French Grammar - Pronouns

Pronouns

In French, pronouns can be inflected to indicate their role in a clause (subject, direct object, etc.), as well as the person, gender, and number of their referent. Not all of these inflections may be present at once; for example, the relative pronoun que (that, which, whom) may have any referent, while the possessive pronoun le mien (mine) may have any role in a clause.

As noted above, French — like English — is a non-pro-drop ("pronoun-dropping") language; therefore, pronouns feature prominently in the language. Impersonal verbs (e.g., pleuvoirto rain) use the impersonal pronoun il (analogous to English it).

The French object pronouns are all clitics, and some appear so consistently — especially in everyday speech — that some have commented that French could almost be considered to demonstrate polypersonal agreement.

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Famous quotes containing the word pronouns:

    In the meantime no sense in bickering about pronouns and other parts of blather.
    Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)