The verb punir

Question

I took a quiz that asked this question: Les garçons ? Oui, elle les a ________ . The boys? Yes, she punished them.HINT: punir = to punishI 
 understand the lesson, the verb punir is to be conjugated to agree in 
number and gender with the direct object it's replacing. But the passe 
composé conjugation for punir is "puni," according to your conjugation page. (ex: je "puni" tu "puni" 
.... nous "puni"  ... ils "puni.")   So how is the correct answer "punis"  ?

Accepted Answer

Hi Amanda,
Here, 'puni' is the past participle of the verb 'punir'.
Elle les a punis = She has punished them 
because the object of 'punir', which is les and it replaces les garçons and it is placed before the verb, 'puni'  agrees with the object and becomes masculine plural.
But if it was -
She punished the boys = Elle a puni les garçons
there would be no agreement of past participle with the object, that is the point of the lesson.
Hope this helps!

Answer

The verb is not replacing a direct object, this would make no sense. The verb «punir» is preceded in the sentence by its direct object pronoun «les» (plural/masculine in this case). Hence the exception requiring agreement of the past participle in passé composé with the auxiliary avoir applies. If «les» represented 'les filles' instead of 'les garçons', it would be «a punies». This is the point of the lesson.