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ILTS World Language: French (252) study materials
ILTS World Language: French (252) study resources

ILTS World Language: French (252): Language Structures, Linguistics, and Error Analysis

ILTS World Language: French (252) · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

Language Structures, Linguistics, and Error Analysis

This domain tests explicit knowledge of French phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, usually through error analysis or by asking you to explain a form. You must be able to name the rule, not simply judge what "sounds right".

Core rules

  • Past participle agreement. With être (including pronominal verbs), the participle agrees with the subject: Elle est partie. With avoir, it agrees only with a preceding direct object: Les lettres que j'ai écrites but J'ai écrit les lettres.
  • Subjunctive triggers: il faut que, bien que, pour que, avant que, douter que, and superlative or le seul qui… constructions.
  • Negation and pronoun order: ne + pronoun(s) + verb + pas - Je ne le lui ai pas dit. In informal speech ne drops but the pronouns stay.
  • Phonology: four nasal vowels (in, an, on, un); liaison is obligatory after determiners (les_amis) and forbidden after et; elision and schwa deletion shape casual speech.
  • Time and aspect: depuis + present for an ongoing action (Je travaille ici depuis 2020), pendant for a completed span, il y a for a point in the past.

Worked example

Sentence: « Les décisions qu'il a prises sont contestées. » Is prises correct? Reasoning: the auxiliary is avoir; locate the direct object - qu' stands for les décisions and precedes the verb, so agreement applies, adding -s for feminine plural. Yes, prises is correct. If the sentence were Il a pris les décisions, no agreement would occur.

Traps

Agreeing with avoir merely because the subject is feminine; forgetting agreement in pronominal verbs (Elle s'est lavée versus Elle s'est lavé les mains); using the indicative after bien que; confusing où with ou and sa with ça; misusing depuis with the passé composé for an action still continuing.