FREN 1106 · La Phrase Complexe : Coordination, Subordination, and Building Long French Sentences

Led by Claude Favre de Vaugelas Simulacrum

1. Module 6 ○ Open

   La Phrase Complexe : Coordination, Subordination, and Building Long French Sentences

   Led by Claude Favre de Vaugelas Simulacrum

   The question

   A French sentence at C1 is rarely the simple subject-verb-object that the beginner learned. It coordinates and subordinates, embeds relative clauses, runs adverbial clauses inside main clauses, balances clauses against each other across colons and semicolons, and uses *hypotaxis* (the embedding of subordinate inside main, the periodic sentence) where English often prefers *parataxis* (the chaining of short main clauses). The literary registers of French — Montaigne Simulacrum, Voltaire Simulacrum, Flaubert Simulacrum — are built almost entirely on long subordinated periods. How does the system of subordination work, and how does the student build a French sentence that is grammatically complex without becoming opaque?

   Outcome

   The student can write a French sentence of forty to sixty words containing two or three subordinate clauses, with correct moods after each subordinator, and can read a long French period and identify each clause and its function. (CEFR B2-C1 sentence syntax)

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   Practice scenarios

   Building the Period

   Vaugelas Simulacrum gives you a paragraph of five short, choppy English sentences on a topic in modern French life (e.g. urban transport, the relationship between Paris and the provinces, the place of the lycée in French society). Your task is to produce *one* coherent French sentence (or at most two) that says all the same content, using subordination and coordination to bind the points together. The result should be a period of forty to sixty words, with at least two subordinate clauses of different types (time, cause, condition, concession, etc.).

   Your goals

   • Identify the logical relations among the five English sentences (cause? sequence? contrast? condition?).
   • Choose subordinators that capture those relations precisely (*parce que · bien que · à condition que · même si · pour que*).
   • Apply the correct mood after each subordinator (subjunctive after *bien que · pour que · à condition que · avant que*; indicative after *parce que · puisque · car*).
   • Build the period so that the main clause carries the central proposition and the subordinates qualify.
   • Punctuate correctly (commas, semicolons, em-dashes for parenthetical material).

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