Breakdown of Se nostra figlia non vuole obbedire, non la lasciamo guidare.
non
not
la figlia
the daughter
nostro
our
lasciare
to leave (an object)
volere
to want
guidare
to drive
se
if
la
her/it (direct object)
obbedire
to obey
Questions & Answers about Se nostra figlia non vuole obbedire, non la lasciamo guidare.
Why is the pronoun la placed before lasciamo rather than attached to the infinitive guidare?
In the permissive construction (lasciare + infinitive), object pronouns usually go before the conjugated verb (lasciare). It acts a bit like a modal verb in this way. So, the correct structure is non la lasciamo guidare (we don't let her drive), rather than non lasciamo guidarla.
Why do we use the direct object pronoun la (her) instead of the indirect le (to her) in this sentence?
With lasciare + infinitive, the person you are allowing to do the action is the direct object if the infinitive doesn't have an object of its own. Since guidare (to drive) has no object here (like "the car"), we use la. If we specified what she was driving, she would become the indirect object: non le lasciamo guidare la macchina (we don't let her drive the car).
Could I use permettere instead of lasciare to mean "to let" or "to allow" here?
Yes, but the grammar structure would change. Permettere always requires an indirect object and the preposition di before the infinitive. You would have to say non le permettiamo di guidare. Using lasciare + infinitive is very common in everyday speech and avoids needing the preposition!
As a quick refresher, why is there no definite article before nostra figlia (like la nostra figlia)?
In Italian, you must drop the definite article when a possessive adjective (like nostra) is used with a singular, unmodified family member. Since figlia is singular, it is just nostra figlia. If it were plural, the article would come back: le nostre figlie.
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