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Conditionnel passé, seconde forme
The second form of the conditional perfect suffers from something of an identity crisis: it looks like the pluperfect subjunctive but has the value of the conditional perfect. The second form of the past conditional is used mostly in si clauses and is a literary tense, so is found only in very formal written French.
The second form of the conditional perfect is equivalent to the conditional perfect in spoken French, shown here (in parentheses).
Par exemple…
| Si vous m’aviez menti, j’eusse su. (Si vous m’aviez menti, j’aurais su.) |
If you’d lied to me, I would have known. | |
| J’eusse aimé vivre à Tahiti. (J’aurais aimé vivre à Tahiti.) |
I would have liked to live in Tahiti. |
Because it’s literary, you don’t need to be able to conjugate the second form of the conditional perfect, but you should learn to recognize it, especially if you read classic French literature and poetry.
Second form of the past conditional conjugations
The 2nd form of the conditional perfect is a compound verb form, which means its conjugation has two components:
| verb | conjugation | ||
| 1. | auxiliary (avoir or être) | imperfect subjunctive | |
| 2. | main verb | past participle |
Par exemple…
| avoir verb | être verb | pronominal verb | ||
| donner (to give) | sortir (to go out) | s’habiller (to get dressed) | ||
| j’eusse donné | je fusse sorti(e) | je me fusse habillé(e) | ||
| tu eusses donné | tu fusses sorti(e) | tu te fusses habillé(e) | ||
| il eût donné | il fût sorti | il se fût habillé | ||
| elle eût donné | elle fût sortie | elle se fût habillée | ||
| nous eussions donné | nous fussions sorti(e)s | nous nous fussions habillé(e)s | ||
| vous eussiez donné | vous fussiez sorti(e)(s) | vous vous fussiez habillé(e)(s) | ||
| ils eussent donné | ils fussent sortis | ils se fussent habillés | ||
| elles eussent donné | elles fussent sorties | elles se fussent habillées |
The second form of the conditional perfect is identical to the pluperfect subjunctive.
Past participle agreement
As in all compound conjugations, the past participle in the second form of the conditional perfect may need to agree in gender and number with the word it modifies – learn more.
Related lessons
- Conditional mood
- Conditional perfect
- Auxiliary verbs: avoir vs être
- Past participle
- Pluperfect subjunctive
- Pronominal verbs
- Literary tenses and moods
- Introduction to verbs
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