# FR: tellement il s'était nourri



## la_vache_elegante

I can't quite grasp the grammar construction of this sentence:
_
Il ne souhaitait pas aider ce pays qui ne méritait que de mourir *tellement* il s'était nourri de mensonges et de faux prophètes. _

To me, it looks like two independent clauses linked together by `tellement`. Would the sentence mean the same thing if written as: 

_
Il ne souhaitait pas aider ce pays qui ne méritait que de mourir *dans lequel* il s'était nourri de mensonges et de faux prophètes. _


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## detewe89

I would translate it like that:

He didn't wish to help that country which only deserved death. *So much* was he fed with lies and false prophets/prophecies.


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## janpol

La phrase construite avec "dans lequel" me semble incorrecte
"tellement" n'est pas un pronom relatif
la formulation la plus normale de cette phrase est :
"Il ne souhaitait pas aider ce pays / qui s'était tellement nourri de mensonges et de faux prophètes / qu'il ne méritait que de mourir.
1ère proposition : principale. 2è : subordonnée  relative. 3è : subordonnée conjonctive Complément Circonstanciel  de conséquence du verbe "se nourrir"
"tellement" et "que" sont inséparables, ils forment une locution.
La relative joue le rôle d'une principale pour la consécutive : la phrase pourrait être ; "Ce pays s'était tellement nourri de............. / qu'il ne méritaitque de mourir" Dans ce cas "qu'il ne méritait........." est toujours conjonctive CC de conséquence mais la poposition "Ce pays ..............." est devenue principale


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## jann

As janpol says, _tellement_ is not a relative pronoun.   But I am afraid that detewe89's translation won't quite fit the bill; the idea is correct, but the second part is an incomplete sentence and doesn't really work in English.

This construction is essentially equivalent to saying:

He didn't want to X, so disgusted was he with Y.
So disgusted was he with Y, he didn't want to do X.
He was so disgusted with Y that he didn't want to do X.

The first is obviously closest to the French stucture, but the last is probably the most frequently used formulation in English.


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## la_vache_elegante

Thank you all for the help! Now I can get on with the rest of the novel.


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## janpol

Jann, lorsque vous dites que "la seconde partie est une phrase incomplète et donc incorrecte", est-ce que vous pensez qu'il suffirait, pour la rendre grammaticale, de supprimer le point qui précède "so much" ou de le transformer en virgule ?


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## Nicomon

janpol said:


> Jann, lorsque vous dites que "la seconde partie est une phrase incomplète et donc incorrecte", est-ce que vous pensez qu'il suffirait, pour la rendre grammaticale, de supprimer le point qui précède "so much" ou de le transformer en virgule ?


 
En attendant le retour de Jann... Je pense comme toi janpol qu'on doit transformer le point en virgule, mais je ne crois pas que ce soit suffisant. 

Mon effort de francophone (quoique ça ne me semble pas correct ) 
_He didn't wish/want to help that country which only deserved death, so much had_ _it fed on lies and false prophecies._ 

Ou plus près de ta reconstruction :
_He didn't wish/want to help that country which had fed so much on lies and false phophecies that it only deserved to die/death. _


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## Maître Capello

Àmha, le fait de transformer le point en virgule ne change rien au fait que la phrase de detewe89 est incorrecte… Spontanément, j'aurais utilisé la 3e tournure proposée par Jann, même si cela demande d'inverser la phrase.


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## janpol

La 1ère phrase me semble également agrammaticale ... ou bien appartenant à la langue parlée. Quant à la 2è, elle est effectivement très proche de sa traduction en français : "so much... that" devient "tellement... que..." et la structure "principale + relative + consécutive" est la même.


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## jann

Replacing Detewe89's period with a comma corrects the "incomplete sentence" problem and is a grammatical solution... but only if you also fix the other errors in pronoun and tense. 

Several options for punctuation and word order.  I feel it is preferable to split this sentence at least with a semi-colon if not with a period:

_ Il ne souhaitait pas aider ce pays qui ne méritait que de mourir tellement il s'était nourri de mensonges et de faux prophètes. _

He didn't wish to help that country, which deserved only death, so much had it fed upon lies and false prophets.
He didn't wish to help that country; it deserved only death, so much had it fed upon lies and false prophets.
He didn't wish to help that country.  So much had it fed upon lies and false prophets(,) that it deserved only death.
He didn't wish to help that country.  It had it fed so much upon lies and false prophets that it deserved only death.


I believe the 1st sentence to be correct, but even punctuated that way it could be confusing.  Therefore I feel that the second is preferable among these translations that stick closely to the structure and style of the French original.  The 3rd and 4th are also possibilities, but the 4th is perhaps farthest in from the original.


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## detewe89

So the clause from "tellement il..." on can't refer to "il (the person who is spoken of)"?
I know it would not make much sense and I have made a mistake, but just seen grammatically, would it not work (...so much had *he* fed upon...)??

And just another question: Why has my sentence been incomplete? (Sorry, but I don't learn English in school no more, one forgets really quickly grammar structures).


Regards
Daniel


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## jann

detewe89 said:


> So the clause from "tellement il..." on can't refer to "il (the person who is spoken of)"?


 Grammatically I guess it would be possible for the _il_ to refer to the person who is spoken of... but it would probably make more sense if it referred to the country.  So the question is, what does the sentence mean?

-- He had fed on lies and false prophets... and so he didn't want to help the country that (in his extreme view) deserved only death.
or
-- The country had fed on lies and false prophets.  Consequently, he didn't want to help the country, because in his opinion it deserved only death.



> And just another question: Why has was my sentence been incomplete? (Sorry, but I don't learn English in school no any more, and one forgets grammar structures really quickly grammar structures ).


Please on't apologize, Daniel!   That's why we're all here - to make mistakes and learn from them!   Since you seem interested in getting things correct, I have taken the liberty of making a few small suggestions above.  I hope you don't mind! 

"So much was he fed with lies and false prophets/prophecies..." is incomplete because the inverted declarative structure _[so] + [adjective/adverb] + [verb] + [subject]_ indicates a cause for which we must expect the effect in the same sentence.  

Does that make sense?


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## janpol

Je  suppose, Detewe,  que "so much" ne peut être séparé du reste de la phrase par un point et que c'est ce qui a fait considérer la phrase comme incomplète.
Jann, je reviens à la phrase initiale en français : "... tellement il s'était nourri...", c'est "tellement" qui me choque : par contre "tant il s'était nourri..." me semblerait convenir beaucoup mieux.
Dans les 4 phrases que vous proposez, "so much" n'est associé à "that" que 2 fois. C'est cette "indépendance" de "tellement" vis à vis de "que" qui me choquait dans la phrase (c'est dans une phrase exclamative que "tellement" se rencontre seul ("elle est tellement belle !")
Votre 4è phrase est la plus éloignée de la phrase originale, dites-vous. Certes, par la construction mais l'est-elle du point de vue de l'idée exprimée ?


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## jann

> Je suppose, Detewe, que "so much" ne peut être séparé du reste de la phrase par un point et que c'est ce qui a fait considérer la phrase comme incomplète.


Janpol, it's not merely separating "so much" from the rest of the sentence, but also the addition of the _subject-verb inversion_.





> Dans les 4 phrases que vous proposez, "so much" n'est associé à "that" que 2 fois. C'est cette "indépendance" de "tellement" vis à vis de "que" qui me choquait dans la phrase (c'est dans une phrase exclamative que "tellement" se rencontre seul ("elle est tellement belle !")
> Votre 4è phrase est la plus éloignée de la phrase originale, dites-vous. Certes, par la construction mais l'est-elle du point de vue de l'idée exprimée ?


Je ne commentais pas du tout la phrase d'origine, qui me semble bizarre et un peu maladroite.  Je dirais que mes quatre phrases en anglais ont toutes exactement le même sens.  La comparaison avec la version d'origine était exclusivement sur le plan stylistique.  Ma 4e phrase est complètement banale au niveau de la structure.  Les trois phrases avec inversion sont plus inhabituelles et un peu plus soutenues... ce qui est renforcé par l'absence de _that_ dans deux d'entre elles.  Il serait d'ailleurs impossible d'associer _so much_ à _that_ dans les deux phrases où le mot _that_ n'apparaît pas.

Je ne sais pas du tout si ça aide, ni même si c'est bien clair.


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## Dr. Baha'i

I think the original sentence is all right, though quite dramatic and somewhat "antique" in its construction. Here's my attempt, which follows Jann's thinking quite closely:

"He did not want to help the country; it deserved but to die, having gorged itself on lies and false prophets."

(It is clear from the context what country he is passing judgement on, so I don't think it needs the "that.")


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## johndot

-- He had fed on lies and false prophets... and so he didn't want to help the country that (in his extreme view) deserved only death.
or
-- The country had fed on lies and false prophets. Consequently, he didn't want to help the country, because in his opinion it deserved only death.
 
(jann, post #12)
 
Surely it must be the first of these that is correct? Right from the start, I’ve wondered at the use of the reflexive verb—I would have expected to read that “he had been fed such lies ...”
 
As for the second, well, surely a regime doesn’t feed itself lies, does it?


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## Nicomon

There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that in the original French sentence - unusual as it may sound - _il_ refers to _pays, _and that the second interpretation is the right one. 

I was happy to realise that my non native attempts in post #7 were somewhat close to jann's better worded solutions in post #10 (especially the 1st and 4th).


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## Dr. Baha'i

Johndot, I agree with Nicomon. Based on the original text, it has to have been the country which had fed itself, not the man who was unwilling to help it.


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## Dr. Baha'i

Sorry to push my point of view, but what do y'all think of this? This is a slightly different form from what I proposed above. The style is not colloquial, but neither is the original.

"He did not want to help the country; having gorged itself on lies and false prophets, it deserved but to die."


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## johndot

I’m sorry Nicomon and Dr. Baha’i, but I cannot believe that a down-trodden citizen would have fed himself “lies and false prophets”. However, he might have swallowed what he had been fed.


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## Nicomon

Don't be sorry johndot. Just trust natives to understand their own language.  I invite you to read post # 3. It is the country which had fed/lived on lies and prophets/prophecies. 

The expression - here used figuratively - is _se nourrir de_ _X . e.g. se nourrir d'illusions/de mensonges = to feed/live on illusions/lies. _

As in these googled examples 





> - We are a nation *that feeds on lies*. We don’t want the truth.
> - A world that *feeds on lies *and deceit.
> - Islam *feeds on lies and* misinformation.


 *feed on something* = live on, depend on


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## detewe89

As German, I have some question about your translation of "se nourrir". You have translated it with "to feed on". I doubt that this is correctly translated because:

"to feed on" comes from the German word "[...], which means something like "have the basis on/to base on". And the German word "[...]" means "foot", so "to feed on" isn't linked ethymologically with "to feed (an animal/...)".

Doesn't "se nourrir de" rather mean something like "to soak up with/to saturate itself"???


*just curious*


Moderator note:  German words removed.  The discussion in this forum can be in English or in French, but the introduction of actual words from another language is outside the remit of the forum.


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## jann

I think your German etymology of the English word is questionable.   Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English dictionary give a different etymology for the verb "to feed" that does not involve a German word for "to be based upon."  However, discussion of German words in English etymology is far outside the scope of the French-English forums, so I suggest that you open a thread on the E&HL forum if want to pursue the matter. 

To get back to the matter at hand, it might help to review some of the definitions of_ nourrir _from the TLFi, including the following:


> Au fig. _Se nourrir de rêves, d'illusions_. Synon. _se repaître de_


To which you can compare some of the definitions for the verb to feed, in M-W... remember that there is great flexibility in figurative usage.

I am not saying that we couldn't find a more elegant translation for _se nourrir de_ than "to feed upon"... but I do not think the words for soaking or saturating are quite appropriate.


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## Fred_C

I think it is questionable too.
[...]


Moderator note:  Reference to German words, (already removed from post 22), deleted.


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## johndot

Thankyou, Nicomon, for your very clear explanation in post #21 of the difference in idiomatic usage between _se nourrir_ and _to feed oneself_.
 
I though I was fairly well ‘acclimatised’ to the ‘false friends’ of vocabulary that crop up from day to day—but this is quite a turn-around!
 
Thanks again!


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