Passé Composé and Inversion?

I dont get how to invert a sentence with passé composé. Well I understand passé composé I think but I need help still.

How do I rewrite this sentence with passé composé and inversion?

"A qui rend-elle visite?"

with passé composé:

"A qui a t-elle rendu visite"

How do I add inversion to that? Is it like this?:

"A t-elle a visité quoi?"

What about this sentence?

"Paul et Francois assistent-ils au match?"

with passé composé:

"Paul et Francois assistèrent au match?"

with inversion?:

"A été l'assistèrent match par Paul et François?"

I'd really appreciate some help. XP Thank you!

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Benoît on January 6, 2011 at 12:39pm

I'm French but I have to confess that I don't remember much of my grammatical lessons (a long time ago...) and I don't understand what you call "inversion".
By inversion, do you mean verb /subject inversion that occurs in interrogative form?

But, based on your examples (all interrogative form, so in my opinion all with “inversion”), I can give you some common usage (perhaps it will help):
"A qui rend-elle visite ?" OK (présent)
"A qui a-t-elle rendu visite ?" OK (passé composé)
"Qui a-t-elle visité ?" (Passé composé)
Remark: You can say "visiter quelqu'un" in French but I'm not sure it's widely used or even if it's a proper grammatical form. In fact “on visite un endroit” and “on rend visite à quelqu’un”.
So the last sentence can become:
Qu’a-t-elle visité ? or Quel endroit a-t-elle visité ? (Passé composé in both case)

"Paul et Francois assistent-ils au match?" OK (présent)
"Paul et Francois assistèrent-ils au match?" (Passé simple)
"Paul et François ont-ils assisté au match ?" (Passé composé)

PS : Bonne année à toutes et tous !

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on January 6, 2011 at 1:56pm

Firstly, be careful between the passé composé or "compound" past, where you need two words, and the passé simple, or "simple" past, which consists of only one word. The passé simple-- e.g. assistèrent-- is not part of everyday usage. Instead, use the passé composé.

So, the passé composé for assister would be Paul et François ont assisté au match.

Then, to make the inverted form, you need to do the following:

- insert the pronoun that corresponds to the subject, if it isn't there already-- in this case ils ("they")-- (Paul et François ils ont assisté au match)

- swap the order of the form of the pronoun and the following verb form (in this case ont) and but a hpyhen between them: Paul et François ont-ils assisté...)

In the third person (il/elle/ils/elles forms), if the verb doesn't end in a -t or -d, then you need to insert -t-, so for example: il donne gives the inverted form donne-t-il. In the passé composé, this will happen with a: Il a travaillé gives A-t-il travaillé?

Occasionally, you don't actually need the "extra" pronoun: if it's a so-called "partial" question-- i.e. question that cannot be answered by "yes" or "no", and the "question word" is short, then it's often possible to just say, e.g. Où travaille ton père?, rather than the longer form Où ton père travaille-t-il? (but both forms are correct).

Note that inverted forms like this are quite formal and generally avoided in everyday speech. Don't get tooo bogged down in this for now-- there are really more useful things you can learn!