# FR: totalement en allé où



## donniebirthday

Bonsoir,

Je suis en train de lire ‘Moderato Cantabile’ de Duras et je viens de rencontrer une phrase assez bizarre. Je n’arrive pas à trouver une traduction:

- Modéré et chantant, dit l’enfant totalement *en allé où?*

Ce que je ne comprends pas c’est cette dernière partie '*en allé où?’ * -

Est-ce une erreur dans le texte ou bien une vraie expression? Si je devais essayer de la traduire je dirais que c'était comme 'la tête dans les nuages', mais je n'en serais pas du tout sûr.

Merci d’avance.


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## jann

It's a strange construction.

The question mark is part of what the student said : "_Modéré et chantant ?_"

The _en allé où_ is a description of the child, who is daydreaming or otherwise mentally absent... grammatically parallel to _...dit l'enfant, parti en rêve_ but rather odd because of the substitution of _s'en aller_ for _partir_, and _où_ (because who knows where the child's thoughts are) for _en rêve_.

Translating, that might give us something along the lines of: "In moderate tempo and singing?" asked the child, mentally quite elsewhere.


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## donniebirthday

Perfect! - and thanks also for the note on the question mark, that really stumped me too.


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## CapnPrep

jann said:


> The question mark is part of what the student said : "_Modéré et chantant ?_"


I don't think so… The student is not asking a question; he's mindlessly repeating what the teacher just said. The question mark goes with _où_.


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## Maître Capello

I agree with CP. If the question mark had been linked to what the child said, it would have replaced the comma:

_— Modéré et chantant *?* dit l’enfant totalement en allé où._

That said, “_en allé où ?_” used as an adjective is indeed a weird phrase! I understand it as _parti on ne sait où_…


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## Bix

I don't know this phrase (and I'm fond of my mothertongue!) and I would have put some hyphen or quotes for such a made-up phrase, like:

dit l'enfant en allé-où?
or
dit l'enfant en "allé où?".

Beside, the only other occurrence of this phrase is ... in another Duras novel, where she did put quotes !
L'Amant

--> Looks like the lady actually created the phrase !


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## Maître Capello

Bix said:


> Beside, the only other occurrence of this phrase is ... in another Duras novel, where she did put quotes !
> L'Amant


Not really… The link you provided indeed refers to *commentaries* of Marguerite Duras's novels…

While she did use _en allé(e)_ in other novels, she seems to have used “_en allée où ?_” just once.


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## CapnPrep

Bix said:


> dit l'enfant en allé-où?
> or
> dit l'enfant en "allé où?".


Do you analyze _en_ as a preposition here? I think it is the pronoun, as in _Il s'en est allé où ?_ → _Il s'est *en allé où ?*_



> --> Looks like the lady actually created the phrase !


This is possible. But it does not occur in _L'Amant_ (I just checked through Frantext). The text that you linked to is not _by_ Duras, but _about_ Duras.


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## Bix

Maître Capello said:


> Not really… The link you provided indeed refers to *commentaries* of Marguerite Duras's novels…



oops, my bad   Funny though that the author of the commentary used the same phrase as in the other novel, the reference is nice 



> Do you analyze en as a preposition here?



Couldn't tell, precisely, but I would intuitively analyze it like the preposition in "l'enfant en transe" or "l'enfant en bas âge".
-> L'enfant en [allé où?]   , the brackets defining a "phrase block"  (wow now that's some precise grammar !)


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## jann

CapnPrep said:


> I don't think so… The student is not asking a question; he's mindlessly repeating what the teacher just said. The question mark goes with _où_.


Oh of course, sorry.  I must have just been transferring English punctuation, mentally...  We wouldn't include the question mark in saying "gone who-knows-where"...


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## CapnPrep

I found quite a few examples of _en allé_ as an adjective, going back to the 19th century (Gide, Verlaine, Proust, ...) The following two show the link with the verb _s'en aller_:


			
				George Sand said:
			
		

> — […] Ils se sont en allés tous les deux au bout de deux heures.
> — En allés, où?





			
				P. Bourget (1890) said:
			
		

> J'ai constaté que tour à tour l'amour-propre d'auteur s'en est allé, en allé le goût de la table, en allé le goût de la culture, en allé le goût de la vie élégante.



Here's one from Victor Hugo (_L'Homme qui rit_): « Réveillé de ce rêve, il se retrouvait seul. Tout évanoui. Tout en allé. Tout perdu. »

These examples make it clear that [_en allé_] forms a "phrase block" (to adopt Bix's term).


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## PatriceD

So, completely gone where?


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## Maître Capello

CapnPrep said:


> These examples make it clear that [_en allé_] forms a "phrase block" (to adopt Bix's term).


I may be splitting hairs, but _en_ does not form a “block” with _allé_ since it can be moved :_ Il s'est *en* allé. ↔ Il s'*en* est allé._


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## CapnPrep

Maître Capello said:


> I may be splitting hairs, but _en_ does not form a “block” with _allé_ since it can be moved :_ Il s'est *en* allé. ↔ Il s'*en* est allé._


But we're talking about the adjectival use of _en allé_… If you start with _L'enfant était en allé_, you can't move the _en_ anywhere (I guess). Anyway, my question was whether _en_ is a preposition or a pronoun; in the second case it would be more closely bound to _allé_.


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## Maître Capello

Oh, right, sorry… Anyway, that _en_ is indeed a pronoun (although it has barely any meaning left nowadays) and I agree that it can't be separated from _allé_ for the adjectival use.


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