Reflexive pronoun or not?

Question

I was speaking to a French woman today and I said, "My eyes didn't itch":

Mes yeux n'ont pas démangé. Elle m'a corrige est dit : Mes yeux ne m'ont pas démangé.

If the latter is correct, do you use 'me'because you're talking about a body part? If so wouldn't you use "sont"? Or , is there some other explanation?

Accepted Answer

Helen,

the verb ‘ démanger ‘ is not reflexive, but it is transitive, and conjugates with avoir.

There must be an object - and in this case that happens to be you, so the direct object pronoun ‘ me ‘ is used.

Note the definitions of ‘ démanger ‘, in Larousse and wordeference below

Démanger is not quite the same as what we might just call ‘feeling itchy’ in English. A more direct English literal translation of your sentence could be ‘ my eyes are not making me want to scratch ‘.

https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/d%C3%A9manger/23200

https://www.wordreference.com/fren/d%C3%A9manger

Answer

Hi Helen, 
I would say that the translation in English is just 'to itch'. 
Please note that it is conjugated like 'plaire', so -

quelque chose vous démange = something is itching
 
Mes yeux me démangent = My eyes are itching
Ça vous démange où ? = Where do you itch?

It can be used figuratively too when 'you are itching to do something', so take a look at the following page with more examples -
https://dictionnaire.reverso.net/francais-anglais/%C3%A7a+me+d%C3%A9mange+de+faire
Hope this helps!

Answer

Maarten,

Your explanation: " Démanger is not quite the same as what we might just call ‘feeling itchy’ in English. A more direct English literal translation of your sentence could be ‘ my eyes are not making me want to scratch ‘ really helps here! And the link to wordreference.com totally reinforces what you said. Thank you very much!