Question 1

Why is there a la after dont? Doesn't dont mean 'whose'?

Accepted Answer

Yes, dont translates to 'whose' here, but French grammar rules require you to keep the definite article (le, la, les) before the noun being possessed. In English, we say 'whose niece', but in French, it is literally 'of whom the niece' (dont la nièce). You must always keep the article after dont.

Question 2

Would dont change if the sentence was about a man instead of la femme?

Accepted Answer

No. The relative pronoun dont is invariable, meaning its spelling never changes to match gender or number. You would still use dont if you were talking about a man (l'homme dont la nièce...) or a group of people (les gens dont la nièce...).

Question 3

The verbs est and travaille are very close together. What is the subject of travaille?

Accepted Answer

The subject of travaille is La femme. The core of the sentence is La femme travaille avec nous (The woman works with us). This main idea is simply interrupted by the descriptive relative clause dont la nièce est fidèle, which has its own subject and verb (la nièce est).

Question 4

Does the adjective fidèle agree with the woman or the niece?

Accepted Answer

It agrees with la nièce, because the niece is the subject of that specific part of the sentence (dont la nièce est fidèle). Since nièce is feminine, the adjective must be feminine. However, fidèle is an adjective that already ends in an 'e' in its base masculine form, so the spelling doesn't actually change here!

La femme dont la nièce est fidèle travaille avec nous.

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