Breakdown of La plupart des consommateurs se laissent influencer par la publicité.
par
by, through / out of (motive)
le consommateur
the consumer
la plupart de
most of
se laisser
to let oneself
influencer
to influence
la publicité
the advertisement
Questions & Answers about La plupart des consommateurs se laissent influencer par la publicité.
Why is influencer in the infinitive instead of a past participle like in English ("influenced")?
In French, the structure se laisser (to let oneself) is always followed directly by an active infinitive verb, even though in English we say "let oneself be influenced". You don't need an extra passive construction like être influencé here; the combination of the reflexive pronoun se and the infinitive influencer does the whole job of showing that the consumers are the ones receiving the action.
The sentence starts with La plupart, which looks singular. Why is the verb se laissent plural?
The expression la plupart des (most of the) is a collective subject, and the verb almost always agrees with the noun that follows it. Since consommateurs is plural, the verb takes the plural form se laissent. If it were followed by a singular noun, like in la plupart du temps (most of the time), any verb describing it would be singular.
Could we just say sont influencés (are influenced) instead of se laissent influencer?
Yes, grammatically you could say La plupart des consommateurs sont influencés par la publicité. However, se laissent influencer adds a specific nuance: it implies a degree of passivity or surrender on the part of the consumers. It emphasizes that they allow the advertising to influence them, rather than just neutrally stating the fact.
Why is par used before la publicité?
Even though se laisser + infinitive isn't a traditional passive voice grammatically, it acts exactly like one in meaning. Just like in a standard passive sentence, the preposition par is used to introduce the agent, which is the thing actually performing the action (in this case, the advertising that is doing the influencing).
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