Understanding gender with direct object pronoun

[Sean P]

Hello everyone,

(First of all I want to introduce myself - I am Sean and I'm currently studying French. I love the language and hope to live in France in the not too distant future. I look forward to using this forum and speaking to you all!)

My question...

I've been learning about direct, indirect and reflexive object pronouns and something struck me about the phrase "I love her/I love him".

Using the logic I have learnt I am forming this phrase as follows:

Je le + aime = Je l'aime (I love him), and

Je la + aime = Je l'aime (I love her).

Given that when you construct these expressions both the male and female form create the same expression when you allow for the l', I'm wondering how the French distinguish between whether you are saying you love him or her. Obviously in some contexts this will be obvious, but it in others it is likely there will be some ambiguity. If the phrase was the title of a book for example.

Is there something in the actual verb 'aime' that changes depending on whether it is masculine or feminine to remove ambiguity or is it left to the listener to imply the gender based on context?

I hope this makes sense.

Sean

[Chantal Savignat]

Hello

Nothing changes in the verb 'aime' depending on whether it's masculine or feminine. And nothing is different in the pronoun.

With only "Je l'aime" you can't know the gender of the person. It's only the context that can help you to know the gender.  We can add some words "cette fille, je l'aime" or "lui, je l'aime".

[Neil Coffey]

Thanks for your reply as usual, Chantal. One thing that occurs to me is: in answer to the OP's question about titles, this probably simply means in many cases that "Je l'aime" may not actually be suitable as a title-- in other words, as a title you'd end up choosing something else that avoided the ambiguity ("Le garçon que j'aime", "La fille que j'aime" etc).

[Chantal Savignat]

I think there are many cases.

- The writer wants to be clear, and says 'la fille que j'aime" or another word.

- The writer writes just "je l'aime" and it is a kind of mystery.

I look for a such title in France, and I find some books.

The first one is the Anna Gavalda's book  "je l'aimais". Nothing can show if it's a man or a woman who speaks, and who is the loved one. And even the title could speak about a man and his son or his mother or anyone else. And the cover gives no clue.  I read the back cover but there are no clue too.  So we need to read the book for understanding of the title.

An other is "Mais moi, je l'aime", but the picture is a couple, we don't know if it's the girl or the man who speaks. But the cover is for girls (with a lot of pink hearts and the girl is smiling an looking at the guy) so I think it's the girl who is speaking.

and others contains helping words.

[George Hunt]

To help with your English here is  an alternative version of what you wrote....

 

I think there are many examples.

- The writer wants to be clear, and says 'la fille que j'aime" or uses  another word.

- The writer writes just "je l'aime" and it is a kind of mystery.

I looked for such a  title in France, and I  found some books.

The first one is the Anna Gavalda's book  "je l'aimais". It is unclear if it's a man or a woman who speaks, and who is the loved one. And even the title could  refer to  a man and his son or his mother or anyone else. And the cover gives no clue.  I read the back cover but there are no clues there either .  So we need to read the book for an understanding of the title.

Another is "Mais moi, je l'aime", but the picture is of a couple, and we don't know if it's the girl or the man who speaks. But the cover is  (intended) for girls (with a lot of pink hearts and the girl is smiling and looking at the guy) so I think it's the girl who is speaking.

and others contain  helpful words.

[Chantal Savignat]

Thank you very much George. English is difficult ;-)

[Sean P]

Thank you for your replies. 

From an English point of view I was trying to think if we have anything similiar to this, in terms of gender ambiguity. The only thing I can think of is 'them', as in "I love them", but even that is quite different to the original problem of her or him (which is intended to be directed at a person directly).

It is certainly useful to know that the French would often engineer a phrase to avoid the ambiguity, but I can imagine that the ambiguity can provide quite a compelling air of mystery in a work of literature, as you suggested Chantal.

[George Hunt]

In English ,when we say " his" or "her" we make it clear what is the gender of the posssessor.

In French  ("son","sa" or "ses") you have to work that  out from the context since the form of the possessive adjective has its (gender identifying) work cut out simply indicating the gender of  the noun it is attached to...

[Sean P]

Hi George, ah yes that's right, the possesive adjective relates to the NOUN's gender (vs. the person). I guess with this difference it is about listening to as much French as possible to try and become familiar with how the French articulate the person's gender in a sentence.