Quelques petites choses à rappeler

1. Quelques petites choses à rappeler

2. Prépositions • À • Expressions commehésiter à, aller à pied etc. • De • Expressions commedécider de, parler de, avoirenvie de etc. • Depuis • Le verbe sera au présent! • Dans • Après combien de temps vas-tu faire quelquechose? Dansdeuxjours…etc.

3. Pronoms Relatifs • FLOW CHART!!!!!!! • Que, Qui, DontvsCeQue, Ce Qui, CeDont • One may use “ce” when the antecedent to which the relative pronoun refers is unclear or an entire sentence or idea. • Ex: Sais-tucequetuveux manger? • “Ce” refers to an object of which we do not know the identity. It translates to “what”. • Sais-tu qui estlà? • Although we still do not know who or what “qui” is referring to, the answer is not “ce qui” because qui is an interrogative pronoun here, not a relative one.

4. Cont’ • J’aimetousceux qui sontgentils aux animaux. • The answer is “ceux qui” and not “ce qui” or “qui” because we know that “ceux” is specifically referring back to “tous”, thus “tous” is the clearly defined antecedent of “ceux”. • Il fait tout cequ’ilveut. • In this example, “ce” is referring back to an undefined idea and thus may not have gender or number.

5. Cont’ • Je connaisunefille qui estintéressante. • Here, there is no need to have an indefinite relative pronoun (ce qui) because the subject to which “qui” is referring directly proceeds the relative pronoun. There is no guesswork here, we know the subject to which our relative pronoun refers and there is nothing (ex: c’est, là etc) between the subject and the pronoun.

6. Dont • One may use “dont” when one would normally use que but there is an expression that will be replaced which requires “de”. • Ex: C’est le livre dont je t’ai parlé hier. • **Why does this sentence not require “ce dont” ?** • Ex: J’ai encore les papiers dont vous avez besoin • The expression “avoir besoin de” requires we have a “de” somewhere in the sentence, but “de” is a preposition and thus may not end the sentence. As a result, it is combined with “que” to make “dont”

7. Duquel • When must one use duquel instead of dont? • When the relative pronoun is directly proceeded by a compound preposition which contains “de” • Ex: La maison la plus près de laquelle j’habite est celle de ma mère. • In this case, près de is the compound preposition which must then be followed by a from of “lequel” which agrees with the object to which it refers.

8. Dont vs duquel cont’ • Why does the sentence « la maison dont je suis venue est celle qui est rose » require dont and not de laquelle? • There is no compound preposition which uses de directly proceeding the relative pronoun. • **Note: “de” is the only preposition which may combine with que to make “dont”. Prepositions like “à”, which may also be implied, must be dealt with as if they were written in front of the relative pronoun, causing one to use “lequel” or “qui”.

9. Dont vs duquel reasoning • Traditionally, if the relative pronoun was to be the object of a preposition in the clause (other than the de of possession), or the indirect object of the clause's verb, a form of lequel was used, with the preposition placed before it: « la femme de laquellej'aiparlé » ("the woman about whom I spoke"). (Note that here, as in the interrogative case described above, à and de contract with most forms of lequel.) Nowadays, the form of lequel is typically replaced with qui when the antecedent is a human: « la femme de quij'aiparlé ». Further, if the preposition is de, even if it is not the de of the possession, dont has started to be used (with both human and non-human antecedents): « la femme dontj'aiparlé ». (However, dont has not started to be used in the case of compound prepositions ending in de, such as à côté de, loin de, and à cause de: « la femme à cause de laquellej'aiparlé », "the woman because of whom I spoke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_pronouns

10. Bonne chance demain! Avec l’examen QUE vous allez réussir. 