Breakdown of Il timore inconscio di soffrire gli fa evitare l'amore.
fare
to do / to make
l'amore
the love (m)
di
to (linking a verb to a following infinitive)
soffrire
to suffer
evitare
to avoid
il timore
the fear/the apprehension
inconscio
unconscious
Questions & Answers about Il timore inconscio di soffrire gli fa evitare l'amore.
Why do we use di instead of a to connect timore and soffrire?
Because timore (fear or apprehension) is a noun expressing an emotion or state of mind. In Italian, nouns that express emotions, thoughts, or abstract concepts like paura (fear), speranza (hope), or bisogno (need) almost always require the preposition di to link them to a following infinitive.
Why does the sentence use the indirect object pronoun gli (to him) rather than the direct object lo (him) for 'makes him'?
This is a special rule for the causative construction, which uses fare + infinitive (here, fa evitare). Because the second verb (evitare) already has its own direct object (l'amore), the person being caused to do the action shifts to an indirect object (gli) to avoid having two direct objects in the same clause. If the second verb didn't have a direct object, you would use lo.
Could the adjective inconscio be placed before the noun timore?
Why is the definite article l' used before amore when the English translation just says 'love'?
In Italian, abstract nouns like amore (love), pazienza (patience), or libertà (freedom) require a definite article when they are being discussed in a broad, general sense, whereas English typically drops the article.
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