Manca l'acqua nei frigobar, li lascio rifornire a te.

Questions & Answers about Manca l'acqua nei frigobar, li lascio rifornire a te.

Why is the pronoun li placed before lascio instead of attached to the infinitive as lascio rifornirli?
With causative verbs like lasciare (to let) and fare (to make/have done), the conjugated verb and the infinitive act as a single grammatical unit. Because of this, object pronouns cannot attach to the infinitive as they normally would. They must be placed strictly before the conjugated causative verb. That is why we must say li lascio rifornire.
Why do we say a te if the English translation is just "I let you restock them"?
In Italian causative constructions, a sentence cannot have two direct objects. Because the action of restocking already has a direct object (li, referring to the minibars), the person who is allowed to perform the action (the agent) must become an indirect object. That is why "you" becomes a te (literally "to you").
Could I use the pronoun ti instead of adding a te at the end?
Yes! You could replace a te with the indirect object clitic ti. However, because you also have the direct object li, they must combine into the double pronoun te li, which would also go before the verb. The phrase would become te li lascio rifornire. The version with a te just adds a bit more emphasis, like saying "I'll let you handle it."
Why doesn't the word frigobar change its ending if it is plural here?
In Italian, nouns that are borrowed from other languages or that end in a consonant are generally invariable, meaning their spelling doesn't change in the plural. You can tell it is plural in this sentence because of the prepositional article nei, which is formed by combining in + i.
Why is manca conjugated in the third-person singular?
The verb mancare works similarly to piacere. The thing that is missing or lacking is actually the grammatical subject of the sentence. Here, l'acqua (the water) is doing the "lacking", so the verb takes the third-person singular form manca to match it.

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