A Comparative Study of French and English Auxiliary Verbs

Auxiliary verbs in English and French languages are very germane in constructing sentences in both languages. Therefore, this study examines the way auxiliary verbs are used in English and French Languages; and some features where learners of either language may encounter some difficulties in the course of learning. Our attention is drawn to auxiliary verbs because verb is what that makes any sentence functions the way it is. Verb is one of the most important parts of speech in French grammar and also in English .It is through verb that one knows when an action takes place. When a verb helps another verb to form one of its tenses in a sentence, such verb can be said to be auxiliary. This paper also focuses on auxiliary verbs and how verbs are used in the past and present indications. Auxiliary verbs cannot stand or function alone without relying on the main verb in both English and French languages. Finally, we shall concurrently consider in this paper how semi-auxiliary verbs function as modal auxiliary in French.


Introduction
Discussing verbs without referring to conjugation in grammar is like building a house without adequate foundation. Building a house needs solid and good foundation so that the house can be durable and fit for habitation. The French verb to be precise undergoes a form of restructuring from its infinitive form to whatever form to form the particular tense needed.
According to Ade Ojo {2002:326}, verb is the central word or the power unit in a clause or sentence. Verb is the main ingredient that makes a clause or a sentence functions the way it is.
Auxiliary verbs are those verbs which are used to conjugate other verbs .Ade Ojo {2002:344}.Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary puts it as: A verb such as be, do and have used with main verbs to show tense, etc. and to form questions and negatives The word 'tense' comes from the same word as the French word 'temps' which means 'time'.
The tense of a verb indicates that time at which the action of that particular verb took place and as such, the speaker does not need to give any additional information to indicate when the action of the verb took place. The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines "tense" as any of the forms of a verb that may be used to show the time of the action or state expressed by the verb: The past/present/future tense. The purpose of this article is to highlight the distinctive features of French verbs over English verbs with emphasis on the application of the auxiliary verbs in forming compound tenses.
The verbs 'avoir 'and ' etre' which belong to the third group of verbs in French are the only auxiliary verbs used in the formation of compound tenses. These two verbs do not only serve as helping verbs, but they function also in their own capacity as main verbs in a sentence. E.g.:

English French
i. The girl is intelligent. La fille est intelligente.
ii. Le parrain a trop d'argent. The godfather has a lot of money.
In the above sentences we see that both verbs act as main verbs in both French and English. From the above, we can see that emphasis is placed on gender in French than in English .French is a language that is basically gender focused than English .Most especially, feminine gender is given priority as well as masculine gender. In French, if referring to a set of ladies in the class or a set of feminine objects, we say in French: Elles sont dans la classe.
While in English, we say: they are in the class.
Elles in French allows any listener to quickly understand that the speaker is talking about a set of ladies or objects belonging to feminine gender in French but that is not the case in English. The personal pronouns in French are better expressly decoded by the listeners in a speech than those in English.
Also, there is use of neuter in English but not well pronounced in French (il/elle/is used in the singular form to refer to "it" and ils/elles is used in plural form to refer to "they").In English," it" is used for non-living to replace a name. Let us the examples below:

English French
Where are the chairs? Ou sont les chaises?
They are in the class. Elles sont dans la class.
In the above example, we are able to see that French shows that the object being asked of belongs to feminine gender, but in English that is totally lacking.
The ball hits me on the face.
To replace the ball with a pronoun, one says in English that It hits me on the face.
But, in French, one says: il me touche en visage.
In our conjugation we mentioned that 'il' is the third person masculine singular pronoun. Il in French can refer to a third person being referred to or an inanimate object being referred as there is no neuter in French as it is in English. This is what happens in above example. A leaner of French who is not familiar to the use of third person singular/plural pronouns may get confused on how to use them appropriately.

Another problematic area for the leaner of French is the inappropriate use of "aller" in
constructing a sentence in the present tense.
For example:

English French
I am going home. Je suis allé à la maison In the above example, this learner directly used the English syntax to form that of French.
Looking at the sentence in French, two verbs are used (auxiliary, etre and main verb, aller) In French, there are many verb tenses that express an action which occurred in the past. We have, the Passé compose, the imparfait, the passé recent, the conditionnel passé etc. Each of these tenses has its own set of endings and its rules which tell us when and how to use it.
Examples of the tenses are given below: Here, we can also see the similarities between French and English using the helping verb 'avoir' in forming some of the tenses. Tenses such as: Passe compose, l'imparfait, conditionnel passé, etc.

Présent de l'indicatif (manger) Passé compose
Je mange J'ai mangé Also, there is the use of modal auxiliary verb in the past conditional of the verb 'to eat' while French uses a simple formula to form its.
Another thing we notice here is the use of honorific pronoun 'vous' in French. French language is honorific and tonal while English language lacks these essential qualities.
Furthermore, let us consider the rules of agreement between French and English:

Rules of Agreement.
i. J'ai parle . I spoke/ I have spoken.
Ii. Je suis allé. I went/ I have gone.

Structure 1:
Depending on which auxiliary verb is required the following rules of agreement are indispensable.
a. If the auxiliary verb is etre, the past participle agrees with the subject in French. This is www.ijohmn.com 9 Adedayo and Madam Ngozi went to the market.
In the above sentences, we see that the meaning does not change though there are elements of change because of the past participle agreeing with the subject in French, but that of English does not change.
In French, even if there is one male among 20 females, the person and the people are always put in the masculine form in the passé compose. That is what happened in sentence iii above.

Structure 11:
In forming past action in English, past tense of verb is used to indicate the action.But www.ijohmn.com 10 According to Umukoro G.and Odey V. (2013:122), the conjugation of the imperfait seems so regular and easy to memorize, it might however be confusing for English students who are learning French to know when to use the imparfait. They illustrated this with the following examples: a. If the English verb form includes the English auxiliary used to, the French verb is put in the imparfait.

Structure 111:
When I was a child, I ran to school every morning.
NB: I ran can be replaced by I used to run.
a. If the English verb form is in the past progressive tense, the French puts it in the imparfait. Va chercher les clés! (future proche) Go and look for the keys! Je suis allé voir mon frère. (passe compose) I went to see my brother.
Je veux te dire une chose. (futur proche) I want to tell you something.
From the above, we can see that the two languages are similar in syntax and in semantic. In French "vais, allais, va, suis,veux."are the semi auxiliary verbs used. also in English," am, was, go, went, want." are the auxiliary verbs used.
• Devoir J'ai du partir. I had to leave.
Tu dois manger! You must eat!
Il aurait du nous aider. He should have helped us.
• Faillir (indicates that something almost happened) Il a failli tomber. He almost fell J'ai faille rater l'examen. I nearly failed the test.
• Faire (causative construction) to make something happen, have something done, make someone to do something.
J'ai fait laver la voiture. I had the car washed.
Il me fait etudier. He is making me study.
• Laisser (to let something happen, let someone do something).
Vas-tu me laisser sortir? Are you going to let me go out?
Laisse-moi le faire. Let me do it.
• Manquer (followed by optional de)indicates that something was about to happen or nearly happened.
J'ai manqué (de)mourir. I almost died. Volume 4, Issue 4, August 2018 www.ijohmn.com 15 As indicated above, it would be difficult for French language learner whose background is English to make adequate use of semi-auxiliary verbs if critical study about it is not carried out because of his /her acquaintance to the rule of modal system of the latter.

Conclusion
In summary, this paper focused on the past and compound tenses in French. It has taken time to demonstrate how past and compound tenses are formed in French language. It has also discussed some variations that an English student who is learning French language is likely to come across in the study of the language, such as: in the area of modals, concord, conjugation of verbs according to time, etc.
Secondly, though French grammar may appear simple, there are some aspects of the language that are difficult to comprehend and handle by English students and students of English who are learning French language. The panacea to this problem is that anybody who is interested in study French language should as matter of fact be ready to get him/herself drenched with the varieties and different categories of French verbs and how they are conjugated. He or she must also study attentively the various verb forms to know when and how to use them.