French Grammar in Context

182 French Grammar in Context

Other points to note in the text

• Demonstrative pronouns: celle-ci (line 2); celle (line 6) (see Chapter 14)


• Pronouns: y (line 9) and en (lines 8, 9) (see Chapter 10)


• Perfect infinitive: l’avoir vu (line 5) (see Chapter 22)


• Comparative: plus... moins (line 9) (see Chapter 18)

Discover more about the imperfect subjunctive

1 USE OF TENSES

In less formal French the sequence of tenses outlined above is not observed. The present

subjunctive is used in the subordinate clause instead of the imperfect subjunctive, e.g. Je craignais

qu’il ne lui arrive (instead of arrivât) un accident (I was afraid that he might have an accident).

2 FORMATION

Since the imperfect subjunctive of avoir and être is used quite frequently, both independently and

as an auxiliary to form the pluperfect subjunctive (see next section), it is important to learn all

the forms listed here.

Avoir Être

j’eusse je fusse

tu eusses tu fusses

il/elle eût il/elle fût

nous eussions nous fussions

vous eussiez vous fussiez

ils/elles eussent ils/elles fussent

See for further information: Coffman Crocker, pp. 215–16

Ferrar, pp. 50, 97–9

Hawkins and Towell, pp. 163, 262–3

Judge and Healey, pp. 150–1, 221–2

L’Huillier, pp. 159–62

Price, pp. 383–6

Turk and Vandaele, pp. 219–20

EXERCISE

Fill in the gaps in the following sentences with the appropriate form of the imperfect subjunctive.

Note that these are all literary extracts. What do you notice about the person of the verb in all

the examples?