The Pluperfect Subjunctive in French
The French subjonctif(subjunctive) is a mode(mood) used to talk about wishes, desires, necessity, emotions, opinions, uncertainty, and possibility. The plus-que-parfait du subjonctif(pluperfect subjunctive) is a French literary tense used to talk about an action that happened before another past action. It can also be used to talk about hypothetical situations in the past and express an unreal past.
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In this article, you'll learn how and when the pluperfect subjunctive is used in French. Allons-y!(Let's go!)
Questions This Article Answers
What is the plus-que-parfait du subjonctif in French?
What is the subjunctive mood?
What is a literary tense in French?
When is the pluperfect subjunctive used in French?
How do you recognize verbs in the pluperfect subjunctive in French?
What everyday French tense does the pluperfect subjunctive correspond to?
The Subjunctive in French
The subjonctif(subjunctive) is a mode(mood) used to talk about wishes, desires, necessity, emotions, opinions, uncertainty, and possibility. The subjunctive in French commonly shows up in subordinate clauses starting with que(that). It can also be used with other conjunctions that indicate goals, consequences, fear, restrictions, and time. We'll see that the pluperfect subjunctive, as a literary tense, can also be used to talk about hypothetical situations in the past and express an unreal past.
The Pluperfect Subjunctive in French
The plus-que-parfait du subjonctif(pluperfect subjunctive) is often called a literary tense because it's reserved for written French. It’s becoming much less common in contemporary French literature, but you will inevitably encounter it if you read nineteenth-century authors such as Honoré de Balzac and Émile Zola, or twentieth-century authors like Marcel Proust and Simone de Beauvoir. You may also find it in historical documents. Because the pluperfect subjunctive is a rather old-fashioned literary tense, it's a bit unlikely that you'll need to produce it yourself, but you should be able to recognize and understand its uses, as you're sure to come across it in literature.
Anteriority
The pluperfect subjunctive is a past tense used to express anteriority. In grammar, this means that it refers to a past action that happened before another past action. The pluperfect subjunctive is often paired with a main clause in the past tense, either the passé simple(past historic), another literary tense reserved for classical, written French, or the imparfait(imperfect).
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Earlier and Literary Uses of the Pluperfect Subjunctive
The pluperfect subjunctive can also be used in the following contexts:
- in place of the passé du conditionnel(past conditional) to express an unreal past,
- in a clause beginning with si(if) to express a hypothetical situation in the past. In contemporary French, the pluperfect subjunctive would typically be replaced by the plus-que-parfait de l'indicatif(pluperfect indicative).
It's important to note that these uses of the pluperfect subjunctive sound quite archaic today.
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As you can see from the examples above, the pluperfect subjunctive can be used in either or both contexts in the same sentence.
Learn more about the past conditional and pluperfect indicative in these articles:
Recognizing Verbs in the Pluperfect Subjunctive in French
As a compound tense, the pluperfect subjunctive is composed of two parts:
- the auxiliary, either être(to be) or avoir(to have), conjugated in the imperfect subjunctive,
- the past participle of the main verb.
1. The Auxiliary
For the auxiliary, either the verb être or avoir is used in the imperfect subjunctive. These verbs have the following irregular conjugations:
Auxiliaries Être and Avoir in the Imperfect Subjunctive in French
| Subject | être | avoir |
|---|---|---|
| je | fusse | eusse |
| tu | fusses | eusses |
| il, elle, on | fût | eût |
| nous | fussions | eussions |
| vous | fussiez | eussiez |
| ils, elles | fussent | eussent |
Auxiliary Selection
As with any compound tense, whether être or avoir is used depends on the main verb! Here are some general guidelines:
- All pronominal verbs take être. Pronominal verbs include verbs like se lever(to get up), se préparer(to get ready), and se soucier(to worry).
- A small set of 17 intransitive verbs, which are sometimes called "movement verbs," take être. This set includes commonly used verbs such as aller(to go), venir(to come), and partir(to leave).
- All other verbs take avoir.
Deciding between être and avoir can be challenging. Learn more about these auxiliaries here:
2. The Past Participle of the Main Verb
The main verb appears in its past participle form, which is placed after the auxiliary, e.g., que nous eussions gagné(that we had won). Fortunately, there's a pattern you can follow to transform infinitives into past participles in French! For regular verbs, the infinitive endings correspond to the following past participle endings:
Regular Past Participle Endings in French
| Infinitive Ending | Past Participle Ending |
|---|---|
| -er | -é |
| -ir | -i |
| -re | -u |
Here's how the pattern works:
- An -er verb like gagner(to win) becomes gagné(won).
- An -ir verb like définir(to define) becomes défini(defined).
- An -re verb like entendre(to hear) becomes entendu(heard).
There are of course exceptions to this pattern! For example, the past participle of faire(to do, to make) is fait(done, made) and the past participle of prendre(to take) is pris(taken).
Do you want to know more about past participles in French? Check out the following article!
Combining the Auxiliary and the Past Participle
Now we're ready to take a look at some verbs in the pluperfect subjunctive in French! The verb terminer(to finish) takes avoir as an auxiliary. As a regular verb, the past participle of terminer is terminé(finished). This gives us the following conjugations for terminer in the pluperfect subjunctive:
Terminer in the Pluperfect Subjunctive in French
Now let's take a look at an example with a verb that requires the auxiliary être, such as partir(to leave).
Partir in the Pluperfect Subjunctive in French
Past Participle Agreement
You may have noticed that the past participles in the table above have parentheses at the end of their forms. These represent gender and number agreement! This is known as l'accord du participe passé(past participle agreement). The rules for past participle agreement differ depending on whether the auxiliary être is used with a non-pronominal verb (like we just saw above) or a pronominal verb (as we'll see next), but agreement can even occur when the auxiliary avoir is used!
Do you want to know more about the interesting yet tricky rule of past participle agreement in French? There's a section dedicated to it in the following article!
Finally, let's take a look at a pronominal verb like se lever (to get up). Remember that all pronominal verbs take the auxiliary être!
Se Lever in the Pluperfect Subjunctive in French
Need More Practice?
Try conjugating verbs in the plus-que-parfait du subjonctif with our Conjugation Drill!
Here are some more article about the subjunctive in French:
