Replace desquelles with dont

Question

Hello,In the sentence 'il y avait de petites huttes aux fenêtres desquelles de minuscules visages hirsutes avaient l'air préoccupé.' Is it possible to replace desquelles with dont?

Céline Pickard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour Adam,
In French, "dont" is used to replace "de" + a person or thing when the verb or expression directly uses "de" (e.g., parler de, avoir besoin de, se souvenir de). It cannot replace a more complex prepositional phrase like "aux fenêtres de...". Here, the sentence does not include a prepositional verb or verbal expression with de. Instead, we’re using a place/location: "at the windows of which tiny hairy faces looked preoccupied". And we’re:
-  combining "à + les fenêtres" = aux fenêtres
and
- adding "de" for "the faces of the windows"
So, the full phrase becomes: "aux fenêtres desquelles" = "at the windows of which"
 
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Alan Graham · Answer

I would have said that the problem is that there is no word order that will allow you to use both à and dont, since they both need to precede fenêtres. You could translate "the windows of which" as "dont les fenêtres", but you can't write "à dont les fenêtres".

Alan Graham · Answer

Surely desquelles means "the windows of the huts", not "the faces of the windows"? This is the point: desquelles can be placed after fenêtres, but refer to an earlier noun, which is not possible with dont.