Use of Inversion

Hi,

I was reading a few articles, and noticed that the writer has used inversion when there is a very complex noun phrase followed by a verb.

"Une societe ou le droit de manifester est encadre est-elle encore une democratie?"

In that example, I have assumped that

"Une societe ou le droit de manifester est encadre" functions essentially as the subject, and hence, "est" is still the main verb. But as the subject is too long, the use of inversion in "est-elle" becomes required. Am I right in this summation? I ask this as I have noticed that "est-elle" corresponds with "une societe"

I would really like to start using inversion- could someone please clarify/explain to me properly how to use it when *n0t* used in the context of a question.

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Key StudentPermalink Reply by Peter En on June 21, 2012 at 9:23am

Thank you all! This is all very useful!

So, to clarify, with the use of que, an inversion would be required?

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Permalink Reply by Christine on June 21, 2012 at 11:14am

Not always. :-(

If you say "Que fait le chien?", you're using the inversion because, as Neil said, it's compulsory in this type of interrogation.

But if you take "le chien que je vois" ("the dog that I see)") you're not using it, because it's only a part of a sentence. Depending on the case, it could be the subject ("Le chien que je vois mange.") or a complement ("Je caresse le chien que je vois.") In any case, the que is used here to attach to the dog the fact that you see it, not to ask a question.

They're... different types of que, I guess? A interrogative que and a... er, a "that" que? You'd have to ask Neil to define them, he''ll do much better than me! :-D