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Passive se or impersonal se? - Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5807 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 17 of 60 11 July 2010 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
Impersonal and passive "se"? I was told that there was only one thing -- the "impersonal", which is by nature possessive
What about "Se puede considerarla..."...? The impersonal/passive se would then be clearly the object of poder, which I think is pretty normal. Don't you have to use it for anything that uses a conjunction or subjunctive -- Se puede decir que... or whatever? Because in these cases the subordinate clause is taking the position of object to the main verb. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6268 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 18 of 60 17 July 2010 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
Since when does "poder" take an object? ;) Edited by furrykef on 17 July 2010 at 9:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5807 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 19 of 60 17 July 2010 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
Erm... yes... I see your point. What I'm getting at though is that that there are plenty of phrases such as "se puede decir que..." and even simply "se puede" with no second verb. I've always assumed from this that the reflexive pronoun attaches to "poder" to describe possibility rather that the main verb, hence my response. But having seen the wordreference discussion on the matter, my head is now spinning.... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6811 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 60 18 July 2010 at 1:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm afraid that I can't contribute much in terms of Spanish grammar but I'd like to reiterate that using "la" anywhere in the sentence just sounds plain wrong.
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| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5614 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 21 of 60 05 August 2010 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm only intermediate in Spanish, so my opinion could be wrong. First, true passives use the past participle forms of the verb in both English and Spanish. So, there is no passive construction here. As a matter of fact, I never consider "se" as having a passive meaning. "se" has only 2 uses for me, reflexive (DO and IO) and impersonal (IO) and its possible to analyze it in those lines. As Impersonal: By their forms (3rd person) and order (IOs always preceed DOs) "se" (from le) is IO and "la" DO. Thus the verb "considerar" can be thought of as governing 2 object pronouns, "se" and "la", and the literal translation in English would be: "[One] is able to consider it ("se" - Extremadura) a land of transition ("la" - it).". As Reflexive: The subject and object of the verb "considerar" is the same referent here. The reflexive meaning is that of the IO, like the sentence "Juan se lava las manos". Notice that although "se" is used, this sentence does not mean "John washes himself the hands" but rather "John washes the hands [to] himself". He is the recipient of the washing he does to his own hands. The "la" here is the DO, and refers to the object ("una tierra de transición") that will be considered for the subject (Extremadura). This is called direct object clitic doubling and is used to clarify that "una tierra de transición" is a DO and not a subject of the sentence. The "la" here is never translated in English, so the literal translation would then be: "[It - Extremadura] is able to consider a land of transition [to] itself." which in English is just queer and not very idiomatic. A more idiomatic translation yet retaining its reflexive flavour would be: "It is able to consider itself a land of transition." Here are similar sentences found in the internet. Notice that the direct object and its clitic agree in gender: Corvus sinaloae parece ser genéticamente extremadamente parecido a esta ave, y puede considerársela la forma occidental de él.... Al mismo tiempo puede considerárselo un método para inducir la consciencia de sí. There is no loismo/laismo here since "lo" and "la" are both DO in these sentences. Read here some explanation for uses of "se". I know I am not fluent yet in Spanish, so I could be wrong here. == EDIT: Actually, the reflexive uses the same construction as the impersonal, and their distinction is whether the subject and the IO are the same referent. I have since changed the Impersonal to Undergoer "Se" with impersonal "se" as a variant of undergoer "se". In this case Undergoer "se" can be S,DO and IO. Also, I have suggested that this is an impersonal "se". Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 07 August 2010 at 2:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5249 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 22 of 60 05 August 2010 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think it is the "se" that's causing people trouble here, but the "la".
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| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6899 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 23 of 60 05 August 2010 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
Indeed. Regarding the non-existence of the passive se, I'd be interested to find out what the poster thinks of the following: se quemaron los bosques para acabar con la plaga (quoted in section 28.4.1 of B&B which in turn lifted it from the GDLE) Clearly the trees didn't burn themselves in this instance, so there is an implied but unmentioned agent - hence the passive se. Edit: typo Edited by Andy E on 05 August 2010 at 10:42pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5614 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 24 of 60 07 August 2010 at 12:54am | IP Logged | |||||
Ok, I've re-read my grammar book and my understanding is that there is still no true passive "se" but there is a mediopassive "se" distinct from the reflexive "se" and impersonal "se", although in the third person singular, the impersonal and the mediopassive "se" are hard to distinguish from the forms of the verb alone. The difference between the true passive and the mediopassive in English is the form of the verb used, in that mediopassive verbs are in active voice and passive verbs are in passive voice with both having the undergoer as subject. Also, mediopassives can be constructed only for unaccusative intransitives in English: Spanish: Se cierra la puerta a la una. True Passive: The door is closed at one o'clock. Mediopassive(Active): The door closes at one o'clock. Impersonal(Active): One closes the door at one o'clock. Your example sentence can be translated as: True passive: The forests were burnt/burned to end the plague. Mediopassive(Active): The forests burnt/burned to end the plague. Impersonal(Active): no such sense since the verb is plural. Notice that English does not have different forms for past and past participle for "burn", so that you can't see the difference between the verbs used in a true passive and a mediopassive apart from the copula. Since mediopassives are not very productive in English, the first thing that comes to mind is always to use the true passive to understand the Spanish mediopassive "se", thus the terminology "passive se". I said there are only 2 meanings because both Impersonal and Mediopassive can be subsumed under one Undergoer "se" where the noun phrase can be either the subject or the object of the verb but both are undergoer in a semantic sense (recipient, theme, patient). Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 07 August 2010 at 1:03am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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