I came across the sentence "Je vous demande pardon ?" in Lingvist and am wondering why "demander" is not being conjugated in the "vous" form, which would make it "demandez". Any insight would be appreciated.
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1 Answer
Je vous demande means “I ask you.” Here, vous is an object of demander, not the subject, which is instead je. Hence, demander must be conjugated in accordance with je, not vous.
Because vous is an object pronoun, it is placed between the subject and verb; this may have caused confusion if you are very new to French. However, consider also that one says s’il vous plaît and s’il te plaît and not s’il vous plaisez or s’il te plais. In this common phrasebook expression, il is the subject, and that is the basis for conjugating plaire.
