Breakdown of Non la devi leggere, la corrispondenza altrui!
non
not
leggere
to read
dovere
must
la
her/it (direct object)
altrui
of others / other people's
la corrispondenza
the correspondence / the mail
Questions & Answers about Non la devi leggere, la corrispondenza altrui!
What exactly does altrui mean here, and does it ever change its form?
Altrui means "other people's" or "belonging to others." It is an invariable adjective, meaning it never changes its ending to match the noun's gender or number. Whether you are talking about la corrispondenza altrui (other people's mail) or i problemi altrui (other people's problems), it stays exactly the same.
Why is altrui placed after the noun instead of before it?
Unlike most possessive adjectives (like mio or tuo), altrui strictly follows the noun it modifies. You will see la corrispondenza altrui, not l'altrui corrispondenza. Also, notice that it doesn't take its own definite article; the article la belongs entirely to corrispondenza.
Why does the sentence use the pronoun la before the verb when it already explicitly says la corrispondenza at the end?
This is a common conversational structure in Italian. The speaker first states the action with a pronoun (Non la devi leggere - You must not read it), and then clarifies the object at the end for emphasis (, la corrispondenza altrui!). It makes the sentence sound more natural and emotionally charged than a standard sentence.
Could the pronoun la be attached to the end of leggere instead?
Yes! When you have a modal verb (like devi) followed by an infinitive (leggere), the object pronoun can either go before the conjugated modal verb (Non la devi leggere) or attach to the end of the infinitive (Non devi leggerla). Both are perfectly correct and common.
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