#des/les, regardent-ils inversion

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rotund bladeBOT
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tough dove
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  1. CGPT says it's an inversion, but without inversion wouldn't "pourquoi les gens ils regardent des films" have redundant subjects?

  2. Is it possible to write this without inversion a) without downgrading to familier and b) without writing "pourquoi est-ce que le gens regardent des films?"

  3. Do I understand "les" vs "des" correctly? "Les" is for all/the/the idea, while "des" is more specific/measurablefinite. ie.

    • Do you want to eat some food -> Tu vieux manger des nourritures? (specific food on the table)
    • Do you like eating food? -> Tu aimes manger les nourritures? (the idea of food)
tepid garden
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It is inversion. In French, you can only invert a verb and a pronoun. When you want to use inversion with a noun, you have to add a pronoun on top of it to use for inversion, redundancy is not an issue.

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  1. yes
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  1. bad example as "nourriture" is not countable, as such you can't use "des" but would need a partitive pronoun (du/de la)
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-# technically "les/des nourritures" can exist but is very limited in usage and doesn't work in your context.

tough dove
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1/2. So "pourquoi gens ils regardent des films" is grammatically correct?
3. Hmm what about:

Do you like petting the dogs (specific dogs in front of you)? ---> Tu aimes caresser des chiens?
Do you like petting dogs (in general)? ---> Tu aimes caresser les chiens?

tepid garden
tepid garden
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"des" is for non specific instances.
"j'ai carressé les chiens" (I pet the dogs, the person you're talking to already is aware of which dogs you're talking about)
"j'ai carressé des chiens" (I pet some dogs, doesn't matter which dogs)

tough dove
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So "pourqoui des gens..." would be fine, if I was saying "why do some people..."? Like it doesn't matter which people, could be some people at a party you're in.

loud star
tepid garden
tough dove
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Merci beaucoup Flynn!

tepid garden
spiral geyser
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@tough dove

Pourquoi les gens, ils regardent les films ?
This works with the subject repetition incredibly common in casual French.

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(It can also be done in an est-ce que question : Pourquoi est-ce que les gnens, ils regardent les films ?)

tepid garden
spiral geyser
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We don't use inversion with pourquoi, at least not like this. As for why, no real clue.

tepid garden
spiral geyser
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Yes, this kind of inversion requires the pronoun. The kind of inversion brought up by Mike doesn't work. However, you can see it with comment and où.

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Comment va mémé ? Où est parti Julien ?

fathom coral
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I wonder if it's because « pourquoi » is originally a compound word – literally « pour + quoi (for what) – because I think you have inversions like « En quoi consiste ton travail » that don't involve this sort of subject duplication

spiral geyser
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Oh, en quoi too.

fathom coral
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« De quoi parle Jean ? »

spiral geyser
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Yep.

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De quelle sorte est ta chemise ?

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Etc.

fathom coral
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I use est-ce que all the time so I don't really know

spiral geyser
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Perhaps pourquoi is just here to complete the clause instead of being directly linked to it like où and comment are?

fathom coral
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maybe

loud star
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Some sources say it can be done when the verb does not have a complement: « Pourquoi pleurent les enfants » « Pourquoi portent les enfants un sac à dos ?»

fathom coral
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it's the reflexive pronoun

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comment s'est passée ta journée

tepid garden
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yeah those were all things I considered which is why I wasn't sure of my answer