Breakdown of Il s'était passé de son sac de couchage.
être
to be
il
he
son
his/her/its (son, sa, ses)
le sac de couchage
the sleeping bag
se passer de
to do without
Questions & Answers about Il s'était passé de son sac de couchage.
How does the meaning of passer shift in the expression se passer de?
While passer means to pass or spend time, and se passer usually means to happen, adding the preposition de creates the idiomatic expression se passer de. This completely changes the meaning to "to do without" or "to forgo" something.
Why do we use était instead of avait here?
This sentence is in the pluperfect tense (plus-que-parfait), which describes an action completed before another past action. Because se passer de is a pronominal verb (indicated by the reflexive pronoun se), it must be conjugated with the auxiliary verb être in all compound tenses. Therefore, we use the imperfect form of être to get s'était.
If we wanted to replace de son sac de couchage to say "He had done without it," which pronoun would we use?
Would the spelling of passé change if the subject were feminine?
Yes, it would become passée. For idiomatic pronominal verbs like se passer de, the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject. If the subject were Elle, the sentence would be Elle s'était passée de son sac de couchage.
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