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"en" (or "y") in sub/relative clauses | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4950 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 1 of 7 16 September 2012 at 10:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Consider this sentence:
Tu as des pièces comme personne n'en a. I assume "en" there stands for "des pièces". There is very little on this in my print or online resources, so is "en" or "y" required in subordinate clauses normally? (kinda of like the past participle agreeing in a relative clause to the item described). Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 2 of 7 17 September 2012 at 8:29am | IP Logged | ||
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It depends on the verb. In this case you have avoir, so you'd use it with en, but you
could also say Tu as un avis comme personne n'y trouve. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5309 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 3 of 7 17 September 2012 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think subordinate-clause-ness has anything to do with it.
Tu as des pièces. Personne n'en a. <--In French you have to say it like that, instead of Tu as des pièces. Personne n'a. X You say Tu as des pièces. Personne n'en a. so you say Tu as des pièces comme personne n'en a. Tu as des pièces parceque personne n'en a. Tu as des pièces mais personne n'en a. Tu as des pièces quand personne n'en a. etc 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4950 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 4 of 7 17 September 2012 at 4:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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Right, because the verb is "trouver à", and thus the object complement of "à" is replaced with "y", while partitive complements like in my sentence of course use "en".
But my question is do you always need "en/y" in sentence fragments/dependent clauses, like what comes after "comme...". It would so? EDIT: just saw the latest answer. I understand what you are saying. In other words, it is not the fact it is a dependent clause that requires it, but that dependent clauses or a subset within the larger circumstances that require either "en" or "y". That makes sense and I can easily live with that. Barring any native totally contradicting anything said above, I'll consider my query taken care of. Edited by outcast on 17 September 2012 at 4:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 7 17 September 2012 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I believe this has to do with verb requirements, and every verb is different.
For instance, you can say "I'm going", but you have to say "J'y vais" because aller always needs a complement with à. Similary, avoir requires an object and the object in your example starts with des, so you use the pronoun en in order to avoid repetition. Otherwise, "tu as des pièces comme personne" sounds fine to me (though colloquial). This need for a pronoun has nothing to do with relative clauses, but again, hinges on the requirement of each individual verb. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4950 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 6 of 7 17 September 2012 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Makes sense again, but since a dependent clause requires a verb or it isn't a dependent clause at all, then by default all dependent clauses will require "en" or "y" depending on the verb. Not because of the clause itself, but because of the verb.
A classic linguistic "chicken or the egg", though in this case the consensus given to me is that the chicken came first (the verb requirement). It answers my question though, always use the pronouns when in a dependent clause if the verb would normally demand it on an independent clause. Thanks everyone! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| grunts67 Diglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5303 days ago 215 posts - 252 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 7 of 7 18 September 2012 at 6:06am | IP Logged | ||
This ! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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