Language/French/Grammar/Constructions-which-do-not-allow-indirect-object-pronouns
A small set of verbs and adjectives in French look as if they take indirect objects because they are followed by the preposition à, but in fact they do not allow preceding me, te, se, nous, vous, lui, leur, and require stressed pronouns to follow à:
French | Il pense à Jean | II pense à lui (NOT *Il lui pense) |
---|---|---|
English | He is thinking of John | He is thinking of him |
French | II fait allusion à Marie | II fait allusion à elle (NOT *Il lui fait allusion) |
English | He is referring to Marie | He is referring to her |
French | Elle aura affaire à Henri | Elle aura affaire à lui (NOT ""Elle lui aura affaire) |
English | She will have to deal with Henri | She will have to deal with him |
French | Ce sac est à Julien | Ce sac est à lui (NOT *Ce sac lui est) |
English | This bag is juliens | This bag is his |
The explanation for this behaviour seems to be that à can have two functions: to introduce indirect objects, and as an ordinary preposition. In the above examples, À is a preposition. Since lui, leur can only correspond to indirect objects lui, leur are not possible in these cases - only stressed pronouns can be used.
Other common verbs followed by à which behave similarly are:
French | English |
---|---|
en appeler à | appeal to |
faire appel à | appeal to |
avoir recours à | have recourse to |
recourir à | have recourse to |
faire attention à | pay attention to |
faire allusion à | allude to |
s'habituer à | get used to |
revenir à | come back to |
rêver à | dream of |
songer à | think of |
tenir à | be fond of |
venir à | come to |
The set of verbs which behave in this way is quite small. We have listed most of them here. When the phrase introduced by à in these cases refers to things, rather than people, pre-verbal y may replace it.
Verbs like these can be made reflexive or reciprocal by adding the appropriate forms lui(-même), elle(-même), etc., or l'un l'autre, etc.:
- Il pense à lui(-même)
He is thinking of himself
- Elles auront affaire les unes aux autres
They will have to deal with each other
Other Lessons[edit | edit source]
- Use of on
- The partitive article "du", "de l'", "de la" and "des"
- Inversion of subject and verb after some sentence initial adverbs
- Pronominal verbs used as passives
- Use of faire + partitive faire du, de la
- Location of adverbs modifying verb phrases
- Marked use of tu
- Adverbs ending in —ment derived from words no longer in the language
- Plurals of nouns ending in eu, au, eau
- L’on VS on
- Adjectives
- Negations
- "de" when an adjective precedes the noun
- Masculine Nouns Ending in ée
- "se faire" and "se laisser"