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In Ségou, by Maryse Condé, I came across the passage:

Alors, elle lui fit signe de le suivre. Surpris, il obéit.

It's clear from context that the intended meaning is:

Then, she signaled him to follow her. Surprised, he obeyed.

Is this simply a misprint and it should be « de la suivre », or is there some obscure rule of French grammar that permits « le » here?

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  • This exact line doesn't seem to occur in either the 1984 volume « Les Murailles de terre » or the 1985 volume « La Terre en miettes », unless the OCR is faulty. There are many similar phrases, including « son père lui fit signe de le suivre » (Murailles, p. 35) , « Le garçon ... lui fit signe de le suivre » (p. 258), « il signifia à Ayisha de le suivre » (Miettes, p. 139), and « elle se décida ... avant de lui faire signe de la suivre » (p. 300). Can you double-check your page #? Commented Mar 27 at 22:30
  • @Luke: It's on page 254 of Les Murailles de terre, the Pocket edition. The surrounding text is – Bambara ? Il acquiesça. Alors, elle lui fit signe de le suivre. Surpris, il obéit. Au pas de course, ils reprirent le chemin du centre de la ville. Commented Mar 27 at 22:47
  • Weird — no recognizable fragment of that is coming up in the Internet Archive version (and I can't discover the correct page # alignment, either). Maybe the author added it in a later edition... Commented Mar 27 at 23:09
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    The edition on the Internet Archive seems only to have Parts I, II, III (out of V), and it ends in the middle of part III, shortly before the passage I was wondering about. So it seems to be the first volume of a two-volume edition of Les Murailles de terre. Commented Mar 27 at 23:37
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    No obscure rule. Does he actually follow her afterwards? @PeterShor Commented Mar 27 at 23:51

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