Other points to note in the text- Past historic: in text 1 the past historic is used as a narrative tense, e.g. demandèrent(line 1);
proposa(line 35) (see Chapter 5)
In text 2 the past historic is used widely in spoken language which is not common, particularly
in the vousform, and is used here for stylistic reasons (see above, final paragraph of ‘complex
inversion’) e.g. qu’y remarquâtes-vous(line 8); où et quand le revîtes-vous (line 40) - Imperfect: there are numerous examples of the imperfect, both in text 1 and text 2 (see
Chapter 3) - Tenses after ‘si’: si tu avais(text 1, line 7); si j’avais(text 1, line 11);si j’avais eu... ç’aurait été
(text 1, lines 44–5) (see Chapter 7) - Pluperfect: je ne me l’étais pas posée(text 1, line 16); avaient réussi(text 1, line 41); j’avais eu
(text 1, line 44) (see Chapter 4) - Reflexive verbs: tu ne t’es jamais posé (text 1, line 14);je ne me l’étais pas posée (text 1, line
16); se termina(text 2, line 30) (see Chapter 20) - Infinitives:on m’a fait enfiler... reconstituer... sortir... trouver (text 1, lines 20–24); fait
faire(text 1, line 26); se faire suer(text 1, lines 39–40); il fallait se casser(text 1, line 38); s’avérer
être(text 2, line 17) (see Chapter 22) - Verbs withà and de + infinitive: commencait à s’énerver (text 1, line 34); avaient réussi à se
dégotter (text 1, line 41); consistaient à aller... et y rester (text 1, lines 42–3) (see Chapter 23) - Demonstratives:ce (text 2, lines 1, 28, 37);cet (text 2, lines 34, 38); cela(text 2, line 21) (see
Chapter 14) - Word order:
acompound tense + negative e.g.je ne me l’étais pas posée (text 1, line 16)
bcompound tense + question + negative e.g. tu ne t’es jamais posé (text 1, line 14)
cinversion after direct speech e.g.dit la femme(text 1, line 5) (see Chapter 30).
Discover more about interrogatives
USAGE
a Interrogative sentences of the comment/où/quandtype as seen in text 2 can also start with
pourquoi and combien
e.g. Pourquoi as-tu fait ça? Combien faut-il payer?
b Note that ‘-t-’ must be introduced between a verb ending with a vowel and a subject pronoun
also starting with a vowel (il, elle, on)
e.g. Combien le voyage va-t-il coûter?
c In formal style the simple inversion of subject pronoun and verb can be used to ask a
question, e.g.Revenez-vous l’an prochain?
d The pronoun qui can be used to start an interrogative sentence in the same way as que and
quoi.
e.g. Qui sera là demain?
Interrogatives 51