Déduire le présent : la consonne effacée et les trois radicaux

Unité GR-44 · campagne 25 · quatre cinquièmes des verbes français se déduisent — voici la machine à déduire.

The -er verbs that change their spelling to keep their sound — appeler, jeter, acheter, espérer, essuyer, étudier — are on Pourquoi « j'appelle » mais « nous appelons » ?.

Outside the handful of outlaws, the present tense is a system: one set of endings, and at most three stems per verb. Master two mechanisms and you can conjugate verbs you have never met.

The endings never change

Written endings: -e, -es, -e for the -er family; -s, -s, -t for almost everything else; and -ons, -ez, -ent for absolutely everyone. Orally, the three singular persons of any verb sound identical, and the -ent is silent.

Mechanism 1 — the effaced consonant

Two-stem verbs hide their rule in plain hearing: the plural stem ends in a consonant that the singular lets fall.

ils finissent → il fini(t) · ils écrivent → il écri(t) · ils dorment → il dor(t) · ils attendent → il atten(d)

Use it in both directions. Hearing ils connaissent, drop the final consonant sound: il connaît. Writing il part, restore it: ils partent.

Mechanism 2 — the three-stem boot

For the -oir verbs and a few others, nous/vous keep the infinitive's weak vowel while the other persons strengthen it, and ils adds a consonant:

je bois — nous buvons — ils boivent · je viens — nous venons — ils viennent · je reçois — nous recevons — ils reçoivent

Per verb, you only ever memorize two vowels; the pattern does the rest.

The recipe

From any infinitive: -er → one stem, -e endings. -ir with -issant → -iss- in the plural. -ir like partir → effaced consonant. -re → effaced consonant, keep the written -d. -oir → expect a boot.

Going further

Minimal pairs. One change between the two sentences, and what it does:

Where the recipe needs a second look:

• -re verbs without the written consonant: mettre → il met; -indre → il peint, ils peignent (-gn- in the plural); vaincre → il vainc; rompre → il rompt.
• -oir with y: nous voyons, nous croyons (i → y between vowels).
• -ir with -er endings: j'ouvre, tu offres.
• -cevoir: ç before o and u — je reçois, nous recevons.

The families behind each case are on les familles de verbes.

In Russian stems alternate too — могу / можешь, пишу / пишешь — so the idea of a second stem for the plural is familiar. The French pattern is more regular: short stem in the singular, full stem in the plural.

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