Breakdown of Dopo che la maledizione finì, il regno rinacque.
finire
to finish
il regno
the kingdom
la maledizione
the curse
Questions & Answers about Dopo che la maledizione finì, il regno rinacque.
Wait, this lesson is about the trapassato remoto. Why does this sentence use the passato remoto (finì) after dopo che?
This is a great catch. Strict grammar rules say that to show an action happened immediately before another in the remote past, we should use the trapassato remoto for the first action: Dopo che la maledizione fu finita, il regno rinacque. However, in modern Italian literature, writers often simplify the sentence by using the passato remoto for both verbs when the chronological sequence is already perfectly clear from the conjunction dopo che.
If I wanted to rewrite this using the strict trapassato remoto rule taught in this lesson, would it be ebbe finito or fu finita?
It would be fu finita. The verb finire takes essere when it is intransitive (when the subject itself ends, like the curse here). Because it takes essere, the past participle must also agree with the feminine singular subject (la maledizione). If a person had finished a direct object (transitive), it would use avere, as in Dopo che il mago ebbe finito l'incantesimo... (After the wizard had finished the spell...).
What is the infinitive of rinacque and how does its conjugation work here?
Rinacque is the third-person singular passato remoto of rinascere (to be reborn). It follows the exact same irregular pattern as its root verb nascere (to be born), which uses the irregular stem nacqu- for the first-person singular, third-person singular, and third-person plural in the passato remoto (io nacqui, lui/lei nacque, loro nacquero).
Why do we need the word che here? Couldn't we just say "Dopo la maledizione finì..."?
No, you cannot drop che here. In Italian, dopo on its own is a preposition that must be followed by a noun or pronoun (e.g., dopo la maledizione means "after the curse"). When you want to introduce a full dependent clause with a conjugated verb ("After the curse ended..."), you must use the compound conjunction dopo che.
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