French pronouns

French pronouns are inflected to indicate their role in the sentence (subject, direct object, and so on), as well as to reflect the person, gender, and number of their referents. While English draws some of these distinctions as well, French draws them in many places where English does not; as a result, there are many more pronouns in French than there are in English.

Personal pronouns

French has a complex system of personal pronouns (analogous to English "I", "we", "them", and so on). When compared to English, the particularities of French personal pronouns include:
*a T-V distinction in the second person singular (familiar "tu" vs. polite "vous")
*the placement of object pronouns "before" the verb: « Agnès les voit. » ("Agnès sees them.")
*the existence of distinct pronouns for indirect objects and for certain prepositional objects
*the use of a distinct "disjunctive" form, e.g. for emphasis ("moi", "toi", etc.).

Possessive pronouns

Possessive pronouns refer to an object (or person) by identifying its possessor. They indicate the person and number of the possessor, and like other pronouns, are inflected to reflect the gender and number of their referent. In French, they are determined by the definite article "le"/"la"/"les" ("the"), depending on the gender and number of their referent; nonetheless, they are considered pronouns.

The following table lists the possessive pronouns by the possessor they indicate:

Examples:
* « C'est ta fleur ou la mienne ? » ("Is this your flower or mine?")
* « Je parle à mon frère pendant que tu parles au tien. » ("I'm talking to my brother while you're talking to yours.")

Note that the term "possessive pronoun" is also sometimes applied to the possessive determiners ("my", "your", etc.), which are discussed at "French articles and determiners".

Interrogative pronouns

Like English, French has a number of different interrogative pronouns. They are organized here by the English pronoun to which they correspond:

* "What":
** As the direct object of a verb, "que" (or "qu" before a vowel or mute "h") is used in front of the verb: « Que faites-vous ? » ("What are you doing?")
** Also as the direct object of a verb, "quest-ce que" (or "quest-ce qu" before a vowel or mute "h") is used, without subject-auxiliary inversion. This phrase is analysed as a single word [Citation
first=Shalom
last=Zuckerman
first2=Aafke
last2=Hulk
title=Acquiring optionality in French wh-questions: an experimental study
journal=Revue québécoise de linguistique
volume=30
issue=2
year=2001
url=http://www.erudit.org/revue/rql/2001/v30/n2/000520ar.html ] : « Quest-ce que vous faites ? » ("What is it that you are doing?")
** As the object of a preposition, or after the verb, "quoi" is used: « Après quoi aboie-t-il ? » ("At what is it barking?"), « Vous faites quoi ? » ("You are doing what?")
** There is no indirect-object form; rather, a full prepositional phrase (with "quoi") is used: « À quoi pensez-vous ? » ("About what are you thinking?")
** As the subject form, "quest-ce qui" is used, without inversion: « Quest-ce qui vous dérange ? » ("What is it that bothers you?")
* "Who", "whom":
** As the subject or direct object of a verb, or as the object of a preposition, "qui" is used: « Qui vous dérange ? » ("Who bothers you?")
** There is no indirect-object form; rather, a full prepositional phrase (with "qui") is used: « À qui avez-vous donné cela ? » ("To whom did you give that?")
* "Which", "which one(s)":
** The basic form is "lequel" ("le" + "quel"; see "French articles and determiners" for information about each component).
** Both parts of "lequel" are inflected to agree with its referent in gender and number: hence, "laquelle", "lesquels", "lesquelles".
** The prepositions "à" and "de" contract with "le" and "les" to form "au", "aux", "du", and "des", respectively; this is still the case here. Thus, for example, "auxquelles" means "at/to which ones" (feminine), and "duquel" means "of/from which one" (masculine).

For more information on the formation of questions, see "French grammar".

Relative pronouns

French, like English, uses relative pronouns to introduce relative clauses. The relative pronoun used depends on its grammatical role (such as subject or direct object) within the relative clause, as well as on the gender and number of the antecedent and whether the antecedent represents a human. Further, like English, French distinguishes between ordinary relative clauses (which serve as adjectives) and other types.

In ordinary relative clauses

If the relative pronoun is to be the subject of the clause's verb, "qui" is ordinarily used: « l'homme qui a volé ma bicyclette » ("the man who stole my bike"). Note that "qui" in this use does not change form to agree in any way with its antecedent: « les bicyclettes qui ont été volées » ("the bikes that were stolen"). That said, it may occasionally be replaced with a form of "lequel" to specify the antecedent's gender or number. For example, while the phrase « Jean et Marie, qui vole(nt) des bicyclettes » ("Jean and Marie, who steal(s) bicycles") is ambiguous in speech (since "vole" and "volent" are homophones), the phrases « Jean et Marie, laquelle vole des bicyclettes » ("Jean and Marie, who steals bicycles") and « Jean et Marie, lesquels volent des bicyclettes » ("Jean and Marie, who steal bicycles") are not: in the former, only Marie is being described, while in the latter, both Jean and Marie are. This substitution is very rare, however.

If the relative pronoun is to be the direct object of the clause's verb, "que" (or "qu" before a vowel; "see" elision) is ordinarily used: « la bicyclette quil a volée » ("the bicycle that he stole"). Like "qui", "que" does not change form to agree with its antecedent, and may occasionally be replaced with a form of "lequel" for the sake of clarity.

If the relative pronoun is to be the grammatical possessor of a noun in the clause (usually marked with "de"), "dont" is used: « le garçon dont j'ai volé la bicyclette » ("the boy whose bicycle I stole"). Note that unlike in English, the object of possession is not moved to appear immediately after "dont"; that is, "dont", unlike "whose", is not a determiner.

Traditionally, if the relative pronoun was to be the object of a preposition in the clause (other than the "de" of possession), or the indirect object of the clause's verb, a form of "lequel" was used, with the preposition placed before it: « la femme de laquelle j'ai parlé » ("the woman about whom I spoke"). (Note that here, as in the interrogative case described above, "à" and "de" contract with most forms of "lequel".) Nowadays, the form of "lequel" is typically replaced with "qui" when the antecedent is a human: « la femme de qui j'ai parlé ». Further, if the preposition is "de", even if it's not the "de" of the possession, "dont" has started to be used (with both human and non-human antecedents): « la femme dont j'ai parlé ». (However, "dont" has "not" started to be used in the case of compound prepositions ending in "de", such as "à côté de", "loin de", and "à cause de": « la femme à cause de laquelle j'ai parlé », "the woman because of whom I spoke").

Alternatively, if the relative pronoun is to be an adverbial complement in the clause, introduced by the preposition "à" (or a similar preposition of time or place), "où" may be used: « la ville où j'habite » ("the city where I live"), « au moment où il a parlé » ("at the moment that he spoke").

In other relative clauses

When a relative clause is to serve as an inanimate noun, it is prefixed with "ce": « ce que j'ai dit » ("what I said"). In the case of a preposition, the pronoun "lequel" is replaced with the pronoun "quoi": « ce à quoi je pense » ("what I'm thinking about"; note the non-contraction of "ce"), except that "ce dont" is usually preferred to "ce de quoi".

It is fairly uncommon for a relative clause to serve as an animate noun; usually a construction like « l'homme qui » ("the man who") is used instead. That said, "qui" is sometimes used alone: « Qui vivra, verra » ("He who lives, will see").

When a relative clause is to serve as an adverb, it takes the same form as when it is to serve as an inanimate noun, except that "ce" is omitted before a preposition: « Ils sont allés dîner, après quoi ils sont rentrés » ("They went out to eat, after which they went home"); « Ils ne se sont pas du tout parlé, ce qui me semblait étrange » ("They didn't talk to each other at all, which seemed strange to me").

Demonstrative pronouns

French has a few different demonstrative pronouns. The pronouns "ceci" and "cela"/"ça" correspond roughly to English "this" and "that"; the pronoun "celui" corresponds to English "this one," "that one," "the one."

The pronouns "ceci", "cela", and "ça"

"Ceci" and "cela" correspond roughly to English "this" and "that," respectively. "Ça" is an abbreviated form of "cela", used in less formal contexts. Unlike English "this," "ceci" is quite rare; its most common use is in writing, to refer to something that is about to be mentioned: « Ceci est le problème : il boit trop. » ("This is the problem: he drinks too much.") "Cela" and "ça" are often used even when English would use "this."

The pronoun "celui"

"Celui" corresponds to English "the one," "this one," and "that one." Since its purpose is to identify ("demonstrate") its referent, it is always accompanied by additional identifying information.

Like other pronouns, "celui" is inflected to agree with its antecedent in gender and number. Its forms are as follows:

As mentioned above, the demonstrative pronoun is always accompanied by additional identifying information. This information can come in any of the following forms:
* the suffix "-ci" or "-là", attached with a hyphen. These suffixes indicate proximity and distance, respectively; "celui-ci" means "this one (masculine)," for example, while "celle-là" means "that one (feminine)." In writing, "celui-ci" (or another of its forms) is often used to mean "the latter," while "celui-là" means "the former".
* a relative clause. This construction is more common than in English; for example, English's "the blue one" may be rendered in French as "celui qui est bleu" ("lit." "the one that is blue") — except that "celui" and "bleu" would be "celle" and "bleue" if the referent were feminine, and "est" might be "était" or "sera" or "serait". "The blue one" can also be rendered, especially in colloquial language, as "le bleu" (m.), "la bleue" (f.), which are closer to English, but, depending on context, the latter construction can, in the masculine, mean either "the blue one" or "blue" "(the blue color)."
* one of a few common expressions of location. For example, "celui de gauche" means "the one on the left (masculine)."
* "de", followed by a possessor. For example, « Ceux de Marie sont cassés » ("Marie's (masculine) are broken").sjit

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