Breakdown of Voici les palmiers exotiques que plantent les jardiniers.
le
him, it (masculine direct object pronoun)
voici
here is, this is
que
that (introducing a clause)
le jardinier
the gardener
planter
to plant
le palmier
the palm tree
exotique
exotic
Questions & Answers about Voici les palmiers exotiques que plantent les jardiniers.
Why is the verb before the subject in que plantent les jardiniers?
This is called stylistic inversion. In a relative clause starting with que (or où, dont), you can reverse the normal subject-verb order if the subject is a noun like les jardiniers. It means exactly the same thing as que les jardiniers plantent but sounds a bit more elegant and is very common in written French.
Could we use this same inverted word order if the subject was a pronoun, like "they"?
With the reversed word order, how do we know grammatically who is doing the planting?
The relative pronoun que is the key. Que always acts as the direct object of the relative clause, representing les palmiers exotiques here. Because the verb already has its direct object in the form of que, the noun following the verb (les jardiniers) has to be the subject.
Is it mandatory to invert the subject and verb here?
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