Breakdown of Le développement urbain et la rénovation du centre-ville provoquent la destruction de la forêt.
et
and
de
of / from / any (in negative sentences) / about (concerning)
la forêt
the forest
le centre-ville
the city center
le
him, it (masculine direct object pronoun)
provoquer
to cause
urbain
urban
la rénovation
the renovation
le développement
the development
la destruction
the destruction
Questions & Answers about Le développement urbain et la rénovation du centre-ville provoquent la destruction de la forêt.
How would you express this same idea using verbs instead of nouns?
Nominalization makes sentences more formal and concise, which is common in journalism. If we used verbs instead, we would need a complex sentence with conjunctions, such as: Parce qu'on développe la ville et qu'on rénove le centre-ville, on détruit la forêt. Using nouns (développement, rénovation, destruction) allows us to drop conjunctions like "because" and subject pronouns.
Why do we use de la forêt and du centre-ville after the nouns?
When you transform a verb into a noun, its direct object usually becomes a noun complement introduced by the preposition de. For example, the verb phrase rénover le centre-ville becomes the noun phrase la rénovation du centre-ville (since de + le contracts to du). The same happens with détruire la forêt, which turns into la destruction de la forêt.
Why is urbain used as an adjective, rather than saying développement de la ville?
Is there a reliable rule for knowing which suffix to use for nominalization, like -ment versus -tion?
There is no strict rule, so you generally have to learn them as vocabulary. However, -tion is extremely common for verbs ending in -er (rénover becomes rénovation) and verbs with Latin roots (détruire becomes destruction). The suffix -ment is another very common way to turn an action into a noun (développer becomes développement).
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