Breakdown of L'avvocato vuole notificare la sentenza al magistrato.
a
to / at
volere
to want
l'avvocato
the lawyer (m)
il magistrato
the magistrate
la sentenza
the ruling
notificare
to notify (formally, officially)
Questions & Answers about L'avvocato vuole notificare la sentenza al magistrato.
Why does the Italian sentence use notificare la sentenza al magistrato instead of directly matching the English "notify the magistrate of the ruling"?
In English, you "notify [someone] of [something]". In Italian, the verb notificare requires the structure notificare qualcosa a qualcuno (literally "to notify something to someone"). This means that the ruling (la sentenza) is the direct object and the magistrate (al magistrato) is the indirect object.
If we wanted to say "He was notified" using the impersonal passive from this lesson, how would we do it based on this sentence's structure?
Because the person being notified is an indirect object in Italian, you cannot make "he" the subject of a normal passive sentence like you do in English. Instead, you use the indirect object clitic gli with the impersonal passive structure: Gli è stato notificato (literally "It was notified to him").
Does sentenza mean the same thing as a "sentence" in English?
If we replace al magistrato with the pronoun gli (to him), where does it go in relation to the modal verb vuole?
Because there is a modal verb, you have two options. You can attach it to the dropped final 'e' of the infinitive: L'avvocato vuole notificargli la sentenza. Or, you can place it before the conjugated modal verb: L'avvocato gli vuole notificare la sentenza. Both are correct and very common.
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