Breakdown of O encenador não a deixou esquecer-se da deixa.
não
not / no
esquecer-se de
to forget
deixar
to leave (behind) / to quit / to let (allow)
o encenador
the stage director
Questions & Answers about O encenador não a deixou esquecer-se da deixa.
Why is the pronoun a placed before deixou rather than attached to the infinitive esquecer?
With causative verbs like deixar (to let) and perception verbs like ver (to see), the person performing the action in the infinitive acts as the direct object of the main verb. Here, a (her) is the object of deixou. It is placed before deixou because the negative word não acts as a magnet, pulling the pronoun to the front.
We have both a and -se in this sentence. Why didn't the -se climb to the front along with the a?
The a is the direct object of deixar, while the -se belongs strictly to the pronominal verb esquecer-se (to forget). While Portuguese often allows pronouns to climb to the main conjugated verb, stacking two different pronouns before the first verb (which would look like não se a deixou) sounds highly unnatural. Keeping the reflexive -se attached to its own infinitive is the standard way to handle this structure.
Why is the word da needed before deixa?
The pronominal verb esquecer-se always requires the preposition de to introduce the thing being forgotten. Here, da is the mandatory contraction of that preposition de with the feminine article a (the) that belongs to the noun deixa.
Is the noun deixa at the end of the sentence related to the verb ?