Use of Inversion

[Peter En]

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.

 

[George Hunt]

I don't know the rules of inversion (never really come across it as a grammatical  idea) but I don't think your sentence would be an example of it.

As I see it , the "elle" is just   a repetition of the complex noun phrase as you mention in order to make the phrasing simpler.

As you say the "elle est" is indeed changed to "est-elle" but only to turn the statement into a question.

That is  my take.

 

 

[Peter En]

Oh- so if I had a complex noun phrase, could I still use that to make it simpler?

The way I've been dealing with complex noun phrases is by, perhaps, separating it by a comma. I'd have a  a complex noun phrase, and then I'd place a comma, and then I'd place the conjugated verb- sort of just floating there by itself after the comma. This is somewhat similiar to what you would do in english.

I'm not too happy with doing that though, and I was searching for alternatives.

[George Hunt]

Une societe ou le droit de manifester est encadre, elle est encore une democratie. or

Une societe ou le droit de manifester est encadre est encore une democratie.

 

like that? That is just a simple statement (no question mark). Both mean that "A

society where the right to demonstrate  is regulated  remains a democracy"

However as an example of possible "inversion" without turning the statement into a question I think you could also write

Une societe ou est encadre le droit de manifester  est encore une democratie.

 

That also has the same meaning I think.

[Peter En]

thanks!! that makes a lot of sense- I could simply invert the order of the phrasing!

[Christine]

Une société où le droit de manifester est encadré, elle est encore une démocratie.

That's the kind of things you only get orally. Even then, it sounds a bit strange. You'd normally get something like "Une société où le droit de manifester est encadré, c'est encore une démocratie". If you write it down, you should go with your second example.

 

Inverting the order of the sentence as you did here

Une société où est encadré le droit de manifester est encore une démocratie

is perfectly possible, but only as long as you don't mix the two parts of the complex sentence (in this case, the subject and the rest of the sentence).

[Peter En]

Just on that note, could you explain to me that form of inversion?

So I am to understand that the subject " le droit de manifester" is inverted with the "est encadré"?

thanks for the clarification

[Christine]

Yes, that's right.

(I don't know if breaking it down like this helps, but here the main subject is in bold. The part of it that's also a sentence (the complement) in italic bold, and the subject of that second sentence is underscored.

Une société où le droit de manifester est encadré est encore une démocratie.

 

If you take only that one, "Le droit de manifester est encadré", you can't inverse it without it being a question ("Le droit de manifester est-il encadré?"). Since you have a more complex sentence here, it's a (composed) complement of the subject and you can turn it however you want.)

[Neil Coffey]

Hi Christine -- it might just be worth clarifying something.

There's a difference between "normal" inversion, as used to form a question or in a few other circumstances where the syntax demands it, and what is sometimes called "stylistic" inversion, which is an optional use of inversion for stylistic purposes. Examples of the three cases (no inversion, normal inversion, stylistic inversion):

(Une société où) le droit de manifester est encadré... > No inversion (incidentally, I'm not quite sure why people are describing this as inversion: it's just normal boring subject-verb word order)

Où le droit de manifester est-il encadré? > Normal inversion (in fact, a subcategory of (normal) inversion usually called "complex" inversion). Generally serves a purpose (to mark a question) or is demanded by the syntax (e.g. after "Ainsi").

Une société où est encadré le droit de manifester > Stylistic inversion. Essentially optional, with no function other than because the author thinks it "sounds better".

Notice that there is a syntactic difference between the two types of inversion: you couldn't use the "complex" form of inversion as stylistic inversion.

[Christine]

Hi Neil,

Yes, I tend not to know what a specific grammar point is called, or what the rule actually is since I use it everyday.

I see the difference alright, but you explain it a lot better than I (tried to) do.

And so, to take the point further with your words: just as you can't use the "complex" form of inversion as stylistic inversion, you can't use the stylistic inversion to form a question either.

[Neil Coffey]

Usually not. However, there are a few cases with so-called "partial" questions (ones that can't be answered by a simple "oui"/"non") where you can get the 'simple' type of inversion, i.e. resembling the stylistic type, if the question word is short.

So, you will sometimes hear e.g. "Où travaille ton père?", "Combien coûte ce manteau?" as a question (though "Où ton père travaille-t-il?" and "Combien ce manteau coûte-t-il?" are obviously also possible, and maybe more common).

The 'stylistic' version is also commonly used with "que": "Que font tes parents?", whereas e.g. "Que tes parents font-ils?" tends to sound somewhat clumsy.

[Christine]

"Où ton père travaille-t-il?" is a perfectly correct form, but in everyday life, you'll hear people ask something more like "ton père travaille où?", or even "ton père, il travaille où?"/"où il travaille, ton père?", which I've never seen written if not to rend the casual tone of the conversation.

 

I thought you described the stylistic version as optional? I don't see many other options than "que font tes parents?". "Que tes parents font-ils?" sounds really strange, I don't think I've ever seen anyone use that. I'd tend to say it's not used if not part of something else: "Que tes parents font-ils lorsqu'il pleut?" (and it still sounds weird).

[Neil Coffey]

Sorry, just to follow on from your comment below -- I may not have made things clear. You can see things like this: there are two broad types of inversion: stylistic and non-stylistic. Within non-stylistic inversion (i.e. the "normal" type used for interrogation), there are two sub-types: simple and complex.

In "Que font les enfants?", the inversion is of the non-stylistic type, i.e. it is "compulsory" if you decide to use this type of interrogation. Of course, you could indeed say "Les enfants font quoi?", "Ils font quoi les enfants?" etc, and as you say these are in reality much more common in everyday usage. But if you decide to use the type of question with "que?", then the inversion is compulsory (which I think you agree with).

Note that the description "compulsory" means "compulsory" if you've decided to use that structure in the first place. Obviously, you could always decide to phrase your sentence another way.