Breakdown of Il a perdu sa dent pour avoir refusé d'aller chez le dentiste.
il
he
pour
for
chez
at the home of / at
avoir
to have
son
his/her/its (son, sa, ses)
aller
to go
la dent
the tooth
perdre
to lose
refuser
to refuse
de
to (introducing an infinitive after a verb)
le dentiste
the dentist
Questions & Answers about Il a perdu sa dent pour avoir refusé d'aller chez le dentiste.
Why use pour avoir refusé instead of just parce qu'il a refusé?
Pour followed by a past infinitive (avoir refusé) is a concise way to express the cause of a completed action. You can only use it when the subject of both actions is the same (here, "he" lost the tooth and "he" refused). While parce qu'il a refusé is also correct, the pour + past infinitive structure is very common in B2-level French to sound more natural and cohesive.
How do we know to use avoir in pour avoir refusé rather than être?
The past infinitive is formed using the infinitive of the auxiliary verb plus the past participle. You use the exact same auxiliary that the verb would take in the passé composé. Since refuser takes avoir (il a refusé), its past infinitive is avoir refusé.
Why is there a d' before aller?
The verb refuser must be followed by the preposition de when it introduces another verb in the infinitive. The pattern is always refuser de faire quelque chose (to refuse to do something). Here, de contracts with the vowel in aller to become d'aller.
Could I say aller au dentiste instead of aller chez le dentiste?
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