Editing French grammar (section)

==Verbs==
{{main|French verbs}}

Verbs in French are conjugated to reflect the following information:
* a [[grammatical mood|mood]] ([[Indicative mood|indicative]], [[Imperative mood|imperative]], [[subjunctive mood|subjunctive]], or [[Conditional mood|conditional]])
* a [[grammatical tense|tense]] ([[Past tense|past]], [[Present tense|present]], or [[Future tense|future]], though not all tenses can be combined with all moods)
* an [[grammatical aspect|aspect]] ([[Perfective aspect|perfective]] or [[Imperfective aspect|imperfective]])
* a [[grammatical voice|voice]] ([[Active voice|active]], [[Passive voice|passive]],{{efn|name=analytic information|The gerundive mood, the perfect, and the passive and reflexive voices are not [[Synthetic language|synthetic]] but [[Analytic language|analytic]]; that is, they are expressed using multi-word verb forms.}} or [[reflexive voice|reflexive]]{{efn|name=analytic information}})
* [[Nonfinite verb|Nonfinite forms]] (e.g., [[participle]]s, [[gerund]]s, [[infinitive]]s)

Some of these features are combined into seven [[tense–aspect–mood]] combinations. The simple (one-word) forms are commonly referred to as the present, the simple past or [[preterite]]{{efn|name=pret and imp|The preterite and imperfect are sometimes called, somewhat redundantly, the ''preterite past'' and ''imperfect past''. The preterite is also called the ''simple past'', a translation of its French name ({{lang|fr|le passé simple}}).}} (past tense, perfective aspect), the [[imperfect]]{{efn|name=pret and imp}} (past tense, imperfective aspect), the future, the conditional,{{efn|name=conditional|In some of its uses, the conditional acts as a tense of the indicative mood; in other uses, including the use from which it takes its name, it acts as a distinct mood.}} the present subjunctive, and the imperfect subjunctive. However, the simple past is rarely used in informal French, and the imperfect subjunctive is rarely used in modern French.

Verbs in the finite moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional) are also conjugated to [[Agreement (linguistics)|agree]] with their subjects in [[grammatical person|person]] (first, second, or third) and [[grammatical number|number]] (singular or plural). As in English, the subject must be included (except in the imperative mood); in other words, unlike other [[Romance language]]s, French is neither a [[null-subject language|null-subject]] nor a [[pro-drop language]].

[[Auxiliary verb]]s are combined with past participles of main verbs to produce compound tenses, including the compound past ({{lang|fr|[[passé composé]]}}). For most main verbs the auxiliary is (the appropriate form of) {{lang|fr|[[avoir]]}} ("to have"), but for reflexive verbs and certain intransitive verbs the auxiliary is a form of {{lang|fr|[[être]]}} ("to be"). The participle agrees with the subject when the auxiliary is {{lang|fr|être}}, and with a preceding [[direct object]] (if any) when the auxiliary is {{lang|fr|avoir}}. Forms of {{lang|fr|être}} are also used with the past participles of transitive verbs to form the passive voice.

The imperative mood, which only has first-person plural and second-person singular and plural forms, usually has forms similar or identical to the corresponding ones in the present indicative.