French Inversion After Speech and Adverbs: dit-il, peut-être

Outside questions, French puts the verb before its subject in two places: straight after a quotation, « Je viens », dit-il. - "I'm coming," he said; and in formal writing after a few adverbs at the head of a clause, Peut-être viendra-t-il. - Perhaps he will come.

Inversion in questions has its own pages: question words and word order. Both structures here are on the AQA A-level grammar list: inversion after speech at AS, inversion after adverbs at A-level only.

Inversion after speech: « Je viens », dit-il

When the reporting verb (the incise) comes after the quotation, or in the middle of it, it goes before its subject. English can do this too (said he) but sounds quaint; written French does it as a rule. In casual speech you may hear « Je viens », il dit, but not in writing.

• « Je suis fatigué », dit-il. - "I'm tired," he said.
• « C'est trop tard », répondit-elle. - "It's too late," she replied.
• « Je crois, dit-il, que tu as raison. » - "I think," he said, "that you are right."

Before the quotation the order is normal, with a colon: Il dit : « Je suis fatigué. » - He said: "I'm tired."

When the quotation ends in ? or !, there is no comma and the verb still starts with a small letter:

• « Tu viens ? » demanda-t-elle. - "Are you coming?" she asked.
• « Attention ! » cria-t-il. - "Look out!" he shouted.

The incise works without quotation marks too, in a few fixed phrases you will meet in every newspaper:

• Le musée, dit-on, est magnifique. - The museum, people say, is magnificent.
• Le film est excellent, paraît-il. - The film is excellent, apparently.

The -t- and the passé composé

The -t- is the one you know from questions: when the verb ends in a vowel and the pronoun is il, elle or on, a -t- keeps the two vowels apart. Novels tell stories in the passé simple, where many verbs end in -a, so it turns up constantly.

In the passé composé, the pronoun swaps with the auxiliary and the participle follows, just as in a question. Newspapers and modern novels use this all the time.

• « Je viens », a-t-il dit. - "I'm coming," he said.
• « C'est fini », a-t-elle ajouté. - "It's over," she added.
• « Enfin ! » s'est-elle exclamée. - "At last!" she exclaimed.

S'exclamer takes être, so the participle agrees with the subject, as it would anywhere else.

An object pronoun stays where it always is, in front of the verb or the auxiliary, and the subject pronoun still follows:

• « Viens », lui dit-elle. - "Come," she told him.
• « Non », m'a-t-il répondu. - "No," he answered me.
• « Pourquoi ? » leur demanda-t-il. - "Why?" he asked them.

Which tense the incise takes

The reporting verb takes the tense of the story around it. The inversion stays the same in every tense.

The glosses: "No," he replied (three times) and "Later," she used to say (or she was saying, in a scene in progress). Match the tense of the narrative: a story in the passé composé should not slip into répondit-il for its dialogue.

Noun subjects: dit Paul

This is where speech inversion differs from questions. A noun subject simply goes after the verb, with no pronoun to repeat it.

• « Je viens », dit Paul. - "I'm coming," said Paul.
• « Non », répondit Marie. - "No," replied Marie.
• « Nous sommes prêts », a déclaré le ministre. - "We are ready," the minister said.

In the passé composé the noun goes after the whole verb, participle included: a déclaré le ministre. The question pattern Marie répondit-elle means did Marie reply?, and it has no place after a quotation.

The noun can be as long as the sentence needs, because nothing else follows it:

• « À table ! » cria la mère de Paul. - "Dinner's ready!" shouted Paul's mother.
• « C'est une bonne nouvelle », a déclaré le président de la région. - "It is good news," said the president of the region.

Which verbs introduce speech

Any verb of saying can do the job. Vary them: a page of dit-il reads like a transcript. These are the forms novels use, in the passé simple.

Modern novelists stretch the pattern to verbs that are not speech at all, « Bien sûr », sourit-elle. - "Of course," she smiled. Some purists object. Recognise it; you do not need it.

Speech inversion is a feature of written French. In conversation people avoid the incise and say il m'a dit : « Je viens », or switch to reported speech: Il a dit qu'il venait.

Inversion after adverbs (A-level only)

In formal writing, a handful of adverbs at the head of a clause pull the verb in front of a pronoun subject, joined by a hyphen as in a question. Move the adverb anywhere else and the order goes back to normal.

• Peut-être viendra-t-il. - Perhaps he will come.
• Il viendra peut-être. - He will come, perhaps. (no inversion)

Some adverbs expect inversion; others allow it and sound just as correct without. Grammars describe the first group as the norm in careful writing rather than an absolute law; in an exam essay, invert.

The glosses: perhaps he will come; she is probably right; hardly had he arrived when...; so we must act; but you still have to want it; and so he won; at least she tried; he searched in vain. Ainsi il a gagné and Du moins elle a essayé are just as correct.

Four traps, three of them in that table:

• Sans doute now means probably, not without doubt; for certainty say sans aucun doute.
• Aussi at the head means so in careful French, not also (without inversion it can be misread as also): Il vient aussi. - He is coming too.
• À peine is answered by que in careful French, not quand: À peine était-il arrivé que le téléphone a sonné. - Hardly had he arrived when the phone rang.
• Toujours survives in one fixed phrase: Toujours est-il que... - The fact remains that...

Noun subjects: the complex inversion

With a noun subject, the noun stays in front and a pronoun is inverted after the verb, exactly as in a yes-or-no question:

• Peut-être Marie viendra-t-elle ce soir. - Perhaps Marie will come tonight.
• Sans doute le ministre a-t-il raison. - The minister is probably right.

Ainsi also allows the simple swap with a noun, in set narrative phrases: Ainsi finit l'histoire. - Thus ends the story.

The everyday way round it

In speech, and in any writing that is not trying to sound formal, French avoids the inversion altogether.

Peut-être il viendra, with neither inversion nor que, is found, even in good writers, but it reads as careless; in an exam, pick one of the other three.

In an essay

A-level essays are where this pays off. One or two of these per essay mark the register without sounding like a parody.

• Aussi peut-on dire que... - So one can say that...
• Peut-être faudrait-il agir. - Perhaps we ought to act.
• Sans doute faut-il rappeler que... - We should probably point out that...
• Encore faut-il le vouloir. - But you still have to want it.

Both kinds in one passage

Here is a short narrative passage with both inversions, as a novel would write it:

• « Tu pars déjà ? » demanda Marie. - "Are you leaving already?" asked Marie.
• « Il le faut, dit-il enfin. Mon train part à huit heures. » - "I have to," he said at last. "My train leaves at eight."
• Peut-être avait-il raison. - Perhaps he was right.
• À peine était-il sorti qu'il commença à pleuvoir. - Hardly had he gone out when it began to rain.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Take a short dialogue you have written and add an incise to every line, varying the verb.
2. Rewrite three peut-être que sentences with inversion (A-level).
3. Then read reported speech, the other way to quote someone.