Breakdown of Où t'a-t-il informé qu'il aurait changé la priorité ?
il
he
avoir
to have
où
where
changer
to change
te
you, yourself (object pronoun)
que
that (introducing a clause)
informer
to inform
la priorité
the priority
Questions & Answers about Où t'a-t-il informé qu'il aurait changé la priorité ?
Why do we use the conditionnel passé (aurait changé) instead of the futur antérieur here?
Because of tense backshifting in reported speech. The main reporting verb is in the past (a informé). If the original direct statement was in the futur antérieur (e.g., J'aurai changé..., meaning 'I will have changed...'), it must shift back a tense when reported. The futur antérieur always backshifts to the conditionnel passé.
What would the original direct quote look like?
He probably said: J'aurai changé la priorité (I will have changed the priority). By putting it into reported speech after a past tense verb (a informé), the tense is forced to step back into the past, changing the future perfect into the conditional perfect.
Why is there a -t- in the middle of t'a-t-il?
This is a 'euphonic t', added simply to make pronunciation smoother. In questions using subject-verb inversion, if the verb ends in a vowel (like a) and the subject pronoun starts with a vowel (like il, elle, or on), French inserts a -t- to avoid an awkward clash of vowels. Don't confuse it with the first t', which is the object pronoun te (you).
Since the direct object pronoun t' comes before the past participle informé, shouldn't the participle agree with it?
It actually would if the 'you' being spoken to is female! The verb informer takes a direct object, and past participles in the passé composé must agree with preceding direct objects. Here, informé is in the default masculine singular, meaning the person being addressed is male (or their gender is unspecified). If addressing a woman, it would be spelled informée.
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