Can weather expressions and other impersonal expressions be inverted?

Question

Il pleut, il neige, il fait froid, il fait beau, il faut, etc. can such phrases be inverted? Are these legitimate sentences?

Pleut-il? Neige-t-il? Fait-il froid? Fait-il beau? Me faut-il un crayon?

Even if it is grammatically allowed, is it natural/normal/common? Or very rare?

Evpok · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-07T14:09:31.003

8

It is not only possible but is the canonical formal (or written) way to ask those questions; being a placeholder pronoun is not an obstacle to inversion. That said, it is very uncommon and would sound overly formal or charmingly old-fashioned in most contexts. So you are safe using them, but would probably get you spotted as a non-native speaker. The usual forms are built on “est-ce que”

Est-ce qu'il pleut ?
Est-ce qu'il neige ?
Est-ce qu'il y a quelqu'un ?

or even

Il pleut ?

discarding est-ce que and relying on intonation to denote the interrogative nature.

But remember that this only applies to oral and that inversion is the canonical form for writing.

edited Sep 07 '13 at 14:09

answered Apr 22 '13 at 20:30

Evpok

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Would Est-ce qu'il pleut? sound sufficiently unnatural that it could in of itself alert someone that I was not a native speaker? – temporary_user_name Apr 22 '13 at 20:31
Nope, “est-ce qu'il pleut ?” is how almost everybody say it, but children in school are taught that the “proper form” is “pleut-il ?”. – Evpok Apr 22 '13 at 21:32
@Evpok Indeed they are. I clearly remember being taught that. – Jean Apr 22 '13 at 21:41
@Evpok Waiiiitt--- so "Y a-t-il..." falls into this same category of being correct but unusual for speech, but preferred for writing? – temporary_user_name Sep 07 '13 at 13:03
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@Aerovistae Yep. – Evpok Sep 07 '13 at 13:25

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 23 '13 at 09:07

As a French, I would say that all these sentences sound (actually are) correct.

Pleut-il ? Neige-t-il ? Fait-il froid ? Fait-il beau ? Me faut-il un crayon ?

as well as

Est-ce qu'il pleut ? Est-ce qu'il neige ? etc.

I would personally rather use

Est-ce qu'il me faut un crayon ?

than

Me faut-il un crayon ?

when talking to somebody. But both are OK. The latter would sound more formal. The former is more casual.

Also, dois-je prendre un crayon ? could be more natural, but that's just a way of saying it.

Can weather expressions and other impersonal expressions be inverted?

2 Answers2