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Me lleva vs me llevo | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5819 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes  Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 33 of 44 30 December 2010 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I have already mentioned earlier that copular verbs like ser (bold es) can have an infinitive subject with or without an "el".
That is the most interesting example you have I think, an infinitive used as a subject without the determiner "el". Earlier I said I haven't encountered one yet, and here it is. Lovely. Unfortunately, this would not help you either. The infinitive llegar is still with a determiner, this time not as an article but as a prepositional phrase following it ("a un acuerdo con el sindicato"). Here is a wiki link on what is a determiner: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner_(linguistics) Furthermore, your link: http://fis.ucalgary.ca/AVal/505/AGUsosInfinitivo.html thinks why "prepararme", the original word in question, is a complemento directo, not a sujeto, as the examples quoted show:
If you will notice, these examples don't include any determiners, the infinitives are all alone by themselves and follows the verb because they are governed by the verb.
I repeat: Word order does not have any bearing on which one is the subject. Prepararse lleva años > Lleva años prepararse. > Lleva prepararse años. Prepararse lleva su rato > Lleva su rato prepararse. > Lleva prepararse su rato. Prepararse lleva tiempo > Lleva tiempo prepararse. > Lleva prepararse tiempo. If you will notice, the structure of these sentences is very much the same as "Me lleva mucho tiempo prepararme.": an adverb of time is sandwiched between the two verbs. The example in your link has the adverb after the two verbs "Prefiero acostarme pronto esta noche." so I added a third sentences above with the adverb of time after them as well. This one has a determiner as explained above: Prepararme para la competencia me da un sentido de misión. Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 30 December 2010 at 1:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 34 of 44 30 December 2010 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
This is how linguistics works -- a language is defined by what people say. The reason that old grammar books get things wrong is that they focus on what people could or should say, rather than what they do say. (Sadly many language textbooks still make the same mistake.)
That is not the real question - no-one has denied that the infinitive can function as a noun. One poster (whose name I can't type on this keyboard) has questioned under which circumstances it can appear without the article, which is addressed by the example: Llegar a un acuerdo con el sindicato solucionaría el problema. (Getting to an agreement ...) So its a side issue, but thanks for clearing that up.
Aha! Thank you -- this is the sort of evidence I was asking for. It's only in impersonal form, but I don't think that matters. Curiously, again there's no evidence in the Corpus del Español, but the corpus only goes up to the end of last century. My current theory -- it was traditionally a construction with a dummy subject, but because it looks identical to most "me gusta" type sentences, it is being re-analysed that way. Certainly, the dummy subject exists in Spanish -- "hay" has a dummy neuter subject, and if you don't believe me, change tense and it uses the standard third person singular conjugation. Full theory and prediction: For once, I believe everybody's right. Some native speakers of Spanish probably see it as a dummy subject. Others see it as infinitive-as-subject. In the next generation, it will probably become more and more common to view it as infinitive-as-subject. My advice: As both views accept the verb at the end, but only one accepts it at the beginning, you will never sound wrong to anyone if you always leave it at the end.
It was not your mistake that sent the discussion off on a tangent. I myself point out that the neuter singular pronoun can stand in for arbitrarily complex abstract phrases. So the lack of plural conjugation in "me gusta bailar y comer" isn't a problem. Bailar y comer. Esto me gusta. So, no problem, and again you are building a strawman, because I don't recall anyone suggesting that "me gusta" had a dummy subject. My point was that "me gusta" and "me lleva" could be different. Not "are", but "could be". And as I say above, I now believe that they both "are different" and "aren't different" simultaneously, depending on who's speaking.
As I said, it's because of the neuter standing in for an abstract phrase of arbitrary complexity.
That's a bit different though, because we've got "de", which makes the "bons amis" (arguably) indirect. Furthermore, French doesn't insist on the verb and subject agreeing with the predicate. English is the same, but Spanish forces agreement. C'est moi, it's me, soy yo. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 35 of 44 30 December 2010 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I'm not going to accept it if it's not the case. I can understand "how it's spoken" without saying that it either is or isn't like "me gusta". I'm keeping an open mind, because the two theories both generate an acceptable solution. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 36 of 44 30 December 2010 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
So much fuss over a little example. The OP must think that some people have nothing better to do during the holidays. I don't see what the problem is. If I look at the following example (with my tranlations): Prepararse lleva años To prepare oneself takes years Getting ready takes years It takes years to get ready I see subject (the infintive prepararse functioning as a noun), a verb (lleva) and an object (años). Is there a different way of seeing these three words? There must be because we can't seem to agree. Unlike English, Spanish allows us to change the word order because "Word order does not have any bearing on which one is the subject." Hey, we agree on something. This is the exact point. So the following forms are totally acceptable in Spanish. Lleva años prepararse Años lleva prepararse The subject has not changed. The only thing that has changed is the order of the components. Instead of SVO, we now have VOS and OVS. What's the problem? Let's transform the example: Prepararse lleva tiempo Prepararme lleva tiempo Prepararme me lleva tiempo Prepararme me lleva mucho tiempo Has the subject changed? No. Has the verb changed? No. Has the object changed? Yes. Mucho tiempo instead of años. What else has changed? The only real change is the introduction of the indirect object pronoun me that is here for emphasis. Now, of course we can change the order of things. Prepararme mucho tiempo me lleva. Me lleva mucho tiempo prepararme. Mucho tiempo prepararme me lleva. Mucho tiempo me lleva prepararme. Are all these equally valid? Theoretically yes, in practice no because certain forms are more awkward than others, especially when spoken. In my mind, it's all pretty simple. I don't see why we have to complicate things with extraneous discussions about determiners and adverbs. Edited by s_allard on 30 December 2010 at 7:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 37 of 44 30 December 2010 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I wonder where in the world this idea of a dummy subject in Spanish came from. English has a dummy subject in forms like:
There are many reasons for this. It is thought that smoking causes cancer. I've never heard of something similar in Spanish. Are there dummy pronouns in Spanish? How can one say that Spanish hay uses the dummy subject? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 38 of 44 30 December 2010 at 7:06pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
As Spanish drops its pronouns, there would be no point in using a pronoun for dummy "it" in Spanish -- you let the verb imply it. So "hay"... Hay una chica. Hay muchas chicas. No change of verb, so the chicas aren't subjects. What is the subject? To find that out, we've got to work out what person the verb is in. "Hay" is from "haber", and if we put the sentences into the past we get: Había una chica. Había muchas chicas. What we've got is a third person singular - dummy "it". It's neuter (ello), except that it's always dropped. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5346 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 39 of 44 30 December 2010 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
How many times have you seen on this forum someone say "Japanese pleases me" rather than "I like Japanese"? The latter is of course the appropriate translation of "me gusta el japonés". You could translate "German pleases me" as "el alemán es de mi agrado".
Here you are correct. Most native speakers though say (wrongly) habían muchas chicas, but you'll never find something like this in any respectable printed source. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 40 of 44 31 December 2010 at 1:50am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I find it very interesting to learn the most speakers say (wrongly) habían muchas chicas. This shows that they spontaneously try to make the verb agree with the plural subject. But to come back to hay muchas chicas, the subject is still muchas chicass. This is an unusual example where the subject does not agree in number with the verb. But where is the dummy subject? Why posit the existence of an ello that is incorporated in hay? This is completely unnecessary. In fact the concept of dummy subject of dummy pronoun usually applies to those languages, such as English and French where a verb subject is written without any antecedent. Basically, you cannot have a dummy subject in Spanish because pronouns are usually omitted. Compare the two following forms: Es prohibido fumar It is forbidden to smoke. English uses this dummy subject It whereas Spanish has the subject fumar. Of course, in English one could have said "Smoking is forbidden" where Smoking becomes the subject. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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