Some people slip up when trying to use or recognize partitive
articles because they look identical to other words with different meanings.
The following is a partitive article, for instance:
Ma grand-mère met du cognac dans ses gâteaux.
My grandma puts (some) brandy in her cakes. |
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But the following is not:
La couverture du livre est grotesque.
The cover of the book is grotesque.
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In the second example, the 'du' is merely a contraction
of de + le (preposition [of] + definite article [the]).
"De l'audace, encore
de l'audace,
toujours de l'audace. " |
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Non, c'est le portefeuille de l'homme en face.
No. It's the wallet of the man across the way. |
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Notice how the partitive article and its noun can stand
alone as an independent unit, whereas the preposition and article combination
links together two nouns.