Study sheet: French Grammatical Classes

📋 Course Outline

1. Nature and Function of Words
2. Criteria for Grammatical Categories
3. Nouns and Determiners
4. Adjectives and Pronouns
5. Verbs and Their Subcategories
6. Invariable Grammatical Classes

📖 1. Nature and Function of Words

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Grammatical nature : the intrinsic and immutable identity of a word
• Grammatical function : Grammatical function is the dynamic syntactic role played by a word or group of words in a specific utterance, such as subject, verb, direct object, or indirect object.

💡 Memory Hook

Nature is intrinsic and stable, whereas function is the changing syntactic role.

📖 2. Criteria for Grammatical Categories

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Morphological criterion : The morphological criterion concerns a word’s form and its capacity to receive inflections such as gender, number, tense, mood, or aspect.
• Syntactic criterion : The syntactic criterion concerns the position and role of each word in the sentence.
• Semantic criterion : The semantic criterion concerns the way a word represents reality through its meaning.

★ Must-know

• The three cumulative criteria are:
  • morphological
  • syntactic
  • semantic

Further detail

• Grammar teaching should systematically rely on substitution or inflection manipulations, that is, on morphosyntactic criteria.

💡 Memory Hook

MSSe: Morphology, Syntax, Semantics

📖 3. Nouns and Determiners

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Noun : the nucleus of the noun phrase, carries inherent gender and number, receives agreement markers, and can perform multiple functions
• Determiner : changes in gender and number according to the noun it actualizes, precedes the noun, and is necessary to actualize its meaning in the sentence

📝 Essential Points

• Nouns may be:

  • common or proper
  • concrete or abstract
  • animate or inanimate

• The determiner classes presented are:

  • definite articles
  • indefinite articles
  • partitive articles
  • possessive determiners
  • demonstrative determiners
  • indefinite determiners
  • numeral determiners
  • interrogative or exclamative determiners

💡 Memory Hook

The determiner actualizes the noun, and the noun controls agreement.

📖 4. Adjectives and Pronouns

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Adjective : An adjective changes in gender and number according to the noun it characterizes and may be an attributive adjective, a subject complement, or an appositive.
• Pronoun : replaces a noun to avoid repetition and agrees in gender, number, and person with the noun to which it refers

★ Must-know

📌 A qualitative adjective characterizes a noun, whereas a relational adjective can be replaced by a noun complement, as in “royal palace” and “palace of the king.”

Further detail

• The pronoun classes presented are:
  • personal
  • demonstrative
  • possessive
  • relative
  • indefinite

💡 Memory Hook

The adjective characterizes the noun, whereas the pronoun replaces it.

📖 5. Verbs and Their Subcategories

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Verb : varies according to person, number, tense, and mood; it is the nucleus of the verb phrase and is linked to the subject and complements

📝 Essential Points

📌 A direct transitive verb takes a direct object, whereas an indirect transitive verb takes an indirect complement introduced by a preposition.

• The verb subcategories presented are:
  • state verbs
  • pronominal verbs
  • direct transitive verbs
  • indirect transitive verbs
  • intransitive verbs

💡 Memory Hook

Person → number → tense → mood

📖 6. Invariable Grammatical Classes

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Adverb : An adverb modifies and nuances the meaning of the sentence, and modalizers are adverbs that express an opinion.
• Preposition : A preposition is placed before a noun phrase and introduces a complement, generally after the verb.
• Coordinating conjunction : A coordinating conjunction links two elements of the same nature and function.
• Subordinating conjunction : A subordinating conjunction introduces and links a subordinate clause to a main clause, on which the subordinate clause depends.
• Interjection : An interjection or onomatopoeia expresses an emotion, a feeling, or a sound.

📊 Synthesis Tables

Variable and Invariable Classes

Class	Main property	Examples
Noun	Carries gender and number; nucleus of the noun phrase	table, wall
Determiner	Actualizes the noun and agrees with it	the, a, this
Adjective	Characterizes the noun and agrees with it	large, green
Pronoun	Replaces a noun	he, which, mine
Verb	Varies by person, number, tense, and mood	to be, to run
Invariable classes	Do not receive these inflections	adverb, preposition, conjunction