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- "Non si possono costruire cas…
"Non si possono costruire case in questa zona."
Translation:You cannot build houses in this zone.
36 Comments
The impersonal "si" is often used with an intended passive meaning, i.e. this sentence could be translated as "houses can't be built in this area"; in such cases the verb is conjugated accordingly with the intended subject (houses). It gets weirder if the sentence is formed by essere+predicate, because then the verb is to the singular and the predicate to the plural: "si deve essere buoni".
1054
I was just thinking the same thing. That translation would have helped a great deal. Once I saw the actual translation though I understood it, but yes for us the translation of "houses cannot be built in this area" would have made more sense.
It would be "non posso" for "I cannot". This kind of construct (passive si) can only be used with a transitive verb and an intended subject in the third person, either singular or plural: http://www.zanichellibenvenuti.it/wordpress/?p=4024 is a very good reference for this, although all in Italian.
410
This all seems overly complicated for no valid reason. Wouldn't "Non si poter costruire case in questa zona" remove the confusion, especially if what is being conveyed is "you cannot" or "one cannot?" To introduce a plural conjugation of the verb into the sentence appears to be intentionally and, more important, unnecessarily obtuse. Am I wrong?
1624
What the difference between using the imperative here "Non potere costruire" and the impersonal or passive "Non si possono costruire"?
410
Could this also mean, "They cannot build themselves houses in this zone?" And if not, how would that be written?
162
Or maybe 'it is not possible to build houses in this zone', because maybe the terrain would not be proper. I just don't think the English 'you cannot' is close enough to the Italian nuance of the sentence.