Why apostrophise?

Question

I am aware of the general confusion between "des" the indefinite plural article and "des"="de"+"les" the combination of the "de" with the definite plural article. However, normally neither of them gets apostrophised. Whence the exception here?

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Almut !

That's a very interesting question, and thanks to you, we've now clarified this issue in the lesson.

In the case of d'autres, the partitive des follows the rule of becoming de or d' in front of an adjective (See https://progress.lawlessfrench.com/revision/grammar/use-de-d-instead-of-des-in-front-of-adjectives-preceding-nouns-partitive-article), hence d'autres <choses> and not des autres <choses>.

We've now updated the lesson.
Merci beaucoup et à bientôt !