Word
L'incantesimo, la strega lo fece non appena il cielo fu diventato nero.
Meaning
The spell, the witch cast it as soon as the sky had become black.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of L'incantesimo, la strega lo fece non appena il cielo fu diventato nero.
essere
to be
nero
black
il cielo
the sky
fare
to do / to make
Questions & Answers about L'incantesimo, la strega lo fece non appena il cielo fu diventato nero.
Why is fu diventato used here instead of the more common era diventato?
Fu diventato is the Trapassato Remoto (preterite perfect). It is used in written Italian after time expressions like non appena (as soon as) to show that an action happened immediately before another completed past action. Because the main action (fece) is in the Passato Remoto, the immediately preceding action requires the Trapassato Remoto.
Why do we need the pronoun lo in la strega lo fece when the object (L'incantesimo) is already in the sentence?
This is a structure called left dislocation. In Italian, when you move a direct object like l'incantesimo to the very beginning of the sentence to emphasize it, you must repeat it with a direct object pronoun right before the verb. Here, lo refers back to the spell.
Why is the auxiliary verb fu (from essere) used here instead of ebbe (from avere)?
The verb diventare (to become) expresses a change of state, which means it always requires the auxiliary essere in compound tenses. To form the Trapassato Remoto here, you combine the Passato Remoto of essere for the third-person singular (fu) with the past participle (diventato).
Does adding non to appena change the meaning?