"conjugated verb exclusion"

J. L.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

"conjugated verb exclusion"

I spent many dejected days trying to understand the following rule in this lesson. "the main difficulty here is that in French you cannot use a conjugated verb after la veille or le lendemain, unlike in English: the day after he left / the day before you were born.

Instead you will use de + noun, as such:'

===========================

The imperative appeared out of the blue.  (I am not using imperative here in the grammar sense by the way but as a prohibitory order) It also seemed contradictory, because the sentence, 'The day after, I was enrolling at university/ Le lendemain, j'allais m'inscrire à l'université.    came right before it. ...a conjugated verb 'j allais' following lendemarin.

 What seems to be the case is that 'le lendemain'  or 'la veille' CANNOT be 'conjoined' with a descriptive clause or phrase for associated events  WITHOUT punctuation.  You identify the day using le lendemain or la veille but to add associated actions you must express them with a separate punctuated clause/phrase or use 'de + noun".

Examples:

the day after i was enrolling at university.../ le lendemain de mon inscription à l'université

the day after, I  was enrolling at university...Le lendemain, je m'inscrivais à l'université.


Asked 4 years ago
Chris W.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

I think you got it.

In the sentence: "The day after, I was enrolling at university," the "day after" part is a kind of tacked on to the sentence and only has a lose connection to it. You could leave it off and still have a complete sentence left.

J. L. asked:View original

"conjugated verb exclusion"

I spent many dejected days trying to understand the following rule in this lesson. "the main difficulty here is that in French you cannot use a conjugated verb after la veille or le lendemain, unlike in English: the day after he left / the day before you were born.

Instead you will use de + noun, as such:'

===========================

The imperative appeared out of the blue.  (I am not using imperative here in the grammar sense by the way but as a prohibitory order) It also seemed contradictory, because the sentence, 'The day after, I was enrolling at university/ Le lendemain, j'allais m'inscrire à l'université.    came right before it. ...a conjugated verb 'j allais' following lendemarin.

 What seems to be the case is that 'le lendemain'  or 'la veille' CANNOT be 'conjoined' with a descriptive clause or phrase for associated events  WITHOUT punctuation.  You identify the day using le lendemain or la veille but to add associated actions you must express them with a separate punctuated clause/phrase or use 'de + noun".

Examples:

the day after i was enrolling at university.../ le lendemain de mon inscription à l'université

the day after, I  was enrolling at university...Le lendemain, je m'inscrivais à l'université.


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