Construction of compound times
The first use of the past participle is to allow the construction of verbs in compound tenses with the auxiliaries "avoir" and "être". It is most often used to express an action in the past tense.
Je suis venu vous voir.
Il a couru pour arriver à l'heure.
Elle s'est trompée de chemin.
Build past participle
Unlike the present participle which is quite simple in the formation since it always ends with -ant, the past participle has different endings depending on the verb.
| 1st group aimer (in -é) | 2nd group finir (in -i) |
|---|---|
| aimé | fini |
| aimée | finie |
| aimés | finis |
| aimées | finies |
3nd group | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| cueillir (in -i) | vouloir (in -u) | prendre (in -s) | peindre (in -t) |
| cueilli | voulu | pris | peint |
| cueillie | voulue | prise | peinte |
| cueillis | voulus | pris | peints |
| cueillies | voulues | prises | peintes |
- To mark the feminine, some verbs such as "absoudre" change their endings: "absous" in the masculine becomes "absoute" in the feminine.
- Similarly, the verb "devoir" takes on a circumflex accent in the masculine singular to differentiate it from the pronoun du : "il est dû" but "la somme est due".
The main difficulty of the past participle is its agreement rule.
==> See past participle agreement rules.
- The past participle used with "avoir" and "être" forms a compound time.
- The past participle is formed differently depending on the verb group.
- The past participle agrees.