Introduction to the French Imperative Mood

Introduction to the French Imperative Mood   The imperative, called limpà ©ratif in French, is a verb mood which is used to: give an orderexpress a desiremake a requestoffer advicerecommend something Unlike all other French verb tenses and personal moods, the subject pronoun is not used with the imperative: Fermez la porte.Close the door. Mangeons maintenant.Lets eat now.Ayez la bontà © de mattendre.Please wait for me. Veuillez mexcuser.Please excuse me. The above are called affirmative commands, because they are telling someone to do something. Negative commands, which tell someone not to do something, are made by placing ne in front of the verb and the appropriate negative adverb after the verb: Ne parle pas!Dont speak! Noublions pas les livres.Lets not forget the books. Nayez jamais peur.Never be afraid. The imperative is not the only way to tell someone what to do in French - its how you give orders in French. French imperative conjugations are relatively simple. There are only three grammatical persons that can be used in the imperative:  tu,  nous, and  vous, and most of the conjugations are the same as the present tense - the only difference is that the  subject pronoun  is not used in the imperative. -ER Verbs Imperative Mood Conjugations   -ER verbs  (regular, stem-changing,  spelling change, and irregular): The imperative conjugations for  nous  and  vous  are the same as the present indicative, and the  tu  form of the imperative is the indicative minus the  final s:parler(tu) parle(nous) parlons(vous) parlezlever(tu) là ¨ve(nous) levons(vous) levezaller(tu) va(nous) allons(vous) allezVerbs which are conjugated like -ER verbs (meaning that in the indicative the  tu  form ends in -es), such as  ouvrir  and  souffrir, follow the same rules as -ER verbs.ouvrir(tu) ouvre(nous) ouvrons(vous) ouvrez -IR and -RE Verbs Imperative Mood Conjugations   -IR verbs  and  -RE verbs: The imperative conjugations for all regular and most* irregular -IR and -RE verbs are the same as the present indicative conjugations.finir(tu) finis(nous) finissons(vous) finissezattendre(tu) attends(nous) attendons(vous) attendezfaire(tu) fais(nous) faisons(vous) faites*Except for verbs conjugated like -ER verbs and the following four irregular imperative verbs:avoir(tu) aie(nous) ayons(vous) ayezà ªtre(tu) sois(nous) soyons(vous) soyezsavoir(tu) sache(nous) sachons(vous) sachezvouloir(tu) veuille(nous) n/a(vous) veuillez Negative Imperatives The order of words in a French sentence can be very confusing due to affirmative and negative imperative constructions and object and adverbial pronouns. Remember that there are two kinds of imperatives, affirmative and negative, and the word order is different for each of them. Negative imperatives are  easier  because their  word order  is the same as that of  all other simple verb conjugations: any object, reflexive, and/or adverbial pronouns precede the verb and the  negative structure  surrounds the pronoun(s) verb:Finis!  - Finish!Ne finis  pas!  - Dont finish!Ne le finis  pas!  - Dont finish it!Lisez!  - Read!Ne  lisez  pas!  - Dont read!Ne le  lisez  pas!  - Dont read it!Ne me le  lisez  pas!  - Dont read it to me! Affirmative Commands Affirmative commands are more complicated, for several reasons. 1.  The word order is for affirmative commands is different from that of all other verb tenses/moods: any pronouns follow the verb and are connected to it and to each other with  hyphens.Finis-le!  - Finish it!Allons-y!  - Lets go!Mangez-les!  - Eat them!Donne-lui-en!  - Give him some!2.  The order of the pronouns in affirmative commands is slightly different from all other verb tenses/moods (see table at the bottom of the page):Envoie-le-nous!  - Send it to us!Expliquons-la-leur!  - Lets explain it to them!Donnez-nous-en!  - Give us some!Donne-le-moi!  - Give it to me!3.  The pronouns  me  and  te  change to the  stressed pronouns  moi  and  toi...Là ¨ve-toi!  - Get up!Parlez-moi!  - Talk to me!Dis-moi!  - Tell me!...unless they are followed by  y or en, in which case they  contract  to  m  and  tVa-ten!  - Go away!Faites-my  penser.  - Remind me about it.4.  When a  tu  command is followed by the pronouns  y o r en, the final s is not dropped from the verb conjugation:Vas-y!  - Go away!Parles-en.  - Talk about it.

Womens Liberation Movement †Definition and Overview

Women's Liberation Movement - Definition and Overview The womens liberation movement was a collective struggle for equality that was most active during the late 1960s and 1970s. It sought to free women from oppression and male supremacy. The Meaning of the Name The movement consisted of womens liberation groups, advocacy, protests, consciousness-raising, feminist theory, and a variety of diverse individual and group actions on behalf of women and freedom. The term was created as a parallel to other liberation and freedom movements of the time. The root of the idea was a rebellion against colonial powers or a repressive national government to win independence for a national group and to end oppression. Parts of the racial justice movement of the time had begun calling themselves the  black liberation. The term liberation resonates not just with independence from oppression and male supremacy for individual women, but with solidarity among women seeking independence and ending oppression for women collectively. It was often held in contrast to individualistic feminism. The individuals and groups were loosely tied together by common ideas, although there were also significant differences between groups and conflicts within the movement. The term womens liberation movement is often used synonymously with womens movement or second wave feminism, although there were actually many different types of feminist groups. Even within the womens liberation movement, womens groups held differing beliefs about organizing tactics and whether working within the patriarchal establishment could effectively bring about the desired change. Not Womens Lib The term womens lib was used largely by those opposing the movement as a way of minimizing, belittling, and making a joke of it. Womens Liberation vs. Radical Feminism   The womens liberation movement is also sometimes seen as being synonymous with radical feminism  because both were concerned with freeing members of society from oppressive social structure. Both have sometimes been characterized as a threat to men, particularly when the movements use rhetoric about struggle and revolution. However, feminist theorists overall are actually concerned with how society can eliminate unfair sex roles. There is more to womens liberation than the anti-feminist fantasy that feminists are women who want to eliminate men. The desire for freedom from the oppressive social structure in many womens liberation groups led to internal struggles with structure and leadership. The idea of full equality and partnership being expressed in a lack of structure is credited by many with the weakening power and influence of the movement. It  led to later self-examination and further experimentation with leadership and participation models of organization. Putting Womens Liberation in Context The connection with a black liberation movement is significant because many of those involved in creating the womens liberation movement had been active in the civil rights movement and the growing black power and black liberation movements. They had experienced disempowerment and oppression there  as women. The rap group as a strategy for consciousness within the black liberation movement evolved into consciousness-raising groups within the womens liberation movement. The  Combahee River Collective  formed around the intersection of the two movements in the 1970s.   Many feminists and historians trace the roots of the womens liberation movement to the New Left and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and early 1960s. Women who worked in those movements often found that they were not treated equally, even within liberal or radical groups that claimed to fight for freedom and equality. Feminists of the 1960s had something in common with feminists of the 19th century in this respect: Early womens rights activists such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were inspired to organize for womens rights after being excluded from mens anti-slavery societies and abolitionist meetings. Writing About the Womens Liberation Movement Women have written fiction, non-fiction, and poetry about ideas of the 1960s and 1970s womens liberation movement. A few of these feminist writers were  Frances M. Beal, Simone de Beauvoir, Shulamith Firestone, Carol Hanisch, Audre Lorde, Kate Millett, Robin Morgan, Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, and Gloria Steinem. In her classic essay on womens liberation, Jo Freeman observed the tension between the Liberation Ethic and the Equality Ethic, To seek only equality, given the current male bias of the social values, is to assume that women want to be like men or that men are worth emulating...  It is just as dangerous to fall into the trap of seeking liberation without due concern for equality. On the challenge of radicalism versus reformism creating tension within the womens movement, Freeman goes on to say, This is a situation the politicos frequently found themselves in during the early days of the movement. They found repugnant the possibility of pursuing reformist issues which might be achieved without altering the basic nature of the system, and thus, they felt, only strengthen the system. However, their search for sufficiently radical action and/or issue came to naught and they found themselves unable to do anything out of fear that it might be counterrevolutionary. Inactive revolutionaries are a good deal more innocuous than active reformists.