# FR: l'enfant qu'a été cette grande personne - que / qui



## 1amateurdechopin

Bonjour!
  J'ai commencé à relire "Le Petit Prince" et j'ai trouvé une phrase un peu bizarre.  Voici la phrase qui m'interesse:

"Si toutes ces excuses ne suffisent pas, je veux bien
dédier ce livre à l'enfant qu'a été autrefois cette
grande personne."   

I'm a bit confused as to why the author did not use "qui" but rather "que". 
As far as I understand, this sentence can be translated loosely "If none of these excuses are sufficient, I want to dedicate this book to the child who this adult used to be".   Is "l'enfant" acting as the direct object as in "Cette personne a été autrefois l'enfant"?  

merci d'avance

*Note des modérateurs : *nous avons fusionné plusieurs discussions pour créer ce fil.


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## lkhandurin

my guess would be that exuperi was trying to portray every day discourse, where often times the unstressed vowel gets linked to the next word. the "qu" still stands for qui in this case, to my understanding.


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## Berlingue

Actually, using 'qui' would refer to the child.

L'enfant qui a été...

In this case, Exupéry is referring to the adult. He is not saying that the child has been an adult, he is saying 'this is the child that the adult once was'.

L'enfant qu'a été cette grande personne.
ou
Cette grande personne qui était un enfant autrefois.


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## lkhandurin

but it still doesnt explain the QUI + A becoming qu'a, because qui is never linked with any vowels, unlike QUE...


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## Outsider

It's not a _qui_, it's a _que_.


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## jann

Bonjour! 

If you switch the sentence order it may help you to see it better:

_Cette grande personne a été autrefois un enfant = _This adult was once a child.
_--> l'enfant qu'a été autrefois cette grande personne _ = the child whom this adult once was.

The grammatical subject of the clause = _cette grande personne
_The grammatical object = what was that adult? = _l'enfant

_The _qu'_ is relative pronoun, either _qui _or_ que_.  To know which one, you need to know which part of speech we are dealing with.  _Qui_ is a grammatical subject pronoun, and _que_ is for a grammatical object.  It has nothing to do with people versus things.  You already have a grammatical subject (=_cette grande personne_) so you cannot use _qui.  _The _qu'_ is *que*, elided because of the following vowel.   (Actually, you can't ever drop the "i" from _qui_ and replace it with an apostrophe, so when you see _qu_' you know it's from _que )

_The reason this is confusing for us English speakers is because (unlike French) we do care about people (who, whom) vs. things (that) when we choose our relative pronoun.  If it's a thing, we use "that" regardless of subject vs. object status:  

The glass that fell. (subject) -->  _Le verre qui est tombé_
The glass that John dropped. (object) -->  _Le verre que John a laissé tomber.

_But if it's a person, we should distinguish between subject and object... except that we don't usually bother!

The person who called at 2pm. (subject)  --> _La personne qui a téléphoné à 14h._
The doctor who(*m*) I saw yesterday. (object) --> _Le medecin que j'ai vu hier.

_We tend to just say "the doctor who I saw" (even though it isn't technically correct), which makes it harder for us to figure out what pronoun to use in French.

I hope that helps a bit.


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## Berlingue

Oh my jann, !!
I was trying to find a way to explain all of this clearly...your explanation is quite impressive!

It's so difficult to explain something that seems to be natural to you sometimes - I know it's right, but I can't clearly explain why.

So kudos!


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## jann

Thanks, Berlingue!   It took me a few minutes to type out my post, so I actually didn't see your post #3 until I submitted my explanation.  But we are saying the same thing, and I think your post makes sense too!


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## donques

Hi everyone



> _Cette grande personne a été autrefois un enfant = _This adult was once a child.
> _--> l'enfant qu'a été autrefois cette grande personne _= the child whom this adult once was.
> 
> The grammatical subject of the clause = _cette grande personne
> _The grammatical object = what was that adult? = _l'enfant_


 
_Que_ and _l'enfant_ are both functioning as attributes. There is no question of _objects_ here. The verb to be (être) is a copular verb. It links the noun phrase with its complement (english term) attribut (french term). 

L'enfant qu'il est
L'enfant qu'il a été
L'enfant qu'a été autrefois cette grande personne



> The reason this is confusing for us English speakers is because (unlike French) we do care about people (who, whom) vs. things (that) when we choose our relative pronoun. If it's a thing, we use "that" regardless of subject vs. object status:
> 
> The glass that fell. (subject) --> _Le verre qui est tombé_
> The glass that John dropped. (object) --> _Le verre que John a laissé tomber_


 
_That _can be used in reference to people

The man that got away

The man that was healed 

The man that was called



> _--> l'enfant qu'a été autrefois cette grande personne _= the child whom this adult once was.


 
I would always translate this as
"The child _that_ this adult once (formerly) was", but I would be happy with _who._


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## Outsider

And, in traditional English, "The child *whom* this adult once was". Just like classical English, French uses the oblique form of the relative pronoun.


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## jann

Thanks donques for the more in-depth and technically correct explanation!  

I presented things in terms of subjects and objects (even though _être_ is of course intransitive) because the _que/qui_ problem is a common one among beginning/intermediate French students. This particular explanation generally allows people to identify the correct French relative pronoun, even in a sentence such as the one above where there is no object.  

In the US at least, formal instruction in grammar is a rarity these days. Many American students only learn about grammar when they study a foreign language, and likely have not been introduced to the concept of complements/_attributs, _let alone predicate nominals.  Only those who have actually done coursework in grammar or linguistics will have heard of a "copular" verb.  But perhaps I oversimplified in my attempt to write an accessible explanation.   Ah well.


			
				donques said:
			
		

> _That _can be used in reference to people


But of course!  I'm sorry if it wasn't clear; I did not mean to imply that we cannot use "that" to speak of people.  I only said that unlike French, English can and often does distinguish between people vs. things by the choice of a relative pronoun.  Again by drawing the parallels as I did, I was trying help those students of French who have trouble choosing between _qui_ and _que_: the essential point being that you CANNOT simply replace "who" with _qui_ and "that" with _que_.  



			
				donques said:
			
		

> I would always translate this as
> "The child _that_ this adult once (formerly) was", but I would be happy with _who._


Regarding this translation, I am not so sure.  I don't hear myself using "that."  Actually, if I were saying this sentence out loud, I think I would probably omit the relative pronoun altogether!  _The child this adult once was_.   As for who vs. whom, I honestly don't know which is technically correct.  The M-W dictionary says the following:





> *whom* - objective case of who - [...]  occasionally used as predicate nominative with a copulative verb or as subject of a verb especially in the vicinity of a preposition or a verb of which it might mistakenly be considered the object <_whom_ say ye that I am — Matthew 16:15 (Authorized Version)><people…_whom_ you never thought would sympathize — Shea Murphy>


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## Outsider

For me, it's clear:


L'enfant *qui* a été autrefois cette grande personne. --> The child *who/that* once was this great person.

L'enfant *qu'*a été autrefois cette grande personne. --> The child *whom/that (colloquially, who)* this great person once was.


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## donques

Thanks Jann for your considered response. I understand the points you make regarding explanations which will suit everybody using this forum. Which is why I love _*this*_ forum!
It's a constant challenge seeking the dividing line between clarification and obfuscation. Sorry for going off message.
 In reference to this topic, I would still say _who_ rather than whomespecially as in this context Saint Exupery is discussing the duality of his character.


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## Outsider

And it's a children's book, so there's no point in using _whom_ at all. This was just to show that the _qu'_ in Exupéry's sentence is not an elided _qui_, but rather an elided _que_.


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## coconutpalm

This is from Le Petit Prince. The complete sentence is "Si toutes ces excuses ne suffisent pas, je veux bien dédier ce livre à l'enfant qu'a été autrofois cette grande personne."
The English translation for this is "... to the child from whom this grown-up grew". I simply can't understand it. The Engish version is surely correct according to the context, but I don't understand the construction of the original one.
Literally, shouldn't it be "the child who was once a grown-up" - this is absolutely illogical... So this is a reversed sentence: "cette grand personne a été autrofois l'enfant"? But why?

Waiting for the answer.
Thank you in advance!


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## beladas

The sentence in french means:
...dedicate this book to the child that this adult once was.


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## coconutpalm

Thank you!
So this "qu'"means "que"? Is this modern French or a little bit older French?


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## beladas

I can reformulate it if you want.
Si toutes ces excuses ne suffisent pas, je veux bien dédier ce livre à l'enfant que cette grande personne a autrefois été.

It's neither modern nor old french, it's just french


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## coconutpalm

Now I understand it. 
I will pay more attention to this kind of "French" grammar 

The follow-up question: how could you be sure that the "à été" is the predicate of "grande personne", but not of the "enfant", since they are both in singular form?


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## beladas

I'm sorry but I don't know any french grammar rules, someone should answer for me, at least I can try but it might be wrong:
just as yourself : qui est-ce qui a été autrefois un enfant ? And the answer is : cette grande personne.


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## Mauricet

coconutpalm said:


> how could you be sure that the "a été" is the predicate of "grande personne", but not of the "enfant", since they are both in singular form?


By knowing that _qu'_ replaces _que_ before vowels, never _qui_, so the only possible meaning is _L'enfant *que* cet adulte a été autrefois_.


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