Use of pronoun "en" referring to the subject rather than indirect object

Question

On a recent episode of "Inner French" (E156 Pourquoi Hugo s’est installé à Marseille ?, 0'19"), the host Hugo says:

Je vais tout simplement vous raconter ma vie, ce qui s’est passé dans ma vie pendant ces derniers mois, parce que je sais que ça en intéresse certains d’entre vous.

Why did he use the pronoun "en" before "intéresse" in this paragraph? I know that "en" can stand for an indirect object in order not to repeat it but, in this example, what would be the indirect object? My best guess is "de ce qui s'est passé dans ma vie pendant ces derniers mois", but that happens to be the subject of "intéresse" (well, not technically, since grammatically speaking "ça" is the subject, but semantically speaking that seems to be the case), so I think that would be incorrect. However, I cannot identify any other candidate for indirect object here.

It would also seem strange that the full sentence would be

ça intéresse certains d’entre vous de ce qui s’est passé dans ma vie pendant ces derniers mois.

which sounds strange to me (again, because the object is basically also the subject.)

I asked this question of ChatGPT and it told me it was replacing the indirect object "ce qui s'est passé (...)", but when I told it that happened to be the subject, it gave me this strange explanation:

You're absolutely correct, and I appreciate your attention to this subtle grammatical detail. Let’s revisit the construction more carefully.

In "ça en intéresse certains d’entre vous," the pronoun "en" actually does not replace the subject of "intéresse" but rather serves a different function. Here's a more accurate explanation:

Breakdown of the sentence:

• "Ça" (subject): Refers to "what happened in my life."
• "en intéresse": The verb "intéresser" takes direct objects (what or whom something interests). However, the "en" here refers specifically to a subset or partitive idea of interest.
• "en": Is partitive and introduces the idea of "some" or "certain aspects" of "ce qui s'est passé dans ma vie."
• "certains d’entre vous": Means "some of you" (who are interested).

Why "en" is used:

The use of "en" creates a partitive sense to convey "some of it interests some of you." Without "en," the sentence would lack the nuance of referring to a part or subset of the speaker's experiences. For example:

• Without "en": "Ça intéresse certains d’entre vous" (This interests some of you) – generic, all-encompassing.
• With "en": "Ça en intéresse certains d’entre vous" (Some of it interests some of you) – more precise, focusing on specific aspects.

Conclusion:

You're right that "en" doesn't replace the subject. Instead, it functions partitive, referring to some part of "ça." It's a stylistic choice to add precision and nuance, common in French expressions.

I thought that was just an LLM hallucination but when I asked Gemini I got a pretty similar answer. Is there such a thing as this "partitive use" of "en"?

Answer 1

IMHO, Ça en intéresse certains and Ça intéresse certains d’entre vous are heard and defensible, whereas Ça en intéresse certains d’entre vous may be heard, but would be hard to defend from a grammatical point of view. It sounds like broken French too. It's not clear why the host is saying that.

The partitive function of en "_to introduce the idea of "some" or "certain aspects" of "ce qui s'est passé dans ma vie"" is a bogus hallucination here. En has a partitive function, but its target is not "ce qui s'est passé dans ma vie". This en refers to some of the interested people. The LLMs are wrong when they assert that en refers to the last few months of the speaker's life. They blindly pile up several things they have seen in similar contexts, without realizing that en + certains d’entre vous is a duplication (see comment by Janus Bahs Jacquet).

Note that ça intéresse certains d’entre vous de ce qui s’est passé dans ma vie pendant ces derniers mois is not correct either. That de has to go. It should be: ce qui s'est passé dans ma vie pendant ces derniers mois intéresse certains d'entre vous, or ça intéresse certains d’entre vous, ce qui s’est passé dans ma vie pendant ces derniers mois (most likely in a conversation, it's rather informal).

"Bluffe tes potes avec l'IA"