Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.

What is the capital of Tunisia?

Please type your username.

Please type your E-Mail.

Please choose the appropriate section so the question can be searched easily.

Please choose suitable Keywords Ex: question, poll.

Type the description thoroughly and in details.

What is the capital of Tunisia?

“Quelque chose d’aussi gros si près de notre planète”: Does this entire phrase work as a nominal phrase?

Yes, it works as a nominal phrase with chose as its core so might be simplified to:

Quelque chose pourrait…

However, given the fact a small pause is expected before si près, I would slightly modify it by adding a couple of commas:

Quelque chose d’aussi gros, si près de notre planète, pourrait…

or a coordinating conjunction:

Quelque chose d’aussi gros et si près de notre planète pourrait…

As gros is an adjective but près is an adverb, the sentence would be finer with using an adjective too instead of près:

Quelque chose d’aussi gros et si proche de notre planète pourrait…

You don’t aggregate attributive adjectives without either separating them with commas or coordinating them with et in French. Here si près de notre planète might be removed without breaking the sentence grammar:

Quelque chose d’aussi gros pourrait…

Symmetrically:

Quelque chose de si proche de notre planète pourrait…

Finally, aussi is technically a comparative adverb (aussi gros que… means “as big as…”) while in your phrase, it is used as an intensifier one (“so big”, such a big).

This is a very common usage in French but if you want to strictly comply with the formal usage, that should be:

Quelque chose de si gros, si proche de notre planète, pourrait…

or

Quelque chose de si gros et si proche de notre planète pourrait…

Quelque chose d’aussi gros si près de notre planète pourrait…

is completely right.

Quelque chose d’aussi gros si près de notre planète…

is what grammarians call “un syntagme nominal” in French and such constructions, called equivalently “nominal phrases” in English, can be quite long and involved and even contain clauses; see for instance this example, the nominal phrase in bold type:

Une petite voiture sans puissance et que personne ne voit sur les
routes
n’était pas ce dont elle avait particulièrement envie.

 

Leave a comment

What is the capital of Tunisia?