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sclanet@lemel.fr wrote:

> I'm a French English student working on the differences and uses of 'why' and
> 'what for'. Could anyone help me?

In some cases, the difference is essentially one of register. Slightly
exaggerating the difference in our translation, we might have:

   Why did you come back?      -> Pourquoi est-ce que tu es revenu?
   What did you come back for? -> Pourquoi t'es revenu?

*However*, note scope differences such as the following, where
"what for" ends up not being possible (for most speakers at least) with
a negative:

   Why did you do that?
   What did you do that for?

   Why didn't you do that?
  *What didn't you do that for?

Another difference is when 'why' expresses an attitude rather
than reason. For example, Patrick Bruel's line:

   "Pourquoi que les fous c'est nous?"

(where the essential meaning is "Pourquoi qu'on dit que...") could
be translated as:

   "Why's it us that's mad?"

but not as:

   "*What's it us that's mad for?"

Neil

-- 
neil@ox.compsoc.net
http://ox.compsoc.net/~neil/