French Language > Verbs

House of Being Verbs
Verbes de la Maison d'Être

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I. Grouping These Verbs

A small group of French verbs form their compound tenses with être as the auxiliary verb rather than avoir. The past participle agrees with the subject.

• Elle est partie sans dire un mot. (She left without saying a word.)

They are referred to as the Maison d’Être, which is a joke, because it’s supposed to make you think of the phrase raison d’être = “reason for existence.” The verbs form a sort of house, because they mean such actions as entering, leaving, climbing, descending, and falling, all of which things you can do around a house.

Since I think it is better to understand why these verbs form a group, I disdain to use any such graphic. However, if you wish, you may view various maisons d’être here on Google. (If you are familiar with Tex’s French Grammar, you may wish to check out their l’Alamo d’Être.)

For the same reason I disdain even more strongly the acronym VANDERTRAMPP, each letter of which represents a House-of-Being verb.

Nonetheless, I can’t resist embedding this YouTube video.

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II. The True Raison d’Être of the Maison d’Être

The key thing is movement-with-direction. A verb indicating simply a type of movement is not a house-of-being verb.

In contrast, accourir, which means “run up to,” is considered a house-of-being verb:

As for those four verbs that don’t indicate movement-with-direction, here is how I explain them:

Naître and Mourir Justified

We have to allow for metaphor here, or else possess a world view like that of the ancient Celts (in which two separate realms of being exist side by side) or the modern theory of multiple universes.

Metaphorically, birth is a passage out of pre-existence into this, our present existence; death is a passage out of this existence into post-existence (whatever that may be). Hence, the rule (“a House-of-Being Verb Must Indicate Movement with Direction”) is preserved.

The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant.–Northumbrian noble quoted by Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

Devenir and Rester Justified

Devenir, “to become,” requires allowing another metaphor. When one becomes something, one passes from the state of not having that thing, to the state of having it.

• Elle est devenue veuve. (She became a widow.)
  The woman has passed out of the married state and into the widowed state.
• Nous sommes devenus riches et célèbres. (We became rich and famous.)
  We have passed out of the state of poverty and anonymity, into that of wealth and fame.

Rester means, literally, the opposite of moving away (partir, etc.) and, figuratively, the opposite of a change of state (devenir). Since the verbs indicating departure and change of state are conjugated with être: –

• Elle est sortie de la maison. (She went out of the house = She left the house for a moment.)
• Elle est partie pour Paris. (She left for Paris.)
• Elle est devenue reine. (She became a queen.)

The French linguistic collective unconsciousness has decided that rester will act the same way: in the past, it will be in a “perfective” tense (i.e., the passé composé) and conjugated with être:

• Elle est restée à la maison. (She stayed home.)
• Elle est restée à Abbeville. (She stayed in [the town of] Abbeville.)
• Elle est restée simple citoyenne. (She remained a mere citizen.)

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III. Kinds of Verbs in This House of Being

A. –er Verbs

• arriver
• entrer
• monter
• passer
• rentrer
• retourner
• tomber

B. A Single –re Verb

• descendre

C. Verbs of the dormir type

• sortir
  • ressortir
• partir
  • repartir

C. Verbs Like Venir

• venir
• advenir ¹
• devenir
• parvenir
• revenir

D. Other Irregulars

• aller, s’en aller
• mourir
• naître

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IV. Notes on Individual Verbs

Aller

Apparaître, Disparaître

Should these verbs be conjugated with avoir or with être? Insofar as the action is a metaphorical movement-in-a-direction (passage between the visible and the invisible), one might conclude in favor of être; but usage is divided. I quote (while translating) from the TLFi entry on apparaître:

Similarly, in the entry on disparaître, one reads:

Passer

When it means “to pass by” (in front of), passer is considered a House-of-Being verb.

• Nous sommes passés devant l’hôtel dans notre calèche. (We passed by the hotel in our calèche.)

It can also mean to stop briefly at a place.

• Elle est passé te voir. (She came by to see you.)

Passer also has an important transitive meaning: “to spend (an amount of time doing something)”:

• J’ai passé des heures à raccommoder tes vêtements. (I spent hours patching up your clothes.)

Finally, passer has two pronominal uses, meaning

1. “to happen”
2. “to do without”

Sortir

A. Basic Use

The basic meaning of sortir is “to come out of an enclosed space.” Hence it has come to mean, with a human person as subject,

1. “to leave one’s dwelling, more or less briefly, to accomplish an action” (an errand, or to see a show, or to eat in a restaurant, or simply to take a walk). It always contains the notion that the person will return when the action is accomplished.
2. “to leave a meeting” (usually, when it is over). Whence a noun, la sortie.

The opposite of sortir is rentrer = “to come back inside.”

Sortir avec quelqu’un, with habitual aspect, means “to be dating someone.” (Cf., in older English usage, to “walk out” with someone.)

• Il sort avec Régine Crespin. (He’s dating [walking out with] Regine Crespin.)

B. Transitive Use

Sortir has a transitive use, with the meaning “to take out from within an enclosed space.” This use of sortir is conjugated with avoir.

• Il a sorti sa montre de sa poche. (He took his watch out of his pocket.)
• J’ai sorti le chien avant de lui donner à manger. (I took the dog out before feeding it.)

C. Pronominal Use

Based on this transitive use is a pronominal one, se sortir de, meaning “to get oneself out of a difficult situation.”

• Il avait des difficultés financières à cette époque, mais il s’en est sorti. (He had money problems at that time, but got [= managed to get] out of them.)

Verbs Meaning “To Return”

For the one English verb “to return,” French has three (all belonging to the House of Being). They are not interchangeable:

1. rentrer. “to come back inside,” and so “to come OR get back home.” ²
   Quand est-ce que vous êtres rentrés? (When did you return = get back home?)
2. retourner. “to go back = to return to a place that is not where you are now.”
   Je vais retrourner aux USA en juin. (I am going to return to the US in June. [I am currently in France.])
3. revenir. “to come back = to return to the place where you are currently.”
   Quand reviendras-tu du bon côté de l’Atlantique? (When will you return to the good side of the Atlantic? [You and the speaker are currently in France.])

1. Uncommon. But it did give us, in both languages, the noun “adventure.”[↩]
2. The complete expression is “rentrer à la maison,” but the prepositional phrase is often left out.[↩]

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