buy · acheter

Places · who wears which marking

No line opened here stacks a Seller in à, a Beneficiary in pour, the goods, and a sum in one clause. The pieces are printed apart. Wiktionary’s Pour une trentaine de sous, on achetait un lapin aux éclusiers puts the sum and a Seller in one clause. Larousse’s J'ai acheté un livre pour Pierre is the Beneficiary, with no sum and no Seller in that sentence. TLFi’s chez le marchand is the shop, with the goods son pain and no person in à.

Marking map. One letter can belong to several heads. Read the line, then the marker.

• Direct object of the goods. Le Robert’s definition is Acquérir (un bien, un droit) contre paiement and prints Acheter qqch. à qqn. Larousse’s first sense prints Acheter des fruits à 5 euros le kilo. The Académie, ninth edition, prints Acheter des livres à un libraire and acheter du bois, un terrain. The direct object is the thing bought. It is not the price and not the person.
• à+NP is the Seller or the Beneficiary. Larousse’s difficulty note prints Acheter qqch à qqn and says the complement introduced by à can be ambiguous: j'ai acheté un livre à Pierre means Pierre sold it, or the book was bought to be given to Pierre. The recommendation, if the context does not choose, is acheter pour, and the printed sentence is J'ai acheté un livre pour Pierre. Sense 2 of the same article is Acquérir quelque chose pour quelqu'un, le lui offrir, with Acheter un cadeau à ses enfants. TLFi prints two headings. The beneficiary heading has une villa qu'il acheta à sa fiancée. The seller heading, marked Usuel, has Il les achète à des dresseurs and acheter ça un jour à un mendiant ou à un colporteur. The eighth edition states both definitions of one construction: Acheter une chose à quelqu'un means L'acheter de lui, with Je lui ai acheté un volume, and it also means Acheter pour quelqu'un, with J'ai acheté une montre à mon fils. The ninth edition glosses only the second of those: J'ai acheté une montre à mon fils, je l'ai acquise pour la lui offrir. Le Robert prints Acheter qqch. à qqn and does not add either gloss.
• The clitic lui is printed on the seller reading. The eighth edition’s Je lui ai acheté un volume qu'il m'a fait payer cher sits under L'acheter de lui. Larousse’s ambiguous sentence is the full à Pierre, not lui. A line that labels the same lui as the Beneficiary, apart from that seller definition, is unprinted. The beneficiary examples are full noun phrases in à, or pour+NP. The clitic is the clitic of the à the difficulty note calls ambiguous. The printed lui sentence is the seller line.
• pour+NP is the Beneficiary Larousse recommends. Beside pour Pierre, TLFi prints acheter pour toi and acheter un bouquet de muguet pour Gina. That pour is a person. It is not the sum. The ninth edition’s gloss of the son line uses pour in pour la lui offrir, which is the purpose of the purchase, an infinitive, not a second beneficiary noun.
• de+NP is a Seller, and TLFi marks it rare. TLFi’s seller heading prints Acheter de as Rare, with Ils achetaient d'elle, des petits cornichons. The eighth edition prints J'ai acheté de lui cette maison, cette montre, ce cheval. French Wiktionary prints le fermier qui m'avait acheté du père Georget. TLFi quotes Littré: ordinary language prefers à quel marchand, and de quel marchand is the other question, and usage confuses the two. Le Robert’s definition line does not print de.
• Price is pour + a sum, or à + a rate, or an adverb. French Wiktionary prints Pour une trentaine de sous beside aux éclusiers. The ninth edition prints Je l'ai acheté pour rien and, labeled familiar, pour une bouchée de pain, pour un morceau de pain. Those are prices. They are not persons. Larousse prints Acheter des fruits à 5 euros le kilo. TLFi’s price syntagms are acheter cher, à prix d'or, bon marché, à vil prix, à bas prix, à votre prix, à son prix. A bare measure after the goods is unprinted. The wording pour 10 euros is unprinted. Neither is constructed.
• chez+NP is the shop. TLFi prints s'il achetait son pain chez le marchand and acheter chez un fournisseur. French Wiktionary prints Balzac’s achetés chez un rôtisseur. A place in à is also printed: à acheter au marché, qu'on achète au bazar, acheter à une épicerie. Le Robert’s passive prints Cela s'achète dans une crémerie. This page does not rank chez against à of a place or against dans.
• What German splits, French keeps on one verb. On kaufen the bare dative is the beneficiary. On abkaufen the bare dative is the seller, and Duden defines that verb as von jemandem kaufen. French à is both readings of acheter. There is no second lemma in the entries opened here that takes the Seller and leaves the Beneficiary. English from and for make the split the French à does not make.

EN ⇄ FR valency strip

Each row lines up one English slot with a French slot. The alignment type says what happens to the slot: = (same object status), or shift (from / for ↔ the French marker the line prints). Printed dictionary lines come first. Every other sentence is constructed, modelled on a printed line. They show the working alignment, not frequency, and not a bilingual corpus.

The strip below is a set of small multiples. Each card holds one frame, with English on top and French under it. The à chip is the one that changes role. The price card stays inside pour or inside a rate. The shop card stays inside chez.