Clitic Order
The French personal pronouns except disjunctive ones are all clitics, and phonologically attached to the verb or to the auxiliary verb if any. The word order of the pronominal clitics and the negative clitic ne is strictly determined as follows. Only one clitic can be used for each slot.
- Proclitic order
- Slots 3 and 5 cannot coexist.
| Number | Person | Slot | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 8 | ||
| Nom | Neg | Obj | COD | COI | Loc | de | ||
| Singular | 1st | je | me | |||||
| 2nd | tu | te | ||||||
| 3rd | il | le | lui | y | en | |||
| elle | la | |||||||
| on | se | |||||||
| Plural | 1st | nous | nous | |||||
| 2nd | vous | vous | ||||||
| 3rd | ils | les | leur | |||||
| elles | ||||||||
| ne | ||||||||
- Enclitic order
- This order is used only for positive imperatives. Slots 5 and 6 cannot coexist.
| Number | Person | Slot | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | ||||
| COD | COI | Obj | Loc | de | ||||
| Singular | 1st | -moi1 | ||||||
| 2nd | -toi1 | |||||||
| 3rd | -le | -lui | (-z)-y1 | (-z)-en1 | ||||
| -la | ||||||||
| Plural | 1st | -nous | ||||||
| 2nd | -vous | |||||||
| 3rd | -les | -leur | ||||||
- The clitics -moi and -toi become -m' and -t' respectively when followed by either -en or -y. In colloquial French, however, it is possible to keep -moi and -toi intact and change -en and -y to -z-en and -z-y respectively, or, to put slot 6 after slot 8.
- ex. The imperative sentences corresponding to « Tu m'en donnes »:
- « Donne-m'en. » /dɔn.mɑ̃/ (formal)
- « Donne-moi-z-en. » /dɔn.mwa.zɑ̃/ (informal)
- « Donnes-en-moi. » /dɔn.zɑ̃.mwa/ (informal)
Read more about this topic: French Personal Pronouns
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“We must know, if only in order to learn not to know. The supreme lesson of human consciousness is to learn how not to know. That is, how not to interfere.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)