[help]- agreements, passe compose

[Peter En]

Vincent et moi avons discuté des enquêtes scientifiques que nous avons étudiées, qui montrent la capacité naturelle des enfants à apprendre les langues très facilement.

 

My area of concern is: "nous avons étudiées"

 

why does etudier in the passe compose form agree?

I may have forgotten but i thought that the passe compose doesn't agree in gender or in number?

 

thanks

[Neil Coffey]

Yes, the past participle can agree depending on the circumstances. A quick reminder:

- with être, the past participle always agrees with the subject (e.g. elle est venue)

- with reflexive verbs, the past participle usually agrees with the subject as well (elle s'est lavée)

- with avoir, the part participle usually does not agree, and absolutely never agrees for intransitive verbs (elle a dormi)

So, to cover the "usually" cases, there is another rule to bear in mind:

The written norm is to make past participles agree with the direct object if it comes before the verb.

So the reason for the agreement in the case you menion is that "enquêtes", feminine plural, is the direct object of "étudier" in this case (and it comes before the verb). If it had been after the verb, then there would be no agreement:

  Nous avons étudié les enquêtes.

This is a rule largely relevant to formal writing. In speech, it hardly ever makes a difference anyway. Practically no past participle is pronounced differently depending on its number and gender, though among the few instances, common examples would be écrit, dit and assis. So the chances in speech of happening upon a case where the direct object is before the verb and you happen to be using a past participle that chances its pronunciation are fairly slim. However, in those rare cases, you will find variation as to whether the participle agrees. For example in:

  Voilà toutes les lettre que j'ai écrit(es).

many speakers would spontaneously say "écrit", but in formal writing, the norm would be to write "écrites".

Notice that it is specifically the direct object with which the participle agrees. So you need to be careful to avoid hypercorrections. The norm is to not make the agreement, for example, in these cases:

  Pendant les trois heures que j'ai attendu, (not attendues: trois heures isn't actually a direct object)

  À quelle fille as-tu téléphoné? (à quelle fille is an indirect, not direct, object)

  Avec toute la pluie qu'il y a eu (not eue: the "existential" construction il y a is considered not to take a direct object)

Now, this rule applies to "avoir verbs" and it also more or less applies to reflexive verbs. Remember that the usual case of a reflexive verb is that the subject and direct object are effectively the same. So in effect, you usually make the past participle agree with the subject to all intents and purposes.

But, there are a few cases of reflexive verbs where the object ("reflexive pronoun") is actually indirect. And in such cases, the rule for agreement is essentially as for avoir verbs: the agreement is made specifically with the direct object if it comes before the verb:

  Ils se sont dit que... - no agreement on "dit", because "se" is an indirect, not direct object, and there's no other direct object for it to agree with.

  Les injures qu'ils se sont dites - "les injures" is the direct object, it is feminine plural and comes before the verb, hence "dites"

Now, you don't usually need to be paranoid about all this. As you can see, they're fairly rare cases. As far as everyday speech is concerned, then most of the time, you can quite happily go about your business assuming that the p.p. never agrees with avoir and that it always agrees with the subject with reflexive verbs. But as far as formal writing is concerned, it's worth trying to get to grips with these rules at some point.

[Peter En]

thank you so much this is extremely useful