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Our teacher said the following sentence is not correct but I can not figure out what is wrong with it

Les hommes qui se sont aimés et se sont succédés

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    What do you want to say ? What is the context ? This sentence alone is weird, it has to be followed by something...
    – Random
    Nov 19, 2015 at 15:52
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    As given correctly by @Begueradj , “se sont succédé” should not end in “S” as it does in your example. I think your teacher is trying to determine how well you know the rules/exceptions of gender/plural agreement of past participles (L’accord du participe passé) found here, especially when used with reflexive verbs (see the 4th bolded section, which even contains an example using the verb “se succéder” [the past participle of which, according to my trusty “Le Robert-Micro” is always/invariably “succédé,” with no ‘s’ or ‘e’]).
    – Papa Poule
    Nov 19, 2015 at 22:52
  • I hope they did not work in a sucette business empire, those hommes.you are technically not supposed to mix business and leisure.
    – bandybabboon
    Apr 25, 2019 at 4:17
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    @PapaPoule > Correct me if I'm wrong, but reflexive (se succéder) or not (succéder), this verb is always intransitive, no ?
    – Laurent S.
    Apr 25, 2019 at 11:40
  • @LaurentS.I literally "don't know what I was thinking" when I wrote that comment (literally in the sense that "I can't remember what I was thinking!). I probably was just excited that I'd found something on the "S-or-No S-on-succédé" issue,including an example nearly identical (except for the order & for using "haïS" instead of "aiméS") to the one in question ("Les hommes qui se sont succédé se sont souvent haïs. [On succède à quelqu’un mais on hait quelqu’un]"). 6768 calls it "transitif indirect," but I don't know enough about such things to say whether you calling it "intransitive" is wrong.
    – Papa Poule
    Apr 25, 2019 at 15:42

3 Answers 3

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There's one single error in your sentence: The issue is actually with the last verb se succéder which is transitif indirect and in its forme pronominale.

As you can read from this source, we should write:

ils se sont succédé

So the right form of your sentence is:

Les hommes qui se sont aimés et se sont succédé

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Succéder à, donc complément d'objet indirect, donc pas d'accord.

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You don't see the lack of clarity in "the men that loved each other and succeeded each other" what kind of succession? where does the phrase end? The meaning is not clear, as it uses common vague words to describe particular facts and situations.

Also the phrase is not finished.

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    The sentence may lack context, but it's complete and correct as such, with the exception of that '"s" in "succédés"
    – Laurent S.
    Apr 25, 2019 at 11:43
  • The phrase has a noun, some verbs, and then stops, like "that cats who played and jumped" "les enfants qui ont joué et couru" ... It can be a spoken reply in answer to the context, but it can't be a complete phrase in most litteral circumstances. In lacking context, it is not complete.
    – bandybabboon
    Apr 26, 2019 at 11:56
  • First of all I missed that earlier but "succedé" is not related to succeeding or success. Then about the lack of context, it doesn't make a sentence "not correct" (cfr the question) or "not complete". A lot of very correct sentences (from a grammatical and spelling perspective) are meaningless or worse have several meaning without a context. I understand your point, but in the context of a French lesson it seems perfectly normal to use short sentences and exclude context. You could for example ask what is wrong with "Les enfants se sont envolé", and the answer is not that "children can't fly".
    – Laurent S.
    Apr 26, 2019 at 15:07
  • succession and succession are the same word in English and Erench. Succeeding and succéder also. "Les enfants QUI se sont envolés" he uses qui, not "les enfants se sont envolé" his phrase is "The men WHO liked and succeeded one another".
    – bandybabboon
    Apr 26, 2019 at 16:49
  • But would a teacher focus on sentence construction before verb agreement? Com.mon sense?
    – user19187
    Apr 26, 2019 at 19:39

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