Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Stress Pronouns













They're calling them Stress Pronouns these days. I think we just called them object pronouns when I took high school French. In any case, they are used to replace the subject pronouns in the following situations (courtesy Cliff Notes):

  • To stress the subject: Moi, je suis vraiment indépendant. (Me, I'm really independent.)

  • When the pronoun has no verb: Qui veut partir? (Who wants to leave?) Moi. (Me.)

  • After prepositions to refer to a person or persons: Allons chez elle.

    (Let's go to her house.)

  • After c'estC'est moi qui pars. (I'm leaving.)

  • After the following verbs:

    • avoir affaire à (to have dealings with)

    • être à (to belong to)

    • faire attention à (to pay attention to)

    • penser à (to think about [of)])

    • se fier à (to trust)

    • s'intéresser à (to be interested in)

    • Ceci est à moi. (This belongs to me.)

  • In compound subjects:

    • Lui et moi allons au restaurant. (He and I are going to the restaurant.)

    • Sylvie et toi dînez chez Marie. (Sylvia and you are dining at Marie's.)

    If moi is one of the stress pronouns in a compound subject, the subject pronoun nous is used in summary (someone + me = we) and the conjugated verb must agree with nous. If toi is one of the stress pronouns in a compound subject, the subject prounoun vous is used in summary (someone + you [singular] = you [plural]) and the conjugated verb must agree with the vous. Neither nous nor vous has to appear in the sentence.

  • With - même(s) to reinforce the subject: Je suis allé au concert moi-même. (I went to the concert by myself.)



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