Breakdown of Abbiamo risposto al giudice che avevamo già trovato quell'arma.
quello
that
avere
to have
trovare
to find
a
to / at
rispondere
to answer, to reply
già
already
che
that (conjunction introducing a clause)
il giudice
the judge
l'arma
the weapon (f)
Questions & Answers about Abbiamo risposto al giudice che avevamo già trovato quell'arma.
Why use avevamo trovato (trapassato prossimo) here instead of the passato prossimo?
This is the core rule of indirect speech in the past! If we were quoting directly, the original statement was: "Abbiamo già trovato quell'arma" (We already found that weapon). But because we are reporting this event in the past using abbiamo risposto (we answered), the tense of the reported quote must take a step backward in time. The passato prossimo shifts to the trapassato prossimo (avevamo trovato).
Why is it al giudice instead of just il giudice?
In Italian, you don't just "answer someone", you "answer to someone". The verb rispondere requires the preposition a. When a is followed by the masculine singular article il, they combine to form the articulated preposition al.
Why is già placed exactly where it is in avevamo già trovato?
Why does quell'arma have an apostrophe?
Arma (weapon) is a feminine noun starting with a vowel. The word for "that" in the feminine singular is quella. Just like with definite articles, when quella comes directly before a vowel, it drops its final "a" and uses an apostrophe to make pronunciation smoother.
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