Breakdown of Nous la lui faisons envoyer.
nous
we / us (object pronoun)
lui
him / to him / to her (indirect object)
faire
to do, to make
envoyer
to send
la
her, it (feminine direct object pronoun)
Questions & Answers about Nous la lui faisons envoyer.
Why are both la and lui placed before faisons instead of before envoyer?
In the causative faire construction, object pronouns must go before the conjugated verb (faire), not the infinitive. Even though "it" and "him" logically belong to the action of sending (envoyer), they get pulled to the front of the whole phrase to make Nous la lui faisons envoyer. You cannot put them between the two verbs.
Why do we use the indirect object pronoun lui for "him" when he is the one doing the sending?
Would the order of the pronouns change if the sentence meant "We are having me send it"?
Yes! The standard double pronoun order still applies to causative sentences. First- and second-person pronouns like me always come before direct objects like la. So, "We are having me send it" would be Nous me la faisons envoyer. But because both pronouns in our current sentence are third-person, the direct object (la) must come before the indirect object (lui).
Could this sentence also mean "We are having it sent to him"?
Yes, it is technically ambiguous without context! The pronoun lui could represent the agent (the person we are making do the sending) or the recipient (the person receiving the sent item). You would rely on the surrounding conversation to know whether we are forcing him to send it, or having someone else send it to him.
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