Breakdown of L'empire a été fondé par l'empereur.
être
to be
avoir
to have
par
by, through / out of (motive)
fonder
to found
l'empire
the empire
l'empereur
the emperor
Questions & Answers about L'empire a été fondé par l'empereur.
How do we form the passive voice in the passé composé for this sentence?
To form the passive voice in the passé composé, you take the passé composé of the verb être (which is a été) and add the past participle of your main verb (fondé). So, a été fondé translates to 'was founded' or 'has been founded'.
Why doesn't the past participle fondé have any extra letters at the end?
In the passive voice, the past participle always agrees in gender and number with the subject of the sentence. Our subject here is l'empire, which is masculine and singular. If the subject were feminine, like la ville (the city), you would add an -e to make it la ville a été fondée.
Why do we use par to say 'by' the emperor? Could we use de?
In French passive sentences, the person or thing doing the action (the agent) is usually introduced by par. You only use de with certain verbs that express a state of being, an emotion, or a condition (like respecté de or aimé de). Since fonder is a specific physical action, par is the correct choice here.
How can I tell if empire is masculine or feminine from this sentence?
The word l'empire hides its gender because le and la both become l' before a vowel. However, because the past participle fondé agrees with the subject in a passive sentence, the fact that it has no extra -e tells us that empire is masculine.
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