French Grammar in Context

the passé composé (lines 18–19)

the past participle (lines 15, 17, 20, 25, 36, 56, 57, 64).

b The past participles agree in gender and in number with the subject of the sentence.

e.g. Latechnique de la BD était alors bien définie (lines 9–10)

Lescouleurs, elles, sont décomposées(lines 11–12)

3 AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE PASSIVE

Reflexive verbs can be used as an alternative to the passive (see Chapter 20).
e.g. Mais comme dans toutes les restaurations se posele problème...(= est posé) (lines 66–7)

Other points to note in the text

• Pouvoir/devoir + infinitive: le problème de ce qu’on peut corriger et ce qu’on doit laisser (lines
  67–9) (see Chapter 24)


• The imperfect as a narrative tense: sortaient (line 9) (see Chapter 3)


• The present as a narrative tense: met (line 22) (see Chapter 1)


• Agreement of the past participle: there are numerous examples in the text. Note in particular la
  case que Hergé a oublié de refermer (lines 73–4) (see Chapter 2)


• Marron as an adjective is invariable (line 77) (see Chapter 16)

Discover more about the passive

1 OTHER TENSES AND VERB FORMS CAN BE USED IN THE PASSIVE

These include:

the infinitive être publié

the present participle étant publié

the present conditional il serait publié

the past conditional il aurait été publié

the pluperfect il avait été publié

the present subjunctive qu’il soit publié

the past subjunctive qu’il ait été publié

2 CASES WHERE THE PASSIVE CANNOT BE USED

There are cases where the passive is commonly used in English but cannot be used in French.
This depends on the verb construction.

In English an indirect object of an active sentence can become the subject of a passive. In the
sentence ‘They gave the child a present’, ‘the child’ is the indirect object. It can become the subject
of the passive sentence: ‘The child was given a present’. In French this construction is unacceptable.

The passive 135