Asking Questions with Reflexive Verbs in French

This page assumes you already know the three constructions from How to Ask Questions in French and how negation shifts across tenses from Negative Questions in French: How Word Order Shifts With the Tense. A reflexive verb adds exactly one extra rule on top of everything you already know there: the reflexive pronoun always stays directly in front of the verb. Below, that rule applied to a standard question first, then to a negative one.

Standard questions

Only inversion moves anything, and it moves the same thing it always moves: the subject pronoun, which comes after the verb exactly as it would with a non-reflexive verb. The reflexive pronoun is not part of that movement. In all three constructions, it stays fixed directly before the conjugated verb.

Register	Présent	Passé composé
Inversion	Se réveille-t-elle vers 6h30 ?	S'est-elle réveillée vers 6h30 ?
Est-ce que	Est-ce qu'elle se réveille vers 6h30 ?	Est-ce qu'elle s'est réveillée vers 6h30 ?
Intonation	Elle se réveille vers 6h30 ?	Elle s'est réveillée vers 6h30 ?

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Now let's negate it

Inversion is the only construction where negation creates anything new to look at, so that's the one shown below. With est-ce que and intonation, the same rule applies with nothing extra happening: ne goes in before the reflexive pronoun, pas goes in after the verb, and the reflexive pronoun itself doesn't move.

Au présent Au passé composé

ne / n' … pas conjugated verb or auxiliary inverted subject pronoun reflexive pronoun — never moves past participle — never moves

Inversion

Ne se réveille -t-elle pas vers 6h30 ?

▶ Voir la transformation

The subject pronoun already moved after the verb in the standard question above: Se réveille-t-elle vers 6h30 ? Negation doesn't move it again — se stays directly in front of the verb, and ne and pas are added before and after that pair.

Inversion

Ne s' est -elle pas réveillée vers 6h30 ?

▶ Voir la transformation

The subject pronoun already moved after est in the standard question above: S'est-elle réveillée vers 6h30 ? Negation adds ne before the pair and pas after it, without moving anything else. Se elides to s' before est, but ne doesn't elide, since it isn't directly in front of the vowel — the reflexive pronoun sits between them. No euphonic -t- is needed either, since est already ends in a written t.

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