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French verb morphology

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Through Verb, Grammatical tense and Regular and irregular verbs

Stems and endings

French verbs have a large number of simple (one-word) forms. These are composed of two distinct parts: the stem (or root, or radix), which indicates which verb it is, and the ending (inflection), which indicates the verb's tense (imperfect, present, future etc.) and mood and its subject's person (I, you, he/she etc.) and number, though many endings can correspond to multiple tense-mood-subject combinations. In certain parts of the second conjugation there is also a suffix -iss- between the stem and the ending, which derives historically from an inchoative suffix.

  • In parlaient, the stem parl- indicates that the verb is parler (to speak) and the ending -aient marks the third-person plural imperfect indicative. "Third person plural" meaning the subject of the verb is "they". The "imperfect indicative" being a tense.
  • In finissons, the stem fin- indicates that the verb is finir (to finish), the suffix -iss- follows it, and the inflection -ons marks the first-person plural present indicative or imperative. The "first-person plural" is the "we" form of a verb. The "present indicative" being a tense and "imperative" being a mood, but in French they are indistinguishable without context.

These verb conjugations are most often coupled with a subject pronoun to reinforce who the subject of the verb is (i.e. who is doing the action). Note that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the stem from the ending, especially in irregular verbs such as avoir (to have), aller (to go), dire (to say), être (to be), faire (to do, make), pouvoir (can), savoir (to know), valoir (to be worth, to cost), and vouloir (to want):

  • Il va travailler. (He goes to work.)
  • Es-tu là ? (Are you there?)
  • Elle a rougi. (She blushed.)

In these examples, there is no obvious stem – the verbs conjugate without a stem.

The principle of the fixed stem

The stem normally stays fixed in the first two conjugations:

  • Parler: Je parlerais, tu parlas, qu'ils parlassent, que nous parlions, parlez...
  • Finir: Je finirais, vous finîtes, qu'ils finissent, finis, que nous finissions...

In the third it is often modified, sometimes even between persons in the same tense:

  • Vouloir: Je veux, tu veux, il veut, nous voulons, vous voulez, ils veulent.

But such irregularities apart, the principle is that nothing is removed from the stem. Consequently, verbs ending in -guer and -quer keep the -gu- or -qu- throughout the conjugation, even where simplifying this combination to -g- or -c- would be consistent with the rules of French orthography:

  • Naviguer: nous naviguons, je naviguais, en naviguant...
  • Provoquer: nous provoquons, je provoquais, en provoquant...

Adding to the stem to preserve the pronunciation

But although things are generally not removed from the stem, it is permissible to add letters when this is necessary. Certain stems can undergo various orthographic changes (which are not strictly speaking considered to be irregularities) in order to retain the correct pronunciation:

  • The -c- in certain stems receives a cedilla before any ending which would otherwise change its pronunciation:
Avancer: j'avance, nous avançons, j'avançais…
Apercevoir: j'aperçois, tu aperçus, nous apercevons…
  • The -g- in certain stems is followed by a silent -e- before any ending which would otherwise change its pronunciation:
Manger: je mange, nous mangeons, je mangeais, vous mangiez, en mangeant…

Endings (terminaisons)

The ending is a suffix which tells us:

  • For all verbs, the mood and the tense;
  • For finite verbs, the person and the number; and
  • For the past participle alone, the gender and the number.

Apart from a few frequent verbs which are considered totally irregular (mainly avoir, être, aller and faire), for each tense of each mood a series of six endings (one for each person singular and plural) is associated with a group or subgroup of verbs. Each of these series must now remain fixed throughout a single tense. Consequently, no ending may be modified even when orthographical simplification would be possible:

  • For example, when the verb stem ends in a vowel (crier, fuir, tuer, voir, etc.), the -e- of the ending may become silent but must still be written (in the present, future, and conditional):
Fuir (to flee), present subjunctive: que je fuie, que tu fuies, qu'il fuie, que nous fuyions, que vous fuyiez, qu'ils fuient…
Créer (to create), future indicative: je créerai, tu créeras, il créera, nous créerons, vous créerez, ils créeront…
  • Similarly, the imperfect indicative and present subjunctive endings for the first and second persons plural are -ions and -iez: for verbs such as gagner, voir, rire, briller, etc., the -i- of these endings must be retained, even though some speakers pronounce them the same way as the present indicative forms without -i-:
Nous gagnions (vs. gagnons), vous voyiez (vs. voyez), nous riions (vs. rions), vous brilliez (vs. brillez), …

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