Breakdown of Posso stamparlo in ufficio, o lo devo stampare a casa?
la casa
the house
o
or
l'ufficio
the office (m)
in
in / made of (material)
a
to / at
potere
can, to be able to
dovere
must
lo
him/it (direct object)
stampare
to print
Questions & Answers about Posso stamparlo in ufficio, o lo devo stampare a casa?
Why does the word order change from stamparlo to lo devo stampare?
Both halves of the sentence mean "print it", but they show the two different ways you can place pronouns with a modal verb (like potere or dovere) plus an infinitive. You can either attach the pronoun to the end of the infinitive (stamparlo) or put it before the conjugated modal verb (lo devo stampare). Both are perfectly correct and mean the exact same thing!
When attaching lo to stampare, why is the final "e" dropped?
Why does the sentence use in ufficio but a casa?
Prepositions for locations in Italian often just have to be memorized. Ufficio, like many typical destinations such as banca or farmacia, usually takes in. Casa, on the other hand, almost always takes a (just like the English "at home"). Notice that neither of them needs a definite article (like il or la) here.
Besides potere (posso) and dovere (devo), are there other verbs that let you move the pronoun like this?
Yes! The three main modal verbs in Italian are potere (can), dovere (must), and volere (to want). When you have any of these conjugated verbs followed by an infinitive, you get to choose whether to put the object pronoun before the first verb or attached to the end of the second verb.
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