User:CapnPrep/French verbs (sb)

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These sections should be rewritten to make the conditional a mood, not a tense, in line with standard terminology.

Contents 1 Moods 2 Tenses and aspects 2.1 Tenses and aspects of the indicative mood 2.2 Tenses and aspects of the subjunctive mood 2.3 Tenses and aspects in other verb forms

[edit] Moods

Finite verbs in French can express four moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional. While the rules that determine the correct mood are quite complex, they are simplified and summarized in the following table:

indicative	used in most independent clauses used in affirmative and negative statements and questions used in dependent clauses that are certainly true used when no other mood applies	Où êtes-vous ? ("Where are you?") Je suis ici. ("I am here.")
imperative	used in commands and requests only possible with first-person plural and second-person singular and plural subject the subject is implied almost exactly as in English	Fais tes devoirs ! ("Do your homework!")
subjunctive	used in many dependent clauses used to express a doubtful, desired, or requested event used to express an event to which the reaction is of most significance used to express a third-person imperative used much more than in English	Il se peut qu'il vienne demain. ("It may be that he'll come tomorrow.") J'ai demandé qu'il parte. ("I asked that he leave.") Je suis heureux qu'il soit venu. ("I'm glad that he came.") Vive le roi ! ("Long live the king!")
conditional	used in an apodosis when the protasis is contrary to fact (in the imperfect) used to describe a past event from the standpoint of an even-earlier event mostly the same as in English, except that it is a simple (one-word) tense in French	Si je le savais, je te le dirais. ("If I knew it, I would tell you.") Ils dirent que je réussirais. ("They said that I would succeed.")

As illustrated by the examples above, the grammatical moods indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional are most often expressed using the conjugational forms known as indicatif, impératif, subjonctif, and conditionnel, respectively. The correspondence is not exact, however. For example, it is also possible to express an imperative using a subjonctif or an infinitival form. And in the other direction, a conditionnel form does not always express conditional semantics.

[edit] Tenses and aspects

[edit] Tenses and aspects of the indicative mood

The indicative mood has five "simple" (synthetic) tenses: the present (le présent), the simple past (le passé simple), the imperfect (l'imparfait), the future (le futur), and the conditional (le conditionnel). Note that, as discussed above, the conditional can be considered a separate mood completely, rather than a tense of the indicative. The use of the various tenses is described in the following table:

present	used to describe ongoing events in the present sometimes used to describe upcoming events used in a protasis (if-clause) when the apodosis (then-clause) is in the future tense or imperative mode often used in describing historical events much like in English, except that there is no continuous aspect marker	Le mardi, je joue au tennis. ("On Tuesdays, I play tennis.") En ce moment, je joue au tennis. ("At the moment, I'm playing tennis.") Demain, je joue au tennis avec Marc. ("Tomorrow, I'm playing tennis with Marc.") Si je joue au tennis avec vous mardi, jouerez-vous aux échecs avec moi mercredi ? ("If I play tennis with you on Tuesday, will you play chess with me on Wednesday?")
simple past	used to describe past events in a perfective or aorist aspect; that is, with a sense of completion, with a definite beginning and end a literary tense that is very rarely used in spoken language	Et la lumière fut. ("And there was light.") Il naquit 1930 et mourut 1998. ("He was born in 1930 and died in 1998.") Hier, il plut. ("Yesterday, it rained.")
imperfect	used to describe past events or situations in an imperfective aspect; that is, ongoing, repetitive, or habitual past events or situations often used in conjunction with the simple or compound past to indicate an event that was ongoing while another took place used in a contrary-to-fact protasis (with the apodosis in the conditional) often analogous to English past continuous ("was doing") or to the construction "used to do"	Quand j'étais jeune, j'habitais à Paris. ("When I was young, I lived in Paris.") Il rangea la salle tandis qu'elle faisait la vaisselle. ("He cleaned the room while she was washing the dishes.") Si je le savais, je te le dirais. ("If I knew [it], I would tell you.")
future	used to describe future events mostly the same as in English, except that it is a simple (one-word) tense in French	Je le ferai demain. ("I'll do it tomorrow.")

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Additionally, the indicative has five compound (two-word) tenses, each of which results from applying the perfect aspect (e.g., "have done") to one of the above simple tenses. These tenses are used to indicate events prior to the corresponding simple tenses; for example, « À ce moment-là, il se souvint de ce qu'il avait promis » ("At that moment, he remembered what he had promised"). In addition, except in literature or very formal speeches, the present perfect is used in modern French wherever the simple past would have been used in older or more literary writing. Since this use is much more common than its use as a true present perfect, it is usually called the compound past (le passé composé). Further, where older or more literary French would have used the perfect aspect of the simple past tense (le passé antérieur), modern non-literary French uses the pluperfect (le plus-que-parfait; the perfect aspect of the imperfect tense), or sometimes a new form called the surcomposé (literally, "over-compound"), which re-applies the perfect aspect to the compound past, resulting in a structure like « Je l'ai eu fait » (literally, "I it have had done").

Unlike English or Spanish, French does not mark for a continuous aspect. Thus, "I am doing it" (continuous) and "I do it" (not) both translate to the same sentence in French: « Je le fais. » However, this information is often clear from context; and when not, it can be conveyed using periphrasis; for example, the expression être en train de [faire quelque chose] ("to be in the middle of [doing something]") is often used to convey the sense of a continuous aspect. (For example, "I'm doing it" might be expressed as « Je suis en train de le faire », "I'm in the middle of doing it.") In the case of the past tense, neither the simple nor the compound past tense is ever used with a continuous sense; therefore, the imperfect often indicates a continuous sense (though it does have other uses, as discussed above).

Similarly to English, the verb aller (to go) can be used as an auxiliary verb to create a near-future tense (le futur proche). Whereas English uses the continuous aspect (to be going), French uses the simple present tense; for example, the English sentence "I'm going to do it tomorrow" would in French be « Je vais le faire demain » (literally, "I go it to do tomorrow"). As in English, this form can generally be replaced by the present or future tense: "I'm doing it tomorrow", "I'll do it tomorrow", « Je le fais demain », « Je le ferai demain ».

[edit] Tenses and aspects of the subjunctive mood

The subjunctive mood has only two simple tenses: a present (le présent du subjonctif) and an imperfect (l'imparfait du subjonctif). Of these, only the present is used nowadays; like the simple past indicative, the imperfect subjunctive is only found in older and more literary works. When both tenses are used, there is no difference in meaning between the two; the present is used in subordinate clauses whose main clauses are in a present or future tense, as well as in the few main clauses that use the subjunctive, and the imperfect is used in subordinate clauses whose main clauses are in a past tense (other than present perfect). Except in literature and very formal speeches, modern French uses the present subjunctive wherever an older or more literary work would use the imperfect.

As with the indicative, the subjunctive also has one compound tense for each simple tense. The difference between the present perfect subjunctive (le passé du subjonctif) and the pluperfect subjunctive (le plus-que-parfait du subjonctif) is analogous to the difference between the present subjunctive and imperfect subjunctive; of the two, only the present perfect subjunctive is found in modern French.

[edit] Tenses and aspects in other verb forms

The tenses and aspects of other verb forms are mostly as in English, except for the lack of a continuous aspect marking:

• The imperative only has a present tense, with a rarely-used perfect aspect: "fais-le" means "do it," while "aie-le fait" means "have done it."
• The infinitive has a present tense, with a perfect aspect: "faire" means "to do," while "avoir fait" means "to have done."
• There is a present participle, with a perfect aspect: "faisant" means "doing," while "ayant fait" means "having done." As noted above, this participle is not used in forming a continuous aspect. Further, it cannot be used as a noun, in the way that present participles in English have the same form as gerunds; the only noun verbal is the infinitive.
• There is a separate past participle: "fait" means "done." As in English, it can be used in the passive voice, in the perfect aspect, or on its own as an adjective. The past participle has no perfect aspect, except arguably in the special surcomposée tense described above.
• There is a gérondif ("gerundive," but different from the Latin gerundive), formed with the clitic en and the present participle: "en faisant" means "by doing" or "while doing." (It is analogous to the English "in doing," but in English, since "doing" can act as a noun, "in doing" is taken as a prepositional phrase rather than as a separate verb form. That interpretation is not available for "en faisant.") Similarly, "en ayant fait" means "by having done."