis Marie [mange une pomme] puis [boit du vin].

then Mary [eats an apple] then [drinks wine].

These similarities between French and English extend to the borderline between coordinating conjunctions and other word classes. Both languages allow puis/then to combine with et/and, in which case puis and then qualify as (mere) adverbs: Marie mange une pomme et puis boit du vin. Mary eats an apple and then drinks wine. But there are differences; for example, donc is an ordinary adverb (like, say, pourtant) without pretensions to being a conjunction, whereas its English translation so is a borderline coordinating conjunction because it is always clause-initial (... so we got wet, not: we so got wet) and almost allows omission of shared material (Mary worked very hard so _ felt tired). Most interestingly, both languages have a word which straddles the line between coordinating and subordinating conjunctions: car/for, discussed below.

12.2 Subordinating[common subordinating conjunctions e.g. comme; lorsque; parce que; puisque; quand; que; si]

Subordinating conjunctions introduce a subordinate clause, and clearly belong to the latter. Since the clauses are unequal, they lack the two distinctive characteristics of coordinating conjunctions:

the second one cannot omit shared material: Elle reviendra quand elle sera prête but not Elle reviendra quand _ est prête

the conjunction moves with the rest of the subordinate clause: Quand elle sera prête, elle reviendra.

The following table shows a sample of words that qualify as subordinating conjunctions, including the borderline car/for in the bottom row.

French Englishque Je crois qu'il va pleuvoir. that I think that it's going to rain.

siJe ne sais pas s'il a plu. if,

whetherI don't know if/whether it has rained.

Je reviendrai si je serai fatigué. if I'll come back if I'm tired.quand, lorsque

Ils chantent quand/lorsqu' il pleut.

when They sing when it rains.

comme Il est arrivé comme midi sonnait as He arrived as midday was chiming.parce que

Elle est fatiguée parce qu'elle a travaillé dur.

because She is tired because she has been working hard.

puisque

Elle parle français puisque sa mère est française.

since She speaks French since her mother is French.

car Il est heureux car il est professeur.

for He is happy for he is a teacher.

The problematic case of car/for is probably better treated as a subordinating conjunction than as a coordinating conjunction because this classification treats it as an example whose position is unusually restricted: both car and for (unlike, say, puisque/since) cannot move to the front of the sentence as in Car il est professeur, il est heureux. For he is a teacher, he is happy. This exceptionality makes some sense because there are a few other subordinating conjunctions that are restricted in the same way (e.g. He went on to become the Emperor but not To become the Emperor he went on.) But it is interesting to find the same curious awkward detail in both languages; and even more interesting to note, first, that in both languages the word concerned is used mainly in writing rather than ordinary conversation, and second, that a similar word, with similar properties, exists in German (denn).

13Historical hintsAs we saw in section 1.2, French and English have two important historical connections. On the one hand, they are both descended from the same language, spoken five or six thousand years ago, so they share a lot of vocabulary and grammar inherited from that source, though the ravages of time have changed both forms and meanings, sometimes almost beyond recognition. And on the other hand, the events of 1066 introduced a thousand years of French influence on the English-speaking world with a major impact on English vocabulary and grammar.

Both these links between the languages produce connections which are worth exploring. This section explores the connections in vocabulary with the aim of showing not only that they can be exploited as an aid to guessing unfamiliar vocabulary but also that exploration throws light on cultural contacts and is potentially interesting for anyone who enjoys discovering unexpected linkages.

13.1 Cognates inherited from Proto-Indo-EuropeanBoth French and English are descendants of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) (section 1.2), so the languages contain 'cognates' - words which are descended from the same common word. Cognates have been passed down faithfully from generation to generation, but over the centuries they have been affected by various sound changes, with different branches of PIE experiencing different sound changes, so the cognates in the modern languages often sound quite different. At the same time,

meanings have shifted too, so two cognates may sound quite different and have apparently unrelated meanings in spite of their relationship.

For example, it may come as a surprise to learn that French vive (lively) is a cognate of English quick. But a little phonetics helps: suppose PIE had a word pronounced rather like the English word, except that its last consonant was like its first consonant: /kwikw/. Then suppose that at some point between PIE and French the /k/ disappeared and /w/ changed to /v/; this gives the French vive. As for English quick, all that is needed is simplification in the opposite direction, from /kw/ to /k/ at the end of the word.

What makes PIE cognates so exciting is that they link our modern minds back to those of peope who lived a very different life a long time ago – most probably a neolithic culture with a mixture of farming and hunting, where pottery was the peak of technology and writing unknown (although by this time it was being invented in another part of the world). From these shared words we can conclude that they must have used yokes and processed wool, and that they had to cope with sweat, wolves, wasps and widowhood; and of course we can be sure that they could count up to a hundred.

The following table lists some cognate pairs (in the order French-English) illustrating the main pairings of consonants. (Vowels are much harder to trace.) The classification ignores consonants which have been lost completely, such as the /n/ in an earlier form of our five (which still exists in German fünf and in French cinq). This study quotes words in their standard spelling because this tends to be archaic and is therefore a better guide to history than the modern pronunciation.

correspondence examplesn – n, m – m, ng – ng

neige – snow, neuf – nine, noix – nut, nu - nak(ed), un – one, ongle – nail, nez – nose, neuf – new, quand – when, langue – tongue, genou – knee, grain – corn, nid – nest, nuit – night, tonner(re) – thunder, corne – horn, nombril – navel, vent – wind, cent – hund(red), nom – name, mère – mother, moi – me, mois – moon (month), moyen – mid (middle), nom – name, long – long

c – h, ch – h/wh, qu – wh

corne – horn, cent – hund(red), coeur – heart, (re)cev(oir) – have, chef – head, chien – hound, chaud – hot, cher – whore, quand – when, que – what, qui – who

r – r , l – l, l – r corne – horn, coeur – heart, oreille – ear, racine – root, sœur – sister, père – father, pour – for, traire – draw, trois – three, frère – brother, long – long, ongle – nail, nombril – navel, laine – wool, lu(ire) – light, sel – salt, lèvre – lip, voul(oir) – will, loup – wolf, plein – full, léch(er) – lick, étoile – star

s – s, s – sh, z – s sel – salt, sœur – sister, six – six, (as)se(oir) – sit, nous – us, sable – sand, soleil – sun, sueur – sweat, sept – seven, poisson – fish, nez - nose

d – t chaud – hot, nid – nest, deux – two, dix – ten, fend(re) – bite, dent – tooth, pied – foot

t – d cent – hund(red), vent – wind, traire – drawg – c/k grain – corn, genou – knee, joug – yokep – f/v pied – foot, poisson – fish, loup – wolf, plein – full, père – father, pour – for,

sept – sevent – t/th étoile – star, nuit – night, huit – eight, dent – tooth, trois – three, toit –

thatch, tonner(re) – thunder, (ce)t – the, tu – thouf – b fend(re) – bite, frère – brother, fut – be, neuf – newv – w/c/ck/p ven(ir) – come, lèvre – lip, vive – quick, vent – wind, voul(oir) – will, ver –

worm, vêt(ir) – wear, veuve – widow

How do these lists help a GCSE student? They may arouse the same kind of interest that archeology provokes, but apart from that they can provide clues for guessing unfamiliar vocabulary. If faced with an unfamiliar French word, it is always worth looking for an English cognate. Here are some guiding principles for the guessing game:

Concentrate on the consonants, forget the vowels. Some consonants are likely to be the same in a French word and its English cognate: <n, m, r,

l>, but <r> and <l> sometimes turn into each other, and all these letters can be or become silent (as in English hymn, mnemonic, car and calm).

If consonants in cognates are different they tend to have the same place of articulation (section 2.4), so <d> corresponds to its voiceless equivalent <t> (rather than, say, to <k>).

But velar and labial consonants sometimes correspond, e.g. French <qu> (now pronounced /k/) corresponds to English <wh> (now pronounced /w/). This makes sense if the shared ancestor contained a 'labio-velar' /kw/.

Principles may help, but the main benefit of exploring cognates is simply to gain a feel for the patterning in language, and an interest in it.

13.2 Words borrowed from FrenchIn addition to the words which both languages inherited from their shared ancestor, there is a very large number of words which flowed into English directly from French. This flow started in 1066, when the French-speaking Viking William the Conqueror occupied England and gave tracts of land to his soldiers; the subordinate English learned from the vocabulary of the French-speaking aristocrats

for several centuries. But even when English emerged as a respectable language, France and things French retained a great deal of status in England (to the extent that it was normal for very rich families to employ a French governess to teach French to their children), and the flow of words has continued up to the present.

The following table presents a very small sample of the French loanwords in English. Such words are like a museum of culture, each word with its own history of ups and downs – no doubt welcomed by some and decried by others with gradual acceptance as the ultimate outcome. Each word can be explored through the Oxford English Dictionary, which gives not only dates and quotations but also the shifting meanings and forms which make etymology so interesting. For example, our custard is based on the French croustade, with <r> moving from the first syllable to the second. (As evidence that English speakers aren't unique in playing fast and loose with <r>, consider the French fromage, corresponding to Italian formaggio and derived from Medieval Latin formaticum.) It is hard to think of a more engaging and fruitful way to demonstrate how deeply endebted English culture is to France.

area exampleshigh French (low English)

beef (ox), mutton (sheep), veal (calf), pork (pig), commence (start), continue (go on), purchase (buy), commerce (trade), liberty (freedom), justice (fairness)

everyday able, car, chair, city, country, different, fine, fruit, journey, juice, just, part, people, person, place, real, stay, table, travel, use, very, wait

government chancellor, council, government, mayor, minister, parliamentchurch abbey, clergy, cloister, diocese, friar, mass, parish, prayer, preach, priest, vicar aristocracy baron, count, dame, duke, marquis, prince, sir, peasant, villain, homageheraldic animals

lion, leopard, antelope, gazelle, giraffe, camel, elephant, baboon, dolphin, ostrich, chameleon, eagle, buzzard, falcon, squirrel, rabbit, lizard, salmon

military army, artillery, battalion, camouflage, cavalry, admiral, captain, coloneleconomics money, treasury, exchequer, commerce, finance, tax, capitalism, bureaucracylaw justice, judge, jury, attorney, court, casearts art, music, dance, theatre, author, paint, canvas, harmony, melody, trumpet, noteplanes, cars fuselage, turbine, chassis, piston, limousinefood beef, caramel, casserole, consommé, cream, croissant, custard, fillet, gateau,

marmalade, mayonnaise, courgette, aubergine, cabbage, carrot, cherrycolours mauve, beige, maroon, blue, orange, violet, turquoiseinventions & discoveries

cinema, television, helicopter, parachute, harmonium, chlorophyll, pterodactyl, oxide, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, photography, stethoscope, thermometer

recent ambiance, barrage, bourgeoisie, brochure, bureau, café, catalogue, chandelier, chauffeur, collage, crèche, critique, décor, dénouement, depot

For a GCSE learner the main practical point of this study is to become aware of all the 'French' words in English. No doubt it would be possible to create a teaching course whose French vocabulary consisted of nothing but words which, in a sense, English learners already know and use. But, of course, the words concerned aren't really French, despite their historical roots. Every one has been modified to some degree, and some to such a degree that their relation to their equivalent in Modern French is hard to recognise. But notwithstanding these complexities and details, it is always worth staying alert for English cognates of unfamiliar French words.