Breakdown of Le joueur a été critiqué par l'arbitre après qu'il a triché.
être
to be
il
he
avoir
to have
par
by, through / out of (motive)
le joueur
the player
tricher
to cheat
après que
after (conjunction)
l'arbitre
the referee (m)
critiquer
to criticize
Questions & Answers about Le joueur a été critiqué par l'arbitre après qu'il a triché.
Why does après qu'il take the indicative (a triché) here instead of the subjunctive?
This is a very common point of confusion! Even though avant que (before) takes the subjunctive, après que (after) takes the indicative. This is because après que describes an event that has definitively happened and is a stated fact, whereas avant que describes an event that hasn't happened yet (and thus might not happen).
Since the cheating happened before the criticism, shouldn't the second verb be in the plus-que-parfait (avait triché)?
You absolutely can use the plus-que-parfait here (avait triché) to emphasize that the cheating was fully completed before the criticism. However, in everyday French, it's very common to simply use the passé composé (a triché) for both actions when the sequence of events is already made obvious by the phrase après que.
Could I say après avoir triché instead of après qu'il a triché?
Yes, and it would actually sound more natural to many French speakers! Because the subject of both actions is the same person (le joueur / il), you can use après avoir + past participle. Après qu'il a triché is grammatically correct, but replacing it with après avoir triché makes the sentence less repetitive.
In the passive structure a été critiqué, why doesn't the past participle agree with l'arbitre?
In the passive voice, the past participle always agrees with the subject of the sentence, not the agent performing the action. Here, the subject is Le joueur (masculine singular), so critiqué takes no extra -e or -s. The referee (l'arbitre) is just the agent introduced by par, so it doesn't dictate the agreement.
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