Breakdown of Le lapin qui venait de disparaître dort.
qui
who
venir
to come
dormir
to sleep
disparaître
to disappear
Questions & Answers about Le lapin qui venait de disparaître dort.
Why do we use venait de instead of vient de here?
The expression venir de followed by an infinitive means that something has 'just' happened. If we use the present tense (vient de), it means the rabbit 'has just' disappeared. By putting venir in the imperfect tense (venait de), we push that 'just happened' feeling into the past, meaning it 'had just' disappeared.
Why is the main verb dort in the present tense when the other verb is in the past?
The main action happening right now is that the rabbit is sleeping (dort). The phrase qui venait de disparaître is a descriptive clause giving us background information about which rabbit we are talking about. It is completely natural to mix tenses when the background context happened before the main present action.
Why is it qui venait and not que venait?
What is the purpose of the circumflex accent on disparaître?