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I understand that "dont" (Whose) cannot be used when the noun it refers to in a relative clause is an indirect object (i.o)  but I don't understand the reason why the noun being an i.o necessitates this change.

For instance, one must say

"Les amis avec le fils de qui je voyageais" rather than "Les amis dont je voyageais avec le fils". Why couldn't you use the latter?

When "dont" refers to a direct object one can say "les amis dont vous avez recontre le fils". What difference does adding a preposition after the verb make and why can't "dont"  be used?

Can anyone please explain the reason to me as I will only ever remember this rule if I understand the logic behind it.

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It can seem odd at first glance that French doesn't allow this type of construction.

But to help get at a possible explanation for why it isn't possible, think about the general restriction on cases such as the following, where prepositional phrases are shown in square brackets:

Nous parlons [de cette idée].

Voici l'idée [de laquelle] nous parlons.

*Voici l'idée que nous parlons [de ___].

Je vais [avec cet homme].

C'est l'homme [avec qui] je vais.

*C'est l'homme que je vais [avec ____].

The asterisked sentences are ungrammatical in standard French (interestingly, not necessarily in some dialects/popular varieties, but we won't worry about that for now). In other words, there is a general restriction in French that an element cannot be "removed" from inside a prepositional phrase. Notice that this isn't the case in English: you can happily say e.g. "Who are you going with?".

In fancy linguistic verbiage, you can call this the "PP Island Constraint". The Prepositional Phrase (PP) forms an "island" that elements cannot be extracted from. Or put less fancily, French requires prepositional phrases to be "complete" and not have the noun away from the preposition as in English.

Now, if you consider "dont" to 'stand for' "de..." etc, the restriction you mention essentially falls out of the general constraint on not removing things from inside prepositional phrases. When you say:

"*Les amis dont je voyageais avec le fils"

underlyingly it's as though you're trying to say:

"*Les amis que je voyageais avec le fils [de ...]"

Now, I should say that this isn't a perfect explanation. For one thing, it is perfectly grammatical to say e.g.:

Ces amis, dont beaucoup sont jeunes.

whereas according to the logic I've just outlined, we might expect this to be ungrammatical because it would have an underlying structure similar to:

*Ces amis, que beaucoup [de ____] sont jeunes.

So... there's a bit of "logic" behind the restriction that you mention in that it fits a general pattern of French prepositional phrases... sort of, but not perfectly.

Whether that helps you remember the rule, I'm not sure... :)

Thanks for that very thorough answer, Neil. That definitely helps a lot.

Just one more question: When "de" is used with "lequel,laquelle etc." to indicate possesion does the pronoun agree with the possesor or the possesed? So would it be

Une voiture sur le capot de laquelle

or

Une voiture sur le capot duquel

 

I think it has to be  the former ("Une voiture sur le capot duquel" is wrong)

I f you rewrite your sentence as "sur le capot de quelle voiture est-ce que....?" it may seem  clearer.

So to answer your specific question  it would be that   the pronoun agrees with the  possessor.

Another example might be "une mère tout à fait charmante ,le fils de laquelle n'a  jamais eu de manières "

Thanks George

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