Breakdown of Hanno potuto ribellarsi e dedicarsi alla musica.
e
and
avere
to have
la musica
the music
a
to / at
potere
can, to be able to
ribellarsi
to rebel
dedicarsi
to dedicate oneself
Questions & Answers about Hanno potuto ribellarsi e dedicarsi alla musica.
Reflexive verbs normally take essere in the passato prossimo. Why does this sentence use hanno?
This is the core rule of the current lesson! When a reflexive pronoun (like si) is attached to the end of the infinitive (making it ribellarsi instead of just ribellare), the modal verb (potere) keeps its standard auxiliary, which is avere. Because of this, we say hanno potuto ribellarsi instead of using essere.
What if we moved the reflexive pronoun si before the conjugated verb? Would the sentence change?
Yes, the sentence would change significantly. If you move si to the front of the modal verb, the auxiliary must switch to essere, and the past participle must agree with the subject's gender and number. The sentence would become Si sono potuti (or potute) ribellare e dedicare alla musica.
Why do both infinitives (ribellarsi and dedicarsi) have the pronoun si attached? Could we just attach it to the first one?
You must attach the reflexive pronoun to both infinitives because they are separate actions joined by e. If you only said hanno potuto ribellarsi e dedicare, the verb dedicare would lose its reflexive meaning and sound like they were dedicating something else to music, rather than themselves.
Why is it alla musica (to the music) rather than just a musica?
The verb dedicarsi requires the preposition a. Furthermore, Italian requires a definite article when talking about general categories, broad concepts, or abstract nouns. Therefore, the preposition a combines with the definite article la (for music) to form alla.
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