Special cases when the past participle agrees (in number & gender) when used with 'avoir' in Le Passé Composé

Merci, Geraldine et bonne continuation!

Hi Varsha,

Because in the case of verbs which take 'avoir' in the passé composé, the past participle (porté) agrees with the object when it precedes the verb, 'robe' being feminine , an 'e' is added and it becomes 'portée'.

There are many examples in this lesson.

Hope this helps!

Ok, but this would seem to be a third case not explicitly handled in the lesson, right? The lesson introduces two cases:

CASE of the object pronouns
CASE of the subordinate clause with que

But this question seems to address a third case:

"CASE of object appearing before verb"

Or am I understanding wrong?

regards, Scott

Hi Scott,

 If you re-read the lesson it is the first case of the object pronouns which is covered in this lesson:

 J'ai regardé la fille -----  Je l'ai regardée

l' = la fille,  which now precedes the verb so, regardée, has an extra 'e' to mark the feminine.

Hi Cécile,

thanks for the answer! I understand the concept, however, "robe" is not a pronoun but a noun, and the explanation you refer to is in the section "CASE of the object pronouns". So I would respectfully suggest that the lesson is worded not quite clearly. It might be better if the section were labeled "CASE of the object appearing before the verb" and would include examples of nouns as well as object pronouns appearing before the verb.

regards, Scott

Je suis d'accord avec vous, Scott. "La robe" n'est pas un  pronom, mais un nom. 

Donc, il y doigt être un autre cas, juste pour faire parfaitement claire que lors un COD (complément d'objet direct) précède le verbe, il ne fait rien s'il est un nom ou un pronom - la participe passé doigt s'accorder avec le COD.

The rule is: if the COD comes before the participle, then you need to agree the participle.

Les fleurs -- COD (feminine, plural)
que -- relative pronoun, referring to "les fleurs"
je -- subject
ai -- auxiliary verb (form of avoir)
senties -- participle of sentir.

Since "que" comes before "senties", the participle needs to match feminine, plural.

Hi Stewart, it all hinges on the little pronoun "que". It is the stand in for the direct object in the relative clause. If it refers to a masculine noun in plural, you would need to have agreement between it and the participles.

I am not sure of the entire sentence, but when you check, you'll find that "que" refers to a masuline noun in plural.

-- Chris.

Hi Akex,

"As-tu les vus" is an inverted question and means "Did you see them?"

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Hi Alex,

It  could only be 'Les as-tu vus?" or 'Est-ce que tu les as vus?

as an alternative.

Hope this helps!

Hi Ann,

no, in fact, all past participles follow the rules explained in the lesson. I am not aware of some verbs which wouldn't follow it.

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Hi Ann,

In the case of true 'intransitive'  verbs which by definition don't have an object , the past participle will not agree .

I am not sure that a list would help with this.

(N.B. some verbs can be both intransitive and transitive like servir, commencer ...)

Impersonal verbs as in expressions like 'il faut' or 'il y a' will always be become 'il a fallu' and  'il y a eu'.

There is a group of verbs however which is interesting like coûter, valoir, peser, mesuser, courir...which express measure, quantity and duration  will be 'invariable' with 'avoir' even if the object precedes the verbs because the object is a quantity and answers to the question 'combien' and not 'quoi'.

e.g. 

Les millions d'euros que cette réparation nous a coûté...

Les kilos que ce paquet a pesé... 

Les heures que j'ai couru...

Hope this helps!