Personal Pronouns / Ergativity

[Eduard Selleslagh]

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu>
Date: Thursday, June 17, 1999 3:53 AM

>[snip]

>>1. the expression 'estáte quieto' (keep, stay, remain...quiet), remarkable
>>because 'estar' is already stative and clearly intransitive and not
>>susceptible to becoming reflexive; so I presume it is to be interpreted as
>>medio-passive.  But what mental process and/or grammatical 'reasoning' is
>>behind it?

> Reflexive pronouns are used for inchoate, intensive & emphatic
>actions as well as for reflexive, reciprocal and mediopassive.
> Mediopassive constructions [strictly speaking] only occur in 3rd
>person:
> Se vende pizza. Se venden pizzas.
> [literally: "Pizza sells itself." "Pizzas sell themselves."
> Se me perdieron las llaves.
> [literally: "My keys lost themselves on me."
> Mue/rate "drop dead"
> Due/rmete "go to sleep"
> Te comiste el sandwich "you scarfed down the sandwich"
> [comer = German essen, comerse = German fressen]
> Te bebiste toda la botella "you chugged the whole bottle"

[Ed Selleslagh]
I know, but what about my question?

>>2. the formally reflexive use of transitive verbs in Castilian that has exact
>>parallels in (modern) Greek medio-passive: 'se prohibe (in older Spanish:
>>prohibese) la entrada' (Greek: apagoréyetai he: éisodos (pron.
>>/apagorévete i ísodhos/) or
>>'vendese [sic] esta casa' or 'enjuáguese el envase'.

> This is non-standard usage [but it's also found in older Spanish
>texts up to the XX century]
> Standard Spanish uses the subjunctive for these, e.g.
> Que se venda la casa, que se enjuague el envase
> You can say <enjua/guese la boca> "rinse out your mouth, gargle" in
>standard Spanish but you normally say enjuague el vaso "rinse the glass"

[Ed]

There is no need for 'sic': it is not intended as a subjunctive. In fact, it
used to be, until a few decades ago, the normal 'house for sale' sign in
Spain, but nowadays it is becoming rare (replaced by 'Se vende...'), but
slightly less so when unspecified 'Véndese' = 'For sale'. But that wasn't
the point: I mentioned it because it's an older, more idiomatic form that
exactly parallels the Greek medio-passive.
On the other hand, 'enjuáguese el envase' is still the standard text (in
Spain, not in Latin America) on reusable glass bottles etc.('envase' is used
as a general word for
any packaging container, 'recipiente').  It is of course a subjunctive, as
it expresses a request. It is not a reflexive use of 'se' like in
'enjuáguese la boca', but more like an 'impersonal pronoun' (English 'one':
'one should rinse the bottle').

Unfortunately, 'standard Spanish' is a fiction, just like 'standard
English', even though M. Vargas-Llosa is doing a great job as a member of
the (Spanish) Real Academia de la Lengua, to include more American
vocabulary and idioms in its dictionary.

Sorry for all this digression, but my question still stands.

Ed.