A new construction for me [inversion with present tense 'je' forms]

I saw I new construction in a novel that I can't parse. It seems to use the past participle without avoir or etre. "retorqué-je" after a direct quote. How do you parse this?

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Permalink Reply by Erwan on February 21, 2011 at 1:22pm

In fact, in this case, the present is used. This construction is often seen inside dialogs, but not only. You just invert the verb and the pronoun. With the 1st group verb, at the first person, just add an accent at the end in order to have the sound "è".

You'll probably see also "dis-je", "dit-il", "commença-t-il" (because of the 2 vowels, you must add a "-t-"), ...

You can make this kind of contruction with the "imparfait" tense, future,...

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on February 21, 2011 at 4:20pm

It's worth also mentioning that inversion with "je" is essentially archaic except with a few common verbs like "suis-je", "dois-je".

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on February 21, 2011 at 4:35pm

Is this ever used in conversational French?

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on February 21, 2011 at 5:06pm

I think with -er verbs, invesion with the present tense "je" form would only be used for deliberate ironic effect: it's essentially an archaic form as I say. With a form such as retorqué-je, there is a slight conflict in that it is usual with verbs of "reporting speech" like this to use the inverted form, and at the same time it is increasingly common to use the present tense as a narrative tense.

With a few other common verbs, and more generally in the imperfect/future/conditional forms, inverted je forms are a bit more common in speech. There are even one or two formulae such as "Comment dirais-je..." = "How shall I put it...", which pretty much belong to conversational French.

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Permalink Reply by Erwan on February 21, 2011 at 5:15pm

You're right, it's used for deliberate ironic effect or in refined language.

Just a small correction it's Comment dirais-je... The conditionnal is used here.