Why is the second '-il' needed in the following sentence?

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on November 10, 2010 at 3:41pm

The situation is slightly complicated, and you may wish to refer to the information on forming questions in French on the French Linguistics web site. However, basically the answer is that it would be usual to include the extra -il.

In general, when the subject of a question is a noun phrase (and not just a pronoun il/elle etc) and you use inversion, then you also insert the corresponding pronoun:

- always in yes/no questions (ones that can be answered by "yes" or "no")
- usually, with longer question words (of >1 syllable, like comment, pourquoi)
- usually, to avoid the subject and object being directly next to one another

That said, there is some speaker to speaker variation in such cases. I know, for example, that with one of the French-speaking colleagues that I regularly collaborate with on translation work, there have been a few cases where she has suggested removing the -il (or equivalent) with pourquoi where I would have expected many speakers to prefer it to be inserted.

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Permalink Reply by Steven Wain on November 10, 2010 at 4:36pm

Ahh, thanks so much, that was such a helpful answer.

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Permalink Reply by Benoît on November 10, 2010 at 4:37pm

There is one mistake in your sentence:
Quand M. Sanderson est-il allé à Paris (and no "a-t-il")

The second part of your sentence is correct, even if I would say:
"Pourquoi son avion a-t-il quitté Londres en retard ?"(instead of quittait-il).
I have no explanation for such preference, it's more a feeling than a true rule I guess...

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Permalink Reply by Alix Martin on November 10, 2010 at 7:01pm

We would say :
"Quand M. Sanderson EST-il allé à Paris, et pourquoi son avion a-t-il quitté Londres en retard ?"
We can also say "Quand M. Sanderson est allé à Paris, et pourquoi son avion a quitté Londres en retard?" but it's not really correct.

Alix

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