12.38, Sum: An Unusual Spanish Construction

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-38. Tue Jan 9 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.38, Sum: An Unusual Spanish Construction

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1)
Date:  Mon, 1 Jan 2001 13:32:11 +0100
From:  "Colin Whiteley" <CWhiteley at tycoint.com>
Subject:  Summary: An unusual Spanish construction

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 1 Jan 2001 13:32:11 +0100
From:  "Colin Whiteley" <CWhiteley at tycoint.com>
Subject:  Summary: An unusual Spanish construction

Some weeks ago I posted the following query about an unusual Spanish
construction:

>I have just come across a construction in Spanish which I had never seen
>before. The very well read native speaker who gave it to me assures me it
>is unusual but correct. It is:
>
>"Se le habiamos olvidado", in the sense of "(Ella) se habia olvidado de
>nosotros".
>
>As a fluent, non-native speaker of Spanish, I immediately judged this to be
>ungrammatical, but my informant insists it is acceptable, though very
>unusual. I should like to know the opinion of other native speakers on the
>Linguist list. If you find it acceptable, please suggest how it should be
>analysed, e.g. whether the verb is 1st person plural or 3rd person singular
>+ a suffixed pronoun "-mos".
>
>I will post a summary if the results are worthwhile.

My sincere thanks to the 15 people who replied, most of whom were native
speakers of Spanish, from both Europe and Latin America. The responses were
mostly remarkable for their variety, ranging from: "I'm a native speaker of
River Plate Spanish and this construction seems perfectly grammatical to
me." (Florencia Franceschina) to "This is absolutely ungrammatical. Your
informant must be kidding!" (Daniel Riaño Rufilanchas, Madrid). Some, like
José Luis Mendívil Giró (Zaragoza), accept it after some initial hesitation:
"Mi primera reacción como hablante nativo ha sido la misma que la tuya (si
te sirve de consuelo), pero la verdad es que pensándolo un poco debo estar
de acuerdo con tu informante: es aceptable, aunque ciertamente inusual".

Those who find the sentence acceptable do so by analogy with constructions
such as "se le habian olvidado las llaves", where the subject is "llaves"
and "le" is an indirect object. Here's a partial conjugation suggested by
Florencia Franceschina:

a) "Se me había olvidado la leche."
b) "Se te habían olvidado los niños."
c) "Se le habíamos olvidado nosotros."

I don't think that anybody would doubt the well-formedness of a) and b), but
they both have 3rd person subjects, which agree with "se", (if we take "se"
to be a reflexive direct object), whereas c) is 1st person plural. To keep
the analogy strict, c) would presumably have to be "Nos le habíamos olvidado
nosotros", but this sounds pretty odd too!

Perhaps the "se" is not a reflexive particle in this case, but something
else, and can occur in a sentence with a 1st person plural verb form. If
that is the case, we should be able to find other examples. Two respondents
searched for other occurences of "se le habiamos..." and could find nothing.
But I would still be very interested in hearing from anybody who can offer
further examples.

Jose Luis Mendivil postulates the following scenario:

"Intento explicarme: el ejemplo no significa 'ella se había olvidado
de nosotros' en el sentido de que ya no se acordaba de nosotros, sino
que se había olvidado incluir 'nosotros' en alguna actividad o
categoría, por ejemplo ponernos en una lista de personas que van a
entrar gratis a la Opera. Considera el siguiente diálogo:

- ¿Cómo es que habéis tenido que pagar la entrada para El Liceo si
Luisa dijo que os pondría en la lista de invitados?

- Pues porque se le hemos olvidado nosotros y no nos ha puesto en la lista."

Dr Mendivil also offers some interesting comments on the semantic
implications of sentences using "olvidarse/olvidarse de" and related verbs,
which I copy below.

The only normal situation where "se" does not agree with the grammatical
subject is when it is an indirect object and not a reflexive pronoun, but
it's difficult to see how that could apply to the present case, since there
is already an indirect object, "le". Danilo Vilicic says:

"... the pronoun "se" ,I think is taken from constructions like:se lo
dije,etc.But anyways
you will always hear :"se lo",never "se le".It's a double dative!!!! And the
pronoun se in "se lo" comes from old spanish llelo>gelo>se lo(latin:illi
illum),and it has nothing to do with the reflexive pronoun "se"."

My own conclusion, for what it's worth, is that nobody has been able to
justify by analysis a sentence which only a very small numbers of native
speakers accept as well-formed, and which only one to my knowledge claims
ever to have heard before (my original informant). It may therefore be that
these speakers are using some sort of subconscious analogy which we have not
yet brought to light. It's safe to say that anybody using this construction
will generally be judged to be making a "lapsus linguae".

I give below the full text of all the replies, including some interesting
comments from José-Luis Mendivil on the semantic implications of sentences
using "olvidarse/olvidarse de" and related verbs. I should be delighted to
receive any further comments on this construction or on unusual uses of "se"
in general.

Colin Whiteley
Barcelona, Spain


__________________________________________________________________


- ---Original Message-----
>From: Larry [mailto:be262 at scn.org]
Sent: 06 November 2000 02:29
To: Colin Whiteley
Subject: Re: Unusual Spanish Form

Hi,

for what it's worth, something (unrelated?) from English that was triggered
in my mind when I read your post: the expression "this cabin sleeps 5"
struck me, the first time I heard it, as perfectly understandable and
perfectly ungrammatical. :-) I wonder whether we have already reached the
stage where native speakers no longer cringe at hearing this phrase. Not
much help as regards your query, but I thought you might find it
interesting evertheless.

Regards: Larry

_________________________________


- ---Original Message-----
>From: Grupo Buck de Argentina [mailto:buck at mail.pccp.com.ar]
Sent: 06 November 2000 06:23
To: cwhiteley at tycoint.com
Subject: Re: Unusual Spanish construction


Hi, Colin. Greetings from Argentina!

	My two (very small) cents... and please double-check my statements!

	As a native Spanish speaker, I never heard that in my life, either. But
IMHO there is no agreement between subject ("Ella/El", 3rd. person
singular) and verb ("habíamos", 1st. person plural), so the sentence seems
ungrammatical. The easy and alternative way of saying "Ella se había
olvidado de nosotros" would be "Nos había olvidado". Stretching things a
bit, the sentence under analysis could be written as: "Se le había olvidado
acordarse de nosotros" or "Se le había olvidado recordarnos" (She had
forgotten to remember us)... always subject and verb in agreement.

	Now, the reflexive particle "Se" allows for impersonal constructions too,
like: "Se había informado al pasajero que..." (The passenger had been told
that...) or even "Se le había dicho al pasajero..." (doubling the indirect
object). But in this case, the verb always goes in 3rd. person singular
(you don't say: "Se habíamos dicho" or "Se le habíamos dicho"). This is
similar to the "weather It" in English.

	If usage counts, I did a brief research in a search engine
(www.raging.com):

	"se le habíamos" yielded 0 matches
	"se le había" yielded 4.771 matches
	"se le había olvidado" yields 172 matches

	Another search engine (google.com):

	"se le habíamos" yielded 0 matches
	"se le había" yielded 11.600 matches
	"se le había olvidado" yields 545 matches

	It would be interesting to hear about the syntactical analysis (or
specific usage reference) your native speaker offers for this sentence.

	Regards,
	Bernieh.


- --------------------------------------------------------------
 Bernardo Humberto Banega (h)
 Grupo Buck de Argentina      | Universidad Tecnológica Nacional
 mailto:buck at mail.pccp.com.ar | mailto:banega at rec.utn.edu.ar
 http://www.pccp.com.ar/buck  | http://www.utn.edu.ar
 MOO news, see http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/moonlight
 English Teaching/Learning, see http://bernieh.com.ar
- --------------------------------------------------------------

_________________________________


- ---Original Message-----
>From: Vallop at aol.com [mailto:Vallop at aol.com]
Sent: 06 November 2000 08:05
To: cwhiteley at tycoint.com
Cc: vald0016 at tc.umn.edu
Subject: Unusual Spanish Construction


Colin,
I don't think "Se le habíamos olvidado" is correct.  There is a song I know
with the title "Te me olvidas".  As you can see, the first pronoun is a
reflexive that has to agree with the subject of the verb...  So, if
anything,
it would be "Nos le habíamos olvidado", but I confess that that sounds very
bizarre to my native-Spanish ears, although it is probably grammatically
correct.
René

_________________________________


Hi,

I'm not a native speaker of Spanish, but near-native, and it seems to me
that this construction is possible by analogy to constructions "se le cayo
la taza", "se le rompieron los cristales" etc. which has to do with the
unexpected "se".  For me, the verb in your construction is the 1st person
plural, but I'm not a syntactition.  I'm sure native speaker will tell you
more.

Marianna Chodorowska-Pilch

Lecturer,  Univ. of Southern California

_________________________________



- ---Original Message-----
>From: Grupo Buck de Argentina [mailto:buck at mail.pccp.com.ar]
Sent: 06 November 2000 11:14
To: cwhiteley at tycoint.com
Subject: RE: Unusual Spanish construction


At 09:04 a.m. 06/11/00 +0100, you wrote:
>Bernieh,
>
>Thankyou so much for your input. The statistics certainly confirm that this
>is a highly unusual construction, to say the least. I agree with all of
your
>analysis; the trouble is that three natives have now confirmed this
sentence
>to me here in Spain, so the plot thickens.
>

	Let's accept that the sentence is grammatical, but rewrite the implicit
subject and indirect object as:

	- "Se le habiamos olvidado"
	- "Se le habíamos olvidado (a ella)"
	- "(Nosotros) se le habíamos olvidado (a ella)"

by doing this, we are very near of the original meaning "Ella se había
olvidado de nosotros" and subject (Nosotros) and verb agree. If this is
right, then the real message conveyed in the sentence is "We had been
forgotten by her"); the focus is on "us", not on "her"... "(nosotros)
Habíamos sido olvidados (por ella)... "Se había olvidado ella de
nosotros"... "Se le habíamos olvidado" (.... even "Habíamosele
olvidado"??!!)

	Interesting and unusual... I'll try to find more on this.

	Regards,
	Bernieh.

P.D.: Note that the above does not work with other verbs, lets say
"Burlar". We cannot derive "Habíamos sido burlados por ella"... "Se había
burlado ella de nosotros"... "Se le habíamos burlado"... that is, unless
your friends from Barcelona say so :-)


- --------------------------------------------------------------
 Bernardo Humberto Banega (h)
 Grupo Buck de Argentina      | Universidad Tecnológica Nacional
 mailto:buck at mail.pccp.com.ar | mailto:banega at rec.utn.edu.ar
 http://www.pccp.com.ar/buck  | http://www.utn.edu.ar
 MOO news, see http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/moonlight
 English Teaching/Learning, see http://bernieh.com.ar
- --------------------------------------------------------------

_________________________________



- ---Original Message-----
>From: Joaquim Brandão de Carvalho [mailto:jbrandao at ext.jussieu.fr]
Sent: 06 November 2000 09:03
To: cwhiteley at tycoint.com
Subject: Portuguese also


At 0:37 +0000 6/11/00, The LINGUIST Network wrote:
>"Se le habiamos olvidado", in the sense of "(Ella) se habia olvidado de
>nosotros".

I didn't know of such spanish constructions. I just wanted to tell
you that Portuguese also has a similar feature. For example, "I
forgot the oranges" can be said either as (1) or as (2a) :

(1) a.  Esqueci as laranjas
        b.  Esqueci-me das laranjas [das = de+as]

(2) a.  Esqueceram-me as laranjas.
        b.  **Esqueceram-me das laranjas.
        c.  *Esqueceram-se das laranjas = "they forgot the oranges".

Note, however, that : (a) the subject of (2a)-type constructions is
necessarily a 3rd person (so that your Spanish example, with
nosotros, would be impossible in Port.) ; (b) the order is always VS
in (2a) wheras both VS and SV are allowed in (1)-like sentences ;
otherwise ("As laranjas esqueceram-me"), the meaning would be absurd
("the oranges forgot me").
I'm mainly a phonologist. No idea on how those things are to be
analyzed. But could it be the case that Spanish has only operated a
generalisation from the 3rd (and unmarked) person to the whole
personal paradigm?

Best wishes.
-

Joaquim Brandao de Carvalho
320, rue des Pyrénées
75020  Paris  France
Tel./fax : 01 43 66 95 24
(If calling from outside France,
please replace the prefix '01' with '00331'.)
jbrandao at ext.jussieu.fr

Departement de linguistique
Faculte des Sciences Humaines et Sociales - Sorbonne
Universite Rene Descartes - Paris V
CNRS : ESA 7018, GDR 1954

_________________________________



- ---Original Message-----
>From: Timothy L. Face [mailto:face.2 at osu.edu]
Sent: 06 November 2000 13:21
To: cwhiteley at tycoint.com
Subject: Re: unusual Spanish construction


Colin,

While not a native Spanish speaker, but also a fluent non-native, I have
not come across this construction with the first person plural, but it
shouldn't be too much of a surprise since I have seen it with other forms
of the verb.  An example would be "Se le perdieron las llaves" where the
meaning is "Ella perdió las llaves".  I think it just removes the active
subject (ella) from the responsibility of having lost the keys (or in your
example, from having forgotten about us) and just makes him/her the one to
whom the action has happened, a much more passive, and perhaps innocent,
role.  It could be the equivalent of the difference in English between "My
keys got lost" or "My keys disappeared" and "I lost my keys".  It does seem
a bit more unusual with the first person plural, though, but perhaps not
impossible.

Tim Face


_________________________________



- ---Original Message-----
>From: Karl Reinhardt [mailto:remy at hal-pc.org]
Sent: 06 November 2000 17:03
To: 'cwhiteley at tycoint.com'
Subject:


<<I should like to know the opinion of other native speakers on the
Linguist list. If you find it acceptable, please suggest how it should be
analysed, e.g. whether the verb is 1st person plural or 3rd person singular
+ a suffixed pronoun "-mos".>>
It looks and sounds funny, but seems well formed.
Se me olvido traer ...   Subject: traer.
Se le olvidaron sus tareas.  Subject: tareas.
Se le olvidamos  nosotros:  Subject nosotros.
Moved to pluscuamperfecto: Se le habiamos olvidado nosotros.

(As to what the subject is, you are thinking of some other language,
perhaps English.  This is like saying that "No me gustaron esas peliculas"
is first person because the English translation has I as subject.)

Not a native speaker, but a fairly good analyst as well as user.
Usually, though, the construction means that subject slipped out of the
mind of indirect object.  As though your sentence might mean that we
(s)he/you (usted)  left us behind, rather than (s)he/you didn't recognize
us.
Karl

_________________________________


- ---Original Message-----
>From: marta ortega llabaria [mailto:marta at phonetics.UCL.ac.uk]
Sent: 07 November 2000 01:08
To: cwhiteley
Subject:


Dear Colin,

I am a native speaker of Spanish -- born in Barcelona-- and this
construction seems ungrammatical to me.

_________________________________


- ---Original Message-----
>From: William H. Fletcher [mailto:fletcher at usna.edu]
Sent: 06 November 2000 18:26
To: cwhiteley at tycoint.com
Subject: Se le habiamos olvidado


Just a brief note on "Se le habiamos olvidado":  this type of construction
must be rare, if indeed it has more than a pedantic / theoretical existence.
In a quick search on AltavVista, which indexes 7-8 million web pages, I
could find no examples of
"se le(s) hemos | habiamos", and only 34 of  "se le(s) he...", none of which
were comparable to your example.  Yet even in such a large corpus not all
possible constructions are necessarily found.

I'm looking forward to your summary of responses from native speakers.

Bill Fletcher

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  William H. Fletcher                         (410) 293-6362 [voice]
  Associate Professor of German and Spanish   (410) 293-2729 [fax]
  Language Studies Department
  US Naval Academy
  589 McNair Road
  Annapolis, MD 21402 - 5030

  fletcher at usna.edu
  http://www.usna.edu/LangStudy/

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_________________________________


- ---Original Message-----
>From: Jose-Luis Mendivil [mailto:jlmendi at posta.unizar.es]
Sent: 06 November 2000 18:47
To: cwhiteley at tycoint.com
Subject: Re: Unusual Spanish construction


Hola, Colin. Espero que no te importe que te conteste en castellano.

Mi primera reacción como hablante nativo ha sido la misma que la tuya
(si te sirve de consuelo), pero la verdad es que pensándolo un poco
debo estar de acuerdo con tu informante: es aceptable, aunque
ciertamente inusual.

Antes del análisis, considera estos ejemplos:

1) A Luisa se le habían olvidado los bocadillos
2) Los bocadillos se le habían olvidado
3) Se le habían olvidado

Podemos decir (3) para referirnos a lo mismo que decimos en (1) si no
queremos especificar qué se había olvidado a quién, siempre partiendo
de un esquema básico activo como el siguiente:

Luisa había olvidado los bocadillos

Es ese mismo contexto en el que hay que entender tu ejemplo. No se
trata de que Luisa se haya olvidado de los bocadillos, esto es, que
no los recuerde (aunque también podría usarse en ese contexto), sino
de que Luisa ha olvidado coger los bocadillos y se los ha dejado en
casa, etc. y todo ello en 'pasiva refleja'.

Si sustituimos el SN de tercera persona 'los bocadillos' por el
pronombre de primera persona 'nosotros', entonces tendremos el mismo
caso:

4) A Luisa se le habíamos olvidado nosotros
5) Nosotros se le habíamos olvidado
6) Se le habíamos olvidado

Lo extraño de la construccion no es tanto la estructura (como se
observa en 1-3) sino que 'nosotros' se está empleando como si fuera
un sintagma nominal definido más que como un pronombre.

Fíjate que la expresión de base en esta caso sería algo bastante raro:

Luisa (nos) había olvidado a nosotros

Intento explicarme: el ejemplo no significa 'ella se había olvidado
de nosotros' en el sentido de que ya no se acordaba de nosotros, sino
que se había olvidado incluir 'nosotros' en alguna actividad o
categoría, por ejemplo ponernos en una lista de personas que van a
entrar gratis a la Opera. Considera el siguiente diálogo:

- ¿Cómo es que habéis tenido que pagar la entrada para El Liceo si
Luisa dijo que os pondría en la lista de invitados?

- Pues porque se le hemos olvidado nosotros y no nos ha puesto en la lista.

Lamento no poder ser más preciso en la caracterización de ese uso de
'nosotros', pero no me viene a la cabeza una forma standard de
denominación de ese fenómeno.

El efecto curioso viene porque 'nosotros' o 'los bocadillos' son
formalmente el sujeto del verbo y, por tanto debe existir
concordancia con éste. En 1-3 el verbo concuerda con 'los bocadillos'
(tercer del plural, 'habían'). En 4-6, aunque 'nosotros' no sea el
participante que olvida, sino el que es olvidado, debe concordar
igualmente.

La forma es, pues, 'habíamos' (primera persona del plural) sin
ninguna duda (no existe -mos como sufijo de persona fuera de las
formas flexivas).

Otro aspecto que complica el asunto es la posible inclusión del
hablante en un sintagma de tercera persona, lo que provocaría una
concordancia de primera persona:

Te repito al diálogo ahora con 'Colin y Pepe' en vez de 'nosotros',
pero imagina que es Colin quien responde:

- ¿Cómo es que Colin y Pepe han tenido que pagar la entrada para El
Liceo si Luisa dijo que los pondría en la lista de invitados?

- Pues porque (Colin y Pepe) se le hemos olvidado y no nos ha puesto
en la lista.

Este es más raro aún, pero aceptable. Es lo que llamaríamos una
'concordancia ad sensum'.

En todo caso, es ciertamente una construcción extraña y te felicito
por tu buen olfato.

No dudes en pedirme cualquier otra explicación.

Un saludo cordial,
José Luis.



-
********************************
Dr. José Luis Mendívil Giró
Area de Lingüística General
Dep. de Lingüística General e Hispánica
Universidad de Zaragoza
C/ Pedro Cerbuna, 12
50009 Zaragoza (Spain)

Tfno.: (+34) 976 761 000 Ext. 3978
Fax: (+34) 976 761 541
E-mail: jlmendi at posta.unizar.es

_________________________________

Hi,
Yes, now it sounds possible, but  as you said, unusual. 'Se me olvido
traer..' and 'se le olvidaron sus tareas' are quite all right, 'Se le
olvidamos nosotros' sounds unusual, and 'se le habiamos olvidado nosotros'
sounds very unusual to me.
I think I expect some kind of 'agreement' between the 'se' and a third
person verb ending, in spite that 'nosotros' is the subject.
- ---Original Message-----
>From: Colin Whiteley <cwhiteley at tycoint.com>
To: marta ortega llabaria <marta at phonetics.ucl.ac.uk>
Date: Monday, November 06, 2000 9:12 AM
Subject: RE: Spanish sentence


>Marta,
>
>Thanks for your response. What do you think of this suggestion from Karl
>Reinhardt [remy at hal-pc.org]. Do you still find it ungrammatical? It's a
very
>curious case.
>
>>It looks and sounds funny, but seems well formed.
>>Se me olvido traer ... Subject: traer.
>>Se le olvidaron sus tareas. Subject: tareas.
>>Se le olvidamos nosotros: Subject nosotros.
>>Moved to pluscuamperfecto: Se le habiamos olvidado nosotros.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>>From: marta ortega llabaria [mailto:marta at phonetics.UCL.ac.uk]
>Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2000 1:08 AM
>To: cwhiteley
>Subject:
>
>
>Dear Colin,
>
>I am a native speaker of Spanish -- born in Barcelona-- and this
>construction seems ungrammatical to me.
>
>

_________________________________


- ---Original Message-----
>From: Florencia Franceschina [mailto:ffranc at essex.ac.uk]
Sent: 06 November 2000 20:51
To: cwhiteley at tycoint.com
Subject: Unusual Spanish construction

Dear Colin

I'm a native speaker of River Plate Spanish and this construction seems
perfectly grammatical to me.

The -mos at the end does not look like a pronoun to me -it looks rather like
a regular verb inflection given that you can have the same verb conjugated
in different persons/number as in:

Se me había olvidado la leche.

Se te habían olvidado los niños.

Se le habíamos olvidado nosotros.

The oddity of the construction, I would say, is that the agreement is
between the V and the logical O (although, thinking about it, it may be
because this is some sort of passive-like construction).

I've never done much work on the Spanish verb system so I may be completely
wrong, but I hope this will be of some help.

Best wishes

Florencia Franceschina

_________________________________


- ---Original Message-----
>From: Fernando Rubio [mailto:fer at mind.net]
Sent: 07 November 2000 04:12
To: cwhiteley at tycoint.com
Subject: Se le habiamos olvidado

Interesting question. I thought it was clearly ungrammatical when I first
read it, but then I started to analyze it and decided it makes sense. Let me
think a little bit more about it and I'll give you my final answer. My wife,
also a native speaker of Spanish, says it is not grammatical. My gut feeling
right now (without having given it too much thought ) is that this kind of
structure is highly intransitive in the sense that it requires a grammatical
subject that does not participate at all in the action predicated by the
verb, but in this case the subject is the first person plural nosotros. What
makes the sentece anomalous is the combination of the first person, which
usually implies a high degree of participation, with this structure that
requires an almost passive (I.E. INACTIVE) subject.
By the way, the ending -mos is definitely not a pronoun as you suggested,
maybe by mistake. I am sure you were thinking of -nos, because -mos can
never be a clitic pronoun (or any kind of pronoun in Spanish).
Hope it helps,

Fernando Rubio
Southern Oregon University

_________________________________


- ---Original Message-----
>From: Juan C. Ruiz [mailto:ruiz at trad.uji.es]
Sent: 07 November 2000 14:48
To: cwhiteley at tycoint.com
Subject: Strange ungrammatical sentence in Spanish

Colin,

Respecto a tu mensaje en la lista LINGUIST :

Esa frase es absolutamente agramatical. Para empezar, el sufijo -mos indica
que el sujeto es 'nosotros' (primera persona del plural); por esa razón, el
pronombre clítico debería ser 'nos'. Además, como el verbo 'olvidar' es
transitivo, el otro pronombre debería ser objeto directo 'la', no objeto
indirecto 'le'. En suma, la frase gramatical debería ser 'nos la habíamos
olvidado', que por supuesto no significa lo mismo.

No se me ocurre que hablante nativo de castellano podría construir
semejante frase. ¿latinoamericano? No sé. En todo caso, tampoco puede
acharcarse esta construcción a influencia del catalán, que tiene las mismas
constricciones gramaticales que el castellano respecto a concordancia,
etc.: las frases equivalentes serían 'ens l'haviem oblidat' y '(ella)
s'havia oblidat de nosaltres'.

Espero haber sido de ayuda,


_________________________________



- ---Original Message-----
>From: Danilo Vilicic [mailto:dvilicic at ctcreuna.cl]
Sent: 23 December 2000 16:52
To: cwhiteley at tycoint.com
Subject: Comment


"Se le habiamos olvidado" is unnacceptable,and grammatically incorrect.
I'm a native speaker,and I needed your explanation to understand it!
It's grammatically incorrect because the verb points to "her"(or any 3rd
person singular) not to "us"."Le habiamos olvidado":we forgot to her,and the
pronoun
"se" ,I think is taken from constructions like:se lo dije,etc.But anyways
you will always hear :"se lo",never "se le".It's a double dative!!!!
And the pronoun se in "se lo" comes from old spanish llelo>gelo>se
lo(latin:illi illum),and it has nothing to do with the reflexive pronoun
"se".

Kind regards,
Danilo Vilicic

_________________________________

Forwarding item 0790035 from DANIELRR at RETEMAIL.ES  sent on
2000/11/0809:55


	This is absolutely ungrammatical. Your informant must be kidding!
	Best,

	Daniel.
-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Daniel Riaño Rufilanchas
Madrid, España

_________________________________

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