Spanish syntax

[Michael Covarrubias]

Excellent point -- My Spanish is Mexican/Puerto Rican.

So I'll only claim that it's common in that dialect ... er... my idiolect.

That's as far as I can speak on it. I haven't studied the distribution
and my Argentinian source is out of the house today.

Michael

RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> Interesting. I'm no Spanish expert by any means, but I have always been told
> to use "no foncionar" in the sense that some mechanical device is out of
> order. The dictionary I checked likewise doesn't seem to sanction the use of
> "trabajar" in this sense. Could "(no) esta trabajando" be some kind of Puerto
> Rican/Mexican/Central American calque?
>
> Just curious about what varieties of Spanish use "trabajar" in the sense of
> 'function'.
>
> In a message dated 4/7/08 10:02:03 PM, mcovarru at PURDUE.EDU writes:
>
>
>
>>> Bad translation, since "trabajar" doesn't mean "work" in the sense of
>>> 'function'.
>>>
>>>
>> Sure it does. It's especially common in the progressive '(no) esta
>> trabajando'
>>
>> mhc
>>

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