3.9 The perfect with être — and the agreement — Epoché
What you will be able to do Name the small closed set of verbs that build the perfect with the auxiliary for being rather than the one for having, and say what they have in common. Make the past participle agree with the subject in gender and number, which means adding one or two letters that are very often silent. Build the perfect of a reflexive verb, which always takes that auxiliary, and see why that rule has no exceptions. Understand why English has nothing of the kind, and why that makes agreement a matter of deliberate attention rather than of instinct for you. Sentences from this lesson, before the explanation. Read the French aloud; all of them come back below. French English Je suis allé. [1] I have gone. Je suis parti. [2] I have gone. Il est arrivé. [3] It arrived. Il est parti. [4] He walked away. Il est descendu. [5] He came downstairs. Prerequisites : 3.8 — you must be able to build the perfect with the auxiliary for having and know that lesson's participles, because only the auxiliary and the endings change here. You also need the present of the verb for being from lesson 3.2. In 3.8 the participle was invariable. Here it behaves like an adjective and takes endings for gender and number. English has nothing like it — no she has gone in which gone changes shape for a female subject — so there is no instinct to transfer. It is a new piece of machinery, but a small one. Two things change and nothing else does: the auxiliary is the verb for being, for a short list of verbs and all reflexives, and the participle agrees with the subject. The participles, the word order, the negative and the questions are unchanged. This is the same tense with a different auxiliary. The fourteen verbs, and what they have in common The list is closed, short and not arbitrary. Nearly every verb on it is motion from one place to another or change from one state to another: going, coming, arriving, leaving, entering, going out, going up, going down, being born, dying, staying, falling, returning, passing by. Many come in pairs of opposites, which is the best way to memorise them. These verbs describe a change of position or state, not an action performed on something. Historically the construction described a resulting state: he is arrived meant he was now in the condition of having arrived — so the participle agreed, as an adjective would. The construction hardened into a past tense, but the agreement stayed, a fossil of the older meaning. English had the same construction, and traces survive. He is gone still means something subtly different from he has gone ; winter is come and the time is arrived are archaic but comprehensible; Christ is risen is fixed in liturgy. English then generalised have to everything; French kept the old pattern for one list. The pattern is not foreign to English so much as obsolete in it. Learn the list as pairs of opposites, and add the compounds for free: verbs built from verbs on the list with a prefix — coming back, becoming, going back in — take the same auxiliary as their base. That gives you around twenty verbs for the price of fourteen. Every other verb takes the other auxiliary unless it is reflexive. One warning. A few of these verbs can take a direct object — going up a staircase, going down a street, taking the dog out, passing an examination — and then they take the other auxiliary and the participle no longer agrees with the subject. With a direct object placed after the verb it does not change at all; with one placed before the auxiliary it agrees with that object, as lesson 3.8 explains. The rule is about the construction, not the word: with a direct object, the auxiliary of lesson 3.8; without one, the auxiliary of this lesson. Table The paradigm first, with one verb from the list, in the masculine. The participle now has an ending in the plural. Person Auxiliary + participle 1 sg je suis allé 2 sg tu es allé 3 sg il est allé 1 pl nous sommes allés 2 pl vous êtes allés 3 pl ils sont allés Person The same, with a feminine subject 1 sg je suis allée 2 sg tu es allée 3 sg elle est allée 1 pl nous sommes allées 2 pl vous êtes allées 3 pl elles sont allées The difference between the two tables is one letter, and it is silent. That is the central practical fact: for most participles, agreement is invisible to the ear and visible only on the page. Subject What is added to the participle masculine singular nothing feminine singular one letter, silent masculine plural one letter, silent feminine plural both letters, both silent That is the whole rule — the same one adjectives follow. A mixed group counts as masculine plural, however many women are in it and however few men; grammarians have argued about that convention for centuries, and it remains the standard. Now the list. Learn it down the left column in pairs. Verb Meaning · its opposite on the list aller to go — paired with the verb for coming venir to come — paired with the verb for going arriver to arrive — paired with the verb for leaving partir to leave — paired with the verb for arriving entrer to go in — paired with the verb for going out sortir to go out — paired with the verb for going in monter to go up — paired with the verb for going down descendre to go down — paired with the verb for going up naître to be born — paired with the verb for dying mourir to die — paired with the verb for being born rester to stay — paired with the verb for leaving tomber to fall — no opposite on the list retourner to go back — paired with the verb for going passer to pass by, to go past — no opposite on the list Most of their participles follow the regular patterns of lesson 3.8. Three participles need attention: two are irregular, and one is easy to misspell. Verb Participle naître , to be born né mourir , to die mort venir , to come venu How to read the endings For most participles you hear nothing at all. A participle ending in a vowel — all of group one, all of group two and many irregulars — sounds the same in