"Je suis exténué...tant d'innombrables images hantent mon esprit" - Is This Sentence In Its Best Form?

Learning French Forum - Ask a Tutor
1

The sentence is: Je suis exténué mais je n’arrive pas à trouver le sommeil tant d’innombrables images hantent mon esprit.

I am a little confused because it seems to be two sentences written as one, like so (note the comma):
*Je suis exténué mais je n’arrive pas à trouver le sommeil, tant d’innombrables images hantent mon esprit.

Was that the intention? Even with the comma, though, it doesn’t look the most natural (from English perspective).
In English a semicolon might have been used making it two sentences effectively.

Does French use the complement clause heavily as in English?
For example it could be rewritten using a clause.

  • I am exhausted but I can’t get to sleep, all these countless images 𝐡𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 my mind.
  • Je suis exténué mais je n’arrive pas à trouver le sommeil, tant d’innombrables images 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 mon esprit.

In English making it a clause with 𝐡𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 would have made it better than splicing the two sentences into one, but I wonder if the same can be done in French.

Or is the original sentence just fine because 𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 has some subtle additional function?
Maybe in French such two in one sentences are more natural and common than in English?

2

I’m in a hurry and can’t give you a detailed answer for now but that’s an interesting question !

The sentence, both with the comma and without it is perfectly correct in French. The semicolon is not used much in French.

The problem with the sentence with “hantant” is the “tant d’innombrables images hantant” part. In this case “tant” and “innombrables” have almost the same meaning (they both mean “a lot of”), therefore you should only say “…, d’innombrables images hantant…”.

In the original sentence, “tant” hasn’t the same meaning as “inombrables”. It means “as”:

  • I am exhausted but I can’t get to sleep, as all these countless images haunt my mind.

Hope this helps!

3

I see. I didn’t know “tant” has the meaning of “as” in the sentence in question.

I did look it up but neither wordreference.com nor laroussa seems to list it as such (only “en tant que” is listed to mean “as”).

Anyway it is good to know. With “tant” functioning as “as”, I agree the sentence is perfectly correct.
I will watch for similar usages in my reading to get the hang of such usage.

Thank you for your help - it was detailed and clear.