ILTS World Language: French (252) key terms

A French verb mood used in a dependent clause to express doubt, necessity, emotion, or wish rather than stated fact, formed from the third-person plural stem plus endings -e, -es, -e, -ions, -iez, -ent.

The French verb mood that presents an action as real or factual, covering tenses such as présent, imparfait, passé composé, futur simple, and plus-que-parfait in main and certain subordinate clauses.

A past tense describing ongoing, habitual, or background situations, formed from the nous-stem of the present plus endings -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient, and often contrasted with the passé composé for completed events.

A compound past tense built with avoir or être in the present plus a past participle, used for completed past actions; with être verbs the participle agrees with the subject in gender and number.

The rule governing past participle agreement: with être it agrees with the subject, with avoir only with a preceding direct object, and reflexive verbs follow special conditions depending on the pronoun's function.

A verb conjugated with a reflexive pronoun (me, te, se, nous, vous, se) that may be reflexive, reciprocal, or idiomatic, as in se laver, s'écrire, or se souvenir, requiring attention to pronoun placement and agreement.

The attachment of a pronoun to a verb with a hyphen in affirmative imperatives, as in donne-le-moi or vas-y, contrasted with pronoun placement before the verb in other constructions.

The fixed sequence of object pronouns before a French verb, generally subject, then me/te/se/nous/vous, then le/la/les, then lui/leur, then y, then en, as in il me le donne.

French adverbial pronouns: y replaces a place or a preposition plus thing (à, dans, sur), while en replaces a partitive or de plus noun; both occupy a fixed slot in pronoun order.

The article du, de la, de l', or des used before an uncountable noun to express an unspecified quantity, as in boire du café, and replaced by de in negative sentences.

The French construction wrapping the conjugated verb with ne and a second element such as pas, jamais, rien, personne, or plus; in informal speech ne is often dropped.

The construction ne... que, meaning only, which is not a true negation and therefore keeps the partitive article, as in je ne bois que de l'eau.

A word such as que, quand, parce que, or pendant que that introduces a subordinate clause; certain conjunctions like bien que or pour que require the subjunctive in the dependent clause.

The rules aligning tense in a subordinate clause with the tense of the main verb, for example present main verb plus present subjunctive versus past main verb plus imperfect subjunctive or conditional.

Reported speech introduced by a verb like dire or demander, requiring shifts in pronouns, possessives, and tenses, and using si or que as the linking word depending on whether the original was a question.

A compound conditional formed with avoir or être in the conditional plus a past participle, expressing unrealized past outcomes, regrets, or journalistic claims, as in j'aurais voulu venir.

The system of si-clauses in French: si plus present with future, present, or imperative; si plus imparfait with conditional present; si plus plus-que-parfait with conditional past; never si plus conditional.

The grammatical marking of how an action unfolds over time, such as completed versus ongoing, which in French is largely carried by tense choice like passé composé versus imparfait rather than by a separate verb form.

The pronunciation of a normally silent final consonant before a following vowel-initial word within the same rhythmic group, as in les amis, subject to obligatory, optional, and forbidden contexts.

The dropping of a final vowel, usually e or a, before a vowel-initial word and its replacement by an apostrophe, as in l'école, j'aime, or jusqu'à.

The linking of a pronounced final consonant to a following vowel-initial word so the syllable boundary shifts, as in elle arrive pronounced as one continuous sequence, distinct from liaison.

A French vowel produced with airflow through the nose, as in bon, banc, pain, and brun; the distinction between un and in is lost in many varieties, and a following nasal consonant blocks nasality.

A vowel produced with the velum raised so air escapes only through the mouth, contrasting with nasal vowels; French oral vowels include the rounded front vowels and the schwa.

The loss of nasality when a nasal vowel is followed by a nasal consonant in the same word or by a vowel in a derived form, as in bon versus bonne or paysan versus paysanne.

The mid-central rounded vowel written e in unstressed positions, which may be dropped or retained depending on the surrounding consonant cluster and register, as in le and petit.

The written e that may be pronounced as schwa or silent depending on position, notably at word end or before a vowel, affecting syllable count in poetry and casual speech.

The study of rhythm, stress, and intonation in speech; French is characterized by final-syllable group stress and relatively even syllable timing compared with stress-timed languages like English.

A sense group pronounced as a unit with stress on its final syllable, often corresponding to a noun phrase or prepositional phrase; liaison and schwa behavior operate within it.

The pitch pattern of an utterance; French marks statements with falling pitch, yes-no questions with rising pitch, and wh-questions with falling pitch, with emphasis achieved by pitch range rather than stress.

The global community of French-speaking countries and regions, including France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, much of West and Central Africa, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean, with varied status and usage.

Differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and usage across French-speaking areas, such as Quebecois terms like fin de semaine versus French week-end, or Belgian septante for seventy.

The level of formality in language use, ranging from soutenu through courant to familier, affecting vocabulary, syntax, and pronunciation such as ne-dropping or question formation.

A French slang formed by reversing syllables of words, as in meuf from femme or keuf from flic, associated with youth and urban speech and often appearing in contemporary literature and film.

Nonstandard vocabulary used by a social group, often to mark identity or secrecy, historically associated with criminal circles but now widespread in informal French speech and popular culture.

A fully developed language that emerged from contact between French and substrate languages in colonial settings, as in Haitian Creole, Martinican Creole, and Réunion Creole, with distinct grammar and orthography.

A stable situation in which two language varieties coexist in a community with different functions, one high-status and one low-status, as historically between French and Creole in the Antilles.

A close-reading method taught in French schools that examines a literary extract's structure, lexicon, figures of style, and effects to build an organized interpretive commentary.