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La place de l'épithète par rapport au nom remplit plus d'une dizaine de pages du Grevisse (de §325 à §332 dans l'édition 2008). J'essaye donc ici de faire une synthèse des principes généraux :
“La postposition est l'ordre le plus fréquent”
“Les linguistes ont essayé de trouver [des] principes généraux”, mais l'auteur doute de leur caractère général en ...
17
Le truc que je donne à mes élèves en seconde langue est BANGS. BANGS représente les adjectifs qui vont avant le nom.
B - Beauty (ex: beau, laid)
A - Age (ex: jeune, vieux)
N - Number (un, premier)
G - Greatness (bon, excellent)
S - Size (grand, gros, petit, minuscule)
17
In formal language, affirmations have subject – verb – object complements order and yes/no questions have verb – subject – object complements order. So,
Vous êtes beau is an affirmation.
Êtes-vous beau ? is a yes/no question.
(If the subject is not already a pronoun, it comes first and a pronoun is added after the verb to form questions. E.g. Pierre est-il ...
14
The simple answer is "because it is the rule".
The rule says that object pronouns are always placed before the verb except in imperative affirmative sentences.
J'aime la France. → Je l'aime.
J'entends les oiseaux. → Je les entends.
An easy lesson on the subject on Bonjour de France.
14
From what you have written I expect you know the rule that says that when the direct object is a pronoun, it must be placed before the verb.
J'améliore la peinture → Je l'améliore.
I suppose you hesitate because there are two verbs in your sentence and you do not know in front of which verb (vouloir or améliorer) to place the pronoun.
La peinture is the ...
13
The difference in meaning induced by the position of prochain might be hard to grasp, but for sure the word order is related to the meaning. Here are two concrete cases where the word order is definitely important.
First example. Context: a meeting takes place regularly on Mondays but only once every two weeks. If during one meeting (or even in private, ...
13
There is no such thing as "or after" the auxiliary. The negative of these forms is formed by wrapping the ne+pas/whatever circumfix around the auxiliary and any accompanying pronoun:
Je ne m'en suis pas moqué.
Je ne l'ai pas frappé.
etc.
In most spoken forms of French (and writing that emulates them), the ne is almost universally dropped, which ...
13
The best way to say it would be :
J'y étais presque.
13
No, que que cannot appear in regular text except if the second que is a substantive or to mark hesitation/sluttering:
On ne doit pas utiliser que « que » pour traduire what.
Tu dis que... que j'ai tort ?
I would rephrase your sentence that way:
La seule chose qu'ils veulent, c'est que j'achète ce qu'ils vendent.
Or another valid substitute:
...
12
La version longue est toujours :
le 24 août 1995
le 1er décembre 1996 (et non le 1 décembre 1996)
Il n’est pas courant dans la correspondance administrative d’indiquer le jour de la semaine. Cependant, si on tient à le faire, on peut l’écrire de la façon suivante :
Le mardi 4 mars 2014 (et non Mardi, le 4 mars 2014)
Source: Le ...
11
The normal place of this kind of pronouns (me, te, le, la, lui, ...) is before the verb (excepted in positive imperative and infinitive form). That use doesn't have a name.
The verb « manquer » can be used in three main ways (there are others):
with a meaning of failing to reach, or even failing in some cases. It is used in a transitive way. « La flèche ...
11
L'adjectif se place après le nom, sauf dans les très nombreux cas, difficiles à cerner précisément, où il se place avant — voir
le résumé de F'x, ou Grevisse. Pour traiter les exemples donnés dans la question :
Beau (et joli) se placent en général avant le nom : « un bel animal », « une belle maison », « une belle femme », « un joli garçon », ... Par ...
11
Je parle français, subject–verb–object, is the simple affirmation.
Negation is formed with the particle ne (often omitted in speech) and usually one (or more) additional words to mark or nuance the negation. The adverb pas expresses plain negation and is the most common mark of negation.
Ne always precedes the verbal phrase, and pas usually follows the ...
10
Usual French constructions are:
Je vois le chien. (Sujet : je, verbe : voir, COD : le chien)
Nous manquons de farine. (Sujet : nous, verbe : manquer, COI : de farine)
However, when a pronom is used as COD or COI, it is placed before the verb:
Je te vois. (Sujet : je, COD : toi, verbe : voir)
Tu me manque. (Sujet : tu, COI : à moi, verb : manquer)
...
10
J'ai aimé les trois premiers livres.
J'ai aimé les trois premiers.
It is not possible to put premiers before trois in these sentences. The number has to come very early in the order of adjectives. Although the number is classified as an adjective, it behaves a lot like a part of the article, and could be an article on its own (j'ai lu trois livres cette ...
9
The placing of an adjective can be a tricky question in French. Here are some examples I found, which make the most thorough set of rules I have seen so far.
When speaking about "the one who/which will replace the current one", it goes before:
OK: Ma prochaine voiture, ma prochaine maison, ta prochaine télévision, etc.
NOT OK: Ma voiture prochaine, ...
9
Pauvre, in the sense of “not rich”, is always placed after the noun: un homme pauvre, une famille pauvre, une ville pauvre, ...
Pauvre, in the sense of “unfortunate”, is always placed before the noun: un pauvre homme, une pauvre hère, ...
There is a general trend whereby some adjectives have a literal meaning when placed after the noun and a figurative ...
9
In affirmatives, except when preceded by a preposition¹, pronouns always come before the verb in French.
In “Jean va apporter des pralines à Marie”, “des pralines” is a direct object, “à Marie” is an indirect object, and both complement the verb apporter. Similar sentences that use pronouns include the following:
Jean va en apporter à Marie.
Jean va lui ...
9
Even though this is more or less a duplicate, I'll add an explanation that I didn't see when skimming previous answers.
The subject pronouns are clitics, which have some fascinating properties but are perhaps best summarized as being between words and affixes. They're smaller and less independent than words, but more than affixes.
Now let's see how this ...
8
Because you can revert the subject and the verb only when the subject is a pronoun (probably for euphonic reasons).
So when the subject is a noun (or a noun group), it is kept before the verb and the corresponding pronoun is added after the verb.
8
Il me semble que les registres de langage des deux phrases sont équivalents, la position de l'adverbe n'y change rien.
On rencontre en revanche plus souvent la forme :
Nous en avons longuement parlé.
D'une manière générale, la position de l'adverbe (avant ou après le verbe) apporte parfois une nuance de sens, rarement de registre.
8
C'est une question de position de l'adjectif. L'adjectif savant peut se placer avant le nom ; le sens n'en est pas tout à fait le même.¹ L'adjectif grognard ne peut se placer qu'après. On peut donc dire :
un Allemand savant (un habitant d'Allemagne qui est érudit)
un allemand savant (une langue allemande très châtiée)
un savant Allemand (un habitant d'...
8
It's called subject inversion.
It is usually understood as a syntactic rule which applies after the deep structure of the sentence is set, to produce its surface structure. You may want to look at this topic about inversion part IV. A. Relative pronouns.
In the deep structure, as you know, the order is SVO, and it stays as is in most sentences. The ...
8
The right sentence would be
Les aiderez-vous à y répondre ?
Note that the corresponding affirmative sentence is “Vous les aiderez à y répondre”. To form the corresponding interrogative, you only have to move the subject vous after the verb aiderez and tie them with a dash. Les is an object of aiderez and isn't affected by the process.
By the way, y only ...
8
Mot à mot :
Ce n'est pas possible de le traduire.
Transposé (déplacement de la négation, pour une traduction plus soutenue):
Il est impossible de le traduire.
8
Tout clarifies the meaning of a verb, an adverb or a noun.
In the case tout is clarifying a verb or an adverb, it is an adverb and is invariant.
In the case tout is clarifying a noun, it is an adjective and has to be made agree with the noun :
tout masculine sing.
tous masculine plur.
toute feminine sing.
toutes feminine plur.
As an adverb specifying an ...
8
Tu n'as pas franchement l’air d’être si occupée que ça...
Is "pas vraiment", as you said => "pas tout à fait"
Here "pas" moderates "franchement".
{vs}: Tu n'as franchement pas l’air d’être si occupée que ça...
Is "vraiment pas" => "absolument pas"
Here "franchement" emphasis "pas" (so comparable to "absolument pas").
Surely comparable to "not truly" ...
7
The issue is not with the subject : tu is the subject and in first position as usual.
The issue is with me, which is a complement. If your de-pronoun-ize me, you will have e.g. “Tu manques à Marie ”.
This is one of the few case in French where the order of words is not SVO but SOV : when the verb's complement is a pronoun, it is to be placed before the ...
7
When used with a plural noun:
Prochain is one of those adjectives (along with autres, premiers, derniers, mêmes, and probably more, I checked in Grevisse and it indicates the list is not complete) that will be placed before the noun when associated with a number or quantifier (hence the plural).
“Dans les deux prochains mois” (“dans les quelques prochains ...
7
Ici, l'adverbe est attaché au pronom sujet elle, pas au verbe.
Pourtant, elle aussi se trouve aujourd'hui, à sa manière, dans une impasse …
-------- ---------- --------- ----------- ------------ ------------------
CC 1 sujet verbe CC 2 CC 3 CC 4
(CC = complément circonstanciel)
L'adverbe aussi qualifie elle :...
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