Law and the courtroom

Far valere looks like an idiom to be learnt whole, and it is really a piece of grammar that runs through the whole language. Italian puts fare in front of an infinitive and the two then behave as a single verb: far sapere is to let somebody know, far vedere is to show, and far valere un diritto is to make a right count. Notice what is made to act — the right, not a person — which is why English abandons the pattern and reaches for an unrelated verb, « to assert » or « to enforce ». Three consequences follow, and they are what a reader actually has to see on the page. Fare drops its last vowel before the infinitive, so the written form is far valere and not fare valere. Nothing may come between the two verbs, so an object pronoun cannot cling to the second one: farlo valere and lo fa valere are both Italian, the other arrangement is not. And the reflexive turns the sentence back on its subject: farsi valere is to stand one’s ground, as in in riunione si è fatta valere.