Breakdown of Les voitures arrivant au carrefour s'arrêtent.
la voiture
the car
au
to the / at the (masculine singular)
arriver
to arrive
s'arrêter
to stop
les
them (direct object pronoun)
le carrefour
the intersection
Questions & Answers about Les voitures arrivant au carrefour s'arrêtent.
What relative clause does arrivant replace in this sentence?
It replaces qui arrivent (that arrive / which are arriving). Using the present participle arrivant makes the sentence a bit shorter, which matches how we often say 'the cars arriving' instead of 'the cars that are arriving' in English.
Les voitures is feminine and plural, so why doesn't arrivant have an -es at the end?
When a present participle (ending in -ant) replaces a relative clause and describes an action, it is invariable. This means its spelling never changes to match the gender or number of the noun it belongs to.
Why do the cars s'arrêtent instead of just arrêtent?
Could I say à le carrefour instead of au carrefour?
No, because carrefour (intersection) is a masculine noun. In French, the preposition à (at) and the masculine definite article le (the) must always contract into au. You will never see à le written side by side.
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