Breakdown of Lui ha sorriso senza sospirare e senza sbattere la porta.
lui
he
e
and
la porta
the door
avere
to have
senza
without
sbattere
to slam, to bang
sorridere
to smile
sospirare
to sigh
Questions & Answers about Lui ha sorriso senza sospirare e senza sbattere la porta.
Why do we use the infinitive verbs (sospirare and sbattere) after senza?
In Italian, when the person doing the main action ('he smiled') is the exact same person doing the action after 'without' ('he didn't sigh or slam'), you use an implicit clause. This means you just use senza followed by the infinitive (the dictionary form of the verb). Notice that English translates this using the '-ing' form ('without sighing').
Why is senza repeated before the second verb (senza sbattere)? Could I just say 'senza sospirare e sbattere'?
While you might be understood if you drop it, Italian strongly prefers to repeat prepositions like senza before every verb in a list. Repeating it sounds much more natural and emphasizes that he refrained from doing both of those things.
Does sbattere always mean 'to slam'?
Why is the past tense ha sorriso instead of è sorriso?
The verb sorridere (to smile) is an irregular verb. Even though it is an action of the body that doesn't take a direct object, it still uses avere as its helper verb in the passato prossimo, just like its root verb ridere (to laugh). Its irregular past participle is sorriso.
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