Agreement with French Compound Verbs

Accord avec les verbes composés

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If you're familiar with the passé composé, you know that certain French verbs have to agree with their subjects. In addition, you may know that this is true for all compound verb tenses and moods. What you may not be aware of is that some verbs require agreement not with the subject of the sentence, but with the direct object. This issue of agreement can be rather tricky, so here is a thorough but (hopefully) accessible explanation. 

When dealing with French compound verb constructions, there are three kinds of agreement.

A.	Agreement with subject
	1.	Être verbs
		When conjugating être verbs (aller, venir, tomber, etc.) in the passé composé or another compound verb form, the past participle must agree in gender and number with the subject of the sentence.
		Elle est allée.	She went.
		Nous étions arrivés.	We had arrived.
		Elles sont venues.	They came.
		Ils seront retournés.	They will have returned.
	2.	Passive voice
		Likewise, verbs conjugated in the passive voice must agree in gender and number with their subject - not their agent.
		Les voitures sont lavées par mon fils.	The cars are washed by my son.
		Ma mère est aimée de tous mes amis.	My mother is loved by all my friends.
		Les livres sont lus par les étudiants.	The books are read by the students.
B.	Agreement with direct object
	Avoir verbs: The majority of French verbs are conjugated with avoir in the compound tenses and do not agree with their subjects. However, avoir verbs require agreement with their direct objects or direct object pronouns when these precede the verb. (There is no agreement when the direct object follows the verb or with an indirect object.)
		Il a vu Marie. / Il l'a vue.	He saw Marie. / He saw her.
		Elle a acheté des livres. / Elle les a achetés.	She bought some books. / She bought them.
		As-tu lu les livres que j'ai achetés?	Have you read the books I bought.
		Tu avais perdu les clés. / Tu les avais perdues.	You had lost the keys. / You had lost them.
		J'ai trouvé les clés que tu avais perdues.	I found the keys that you had lost.
	Exception: There is no direct object agreement with the causative.
		Il les a fait travailler.	He made them work.
C.	Agreement with direct object/subject
	Pronominal verbs: Pronominal verbs are a combination of all of the above. All pronominal verbs take être in the compound tenses, but the past participles do not necessarily agree with their subjects. When the reflexive pronoun is the direct object of the sentence, the past participle must agree with it (the direct object and subject are one and the same).
		Elle s'est couchée à minuit.	She went to bed at midnight.
		Ils se sont arrêtés à la banque.	They stopped at the bank.
		Ana, tu t'es lavée ?	Ana, did you wash (yourself)?
	However, when the reflexive pronoun is the indirect object, the past participle does not agree. In the examples below, the direct object is in red and the indirect object is in black. As with avoir verbs, there is no agreement when the direct object follows the verb.
		Ils se sont dit la vérité.	They told each other the truth.
		Je me suis acheté un livre.	I bought myself a book.
		Ana, tu t'es lavé les cheveux ?	Ana, did you wash your hair?
	For certain verbs, the reflexive pronoun is always an indirect object, and therefore the past participle never changes to agree with it. *Note that many of these verbs are reciprocal: to ___ (to) one another.
	s'acheter to buy (for) oneself   se plaire (à faire...) to enjoy (doing) se demander to wonder se promettre* to promise se dire* to say se rendre compte de  to realize se donner* to give se rendre visite* to visit each other s'écrire* to write se ressembler* to resemble se faire mal to hurt oneself se rire (de qqun) to mock (someone) s'imaginer to imagine, think se sourire* to smile se parler* to talk se téléphoner* to call Note that if a sentence has two objects, the reflexive pronoun is always the indirect object. Nous nous sommes dit la vérité. We told each other the truth. Nous nous la sommes dite. (1) We told it to each other. Elle s'est acheté les livres. She bought herself the books. Elle se les est achetés. (2) She bought them for herself. (1) The past participle agrees with the direct object la vérité, not with the subject nous or the indirect object nous. (2) The past participle agrees with the direct object les livres, not with the subject elle or the indirect object se.

  

Test on Agreement

Grammar glossary     Object pronouns     More agreement

Compound verbs     Passive voice     Être verbs     Pronominal verbs

French Grammar     French Verbs

  

  

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