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10:35 pm

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French "des" vs "de": examples with "obtenir"
# French "des" vs "de": examples with "obtenir"

## intro

I've always been non-confident when it comes to choosing "des"/"du"/... or simple "de" in French; understanding their usage well. (The different uses can be labeled "partitive", "genitive", and perhaps some other ones less clear, at least, for me.)

For an overview of the different kinds of actual contexts one might have a look at the description at https://fr.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=des&oldid=30355100#Fran%C3%A7ais (or other similar ones, which I believe I've met in some French courses). For me, that description feels conceptually ugly (especially, the "de + des => de" rule); I'd push for a different explanation of these phenomena based on a certain view on the semantics of definiteness and on the role of determiners in syntax-semantics.

So, I'm interested in collecting more data (that would be puzzling to me) and trying to understand better how it can match a conceptual explanation.

## examples with "obtenir"

Here is another piece of examples I've noticed, this time, with "obtenir":

### "de"

* "Par exemple, vous pouvez obtenir de meilleures recommandations lorsque vous utilisez YouTube ou d'autres produits Google (telles que des recommandations d'articles ou d'applications)" (from Google account setup)
* ?? "obtenir de meilleurs résultats" (try to find such an example!)
* "Les questions pour obtenir de vraies réponses" (from a Google search)

### "des"

* "Les Membres peuvent obtenir des résultats à la CM12 en dépit de circonstances difficiles" (from a Google search)
* ...

### "les"

* "Les délais d'attente pour obtenir les résultats du test de dépistage de la COVID-19 peuvent varier selon les volumes de tests." (from a Google search)

* all 3 possibilities ("les", "des", "de") in the same article https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1710607?hl=fr&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid (from a Google search):

** "Obtenir des résultats de recherche sur vos voyages ..."
** "Obtenir les résultats d'un autre compte Google."
** "Pour ne plus obtenir de résultats de recherche ..."

## discussion (specifically for "obtenir")

"obtenir" is not described as having a special government of preposition "de" for its arguments. So, if we assume those descriptions are not missing this, then the usage of "de" or "des" with "obtenir" must follow from the general principles of grammar.

See the following dictionary entries for the descriptions of "obtenir" without any special government of preposition "de" (and for more usage examples):

* https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/obtenir#Fran%C3%A7ais
* https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/obtenir

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