French Grammar in Context

Form

The unstressed object pronouns are:

person singular plural direct/indirect

first me nous direct and indirect

second te, vous vous direct and indirect

third masc. (him, it, them) le les direct

neutral (it) le

fem. (her, it, them) la les

masc., fem., mixed lui leur indirect

reflexive, reciprocal se se direct and indirect

There are numerous examples in the text, e.g. se(line 2), leur(line 3), le(line 11).

3 WORD ORDER

Position of unstressed object pronouns

a Object pronouns appear immediately in front of main verbs in simple tenses, e.g. je les connais

(line 33). In compound tenses, object pronouns appear immediately in front of the auxiliary

avoiror être, e.g. je leur ai simplement appris(lines 3–4). In such cases, the past participle

agrees with any preceding direct object pronouns (see Chapter 2), but there is no agreement

here, because leuris an indirect object pronoun.

b When the object pronoun is governed by a verb in the infinitive, it comes immediately before

the infinitive, e.g. je peux le prouver(lines 11–12); après les avoir entendus(lines 36–7).

c With a positive imperative, object pronouns come immediately afterthe verb, and are

attached to it by a hyphen, e.g. faites-le(line 84). See also Chapter 19.

Order of unstressed object pronouns when more than one is present

When more than one object pronoun is present, the order of their appearance is as indicated in

the following table.

Position

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

me

te le lui y en

se la leur

nous les

vous

Examples from the text are: je vous l’affirme(line 11); nous pouvons toutes vous les révéler(lines

24–5); je vous les révèle(lines 33–4). For the order of pronouns in combination with positive

imperatives, see Chapter 19.

58 French Grammar in Context