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Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them? Topic is solved

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gmads
Mexico

Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by gmads »

Has the time come to abandon the teaching of Spanish reflexive verbs?

Give them death or give them life?

This comes as a result of my three posts (p23096, p23206 and p23335) at the "A question about Spanish present participles?" thread, where I ended saying:

I think it will be best if I write an explanatory post both on the subject itself and on what I have explained so far.

So, here it goes... I'll divide everything in a few posts.


:hash:  ㆍespañol ㆍgramática ㆍreflexión

Last edited by gmads on Mon May 08, 2023 9:48 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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gmads
Mexico

Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by gmads »


I. Brief history of reflexive and pronominal verbs


TL;DR

  1. Originally, Spanish verbs were only classified as reflexive.

  2. Subsequently (late 1770's), verbs that had the same form as reflexive verbs, but were not actually reflexive, were classified as pronominals.

  3. In 1847, the term quasi-reflexive comes into use to name those verbs that appear to be reflexive, but do not have an unambiguously reflexive meaning

  4. In 1970, the verbs "lavarse" and "alegrarse" stop being classified as reflexive.

  5. In 1975, some grammarians warned that reflexivity is not a relevant feature to classify a verb.

  6. In 1977, the Diccionario de la lengua española definitively stops using the "reflexive" qualification, and qualifies as pronominal any and all verbs that are constructed in all its forms with reflexive pronouns.

  7. Despite the new qualification, many grammarians continue to classify verbs as reflexive, or as some subset (1980).

  8. Through the 80's and 90's, various definitions for transitive verbs are proposed, along with several attempts to link them with that of reflexivity.

  9. Finally, in 2009, the Real Academia Española (RAE) states that "The so-called reflexive verbs do not form any special class, they are simply transitive verbs whose object has the same referent as the subject," and classifies verbs as just being: transitive (e.g. "se cuida a sí mismo"), intransitive ("sólo confía en sí mismo") and copulative ("siempre es igual a sí mismo"), indicating that "some transitive and many intransitive can be, in turn, pronominal." One may confirm that RAE's entry "verbo reflexivo" points to "verbo pronominal."


For those interested in the slightly longer version... here it is.

Note. This extract was taken from the Verbos pronominales page.

  • Up to 1770, verbs were only classified as reflexive.

  • In 1771 and 1796, the Real Academia Española (RAE) proposed classifying as pronominal all those verbs that were conjugated with unstressed personal pronouns (clitics), but without the subject and direct object being referents (reflexive):
    "Verbs that are never used without personal pronouns, should not be called reciprocal, nor reflexive, but pronominal."

  • In 1847, Andrés Bello introduced the term quasi-reflexive (or pseudo-reflexive) to refer to sentences that do not have an unequivocally reflexive sense, but resemble reflexive sentences. This term considered all pronominal constructions of a non-reflexive nature:
    ** medial or anticausative ("la pobre mujer se emocionó al recibir el ramo");
    ** passive-reflexive ("se registraron todas las habitaciones");
    ** impersonal-reflexive ("se come muy bien en este restaurante"),
    as well as sentences consisting of an inherently pronominal verb ("este chico se queja de todo").

  • By 1970, the Diccionario de la lengua española (DLE) ceased to qualify the verbs lavarse (to wash oneself) and alegrarse (to rejoice) as reflexive, and classified them as pronominal. Since then, all the verbs that can be conjugated with reflexive pronouns, whether they have a true reflexive sense or not, have the abbreviation: U. t. c. prnl. ("Usado también como pronominal" —also used as a pronominal).

  • In 1975, Alcina Franch & Blecua's warned that reflexivity was not a relevant feature to classify a verb by its meaning.

  • By 1977 the DLE qualifies as pronominal any verb or meaning that is constructed in all its forms with reflexive pronouns:
    "The qualification of reflexive, that the same Dictionary previously applied uniformly to these verbs, was not appropriate for all these significant or expressive nuances. On the other hand, the pronominal, although it attends only to the form, encompasses the reflexive meanings and those that are not."

  • Despite RAE's change in nomenclature, by 1980 some grammarians were still classifying verbs as: transitive, intransitive, reflexive, formal or grammatical reflexive, and reciprocal.

  • In 1986, in the Glossary of Grammatical Terminology, the transitive verb is defined as: "one whose action passes to a person or thing other than the subject that performs it." For Alonso Marcos, “transitive verbs can be used reflexively and reciprocally”. Therefore, the so-called reflexive verbs are simply transitive verbs in which the direct object has the same referent as the subject.

  • In 1991, Gómez Torrego, gives a more explicit definition: "The verb with reflexive value is not a pronominal verb, but a transitive verb with which the unstressed pronouns act as a direct or indirect object."

  • In 2000, Rafael Lapesa expresses that the so-called reflexive verbs are just transitive verbs in which the meaning of the reflexive verb is the same as when it is an action or transitive verb, only its direct object has the same referent as the subject of the action. However, for the other constructions in which there is no direct object co-referential with the subject, Lapesa cites Andrés Bello's qualification of "quasi-reflexive", and calls them "interior reflexive" because they present in a "reflexive" form (pronominal ) a different meaning than when they are transitive, something that does not happen with the “reflections” properly speaking.

  • Finally, in 2009, the RAE classifies verbs according to their syntactic functions as: transitive, intransitive and copulative. [And then says:]

    Some transitive, and many intransitive, can be, in turn, pronominal. The so-called reflexive verbs do not form any special class, they are simply transitive verbs whose object has the same referent as the subject.

Last edited by gmads on Wed Aug 03, 2022 3:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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gmads
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Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by gmads »


II. What this all means


The conclusion of all that was said should be obvious:

  1. All "-se" verbs (e.g. lavarse, cambiarse, avergonzarse) are pronominals.
  2. Grammatically speaking, the so-called reflexive verbs do not exist; there is no such type of verb.
  3. What one calls a "reflexive verb" is just a way to explain the sense or use of that verb.
  4. The same previous concept applies to any and all possible terms used to group those verbs that denote some type of reflexivity (e.g. recíprocos, afectivos).

Just as the verbs alegrar, entristecer, enojar, frustrar or imaginar cannot be grammatically defined as "psychological verbs", those that so far have been called "reflexive verbs", do not exist as a grammatical class, instead, one should just consider there are sentences or constructions that indicate there is some kind of reflexive action involved.

Last edited by gmads on Wed Aug 03, 2022 3:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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gmads
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Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by gmads »


III. Why is all this important?


The problem behind this "reflexive verbs" topic has to do with the fact that most Internet pages briefly explain what is a reflexive verb, show how it is used, give the classical example of the verb "lavarse," or give two or three more verbs to clarify the concept, and then just list a bunch of pronominal verbs as if they were reflexive (like this one, this one, this one, or this one). Some pages take things a step further and group them according to their meaning (like this one), but still under the "reflexive" category. Finally, some other pages throw into the mix the term "pronominal," but without actually saying anything correct or useful about it (like this one). Unsurprisingly, all this ends up creating a lot of confusion in the minds of students, as in doors opening themselves? or in Please get up.

Since searching for "qué es un verbo reflexivo," or something along that line, will lead students to the same pages that keep them confused, it would be better they googled "qué es un verbo pronominal." Yes, initially they will have a harder time grasping the concept, but eventually they will be able to fully understand it.

Last edited by gmads on Sat Jul 01, 2023 5:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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gmads
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Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by gmads »


IV. The grammatical labyrinth


A few years ago, when I got to the point of having to study pronominal and reflexive verbs in Italian, at first I thought I was dealing exactly with that: verbs, however, it didn't take me much to realize that was not the actual subject, but the "si" particle, and that's when things started to become a bit complicated. It is exactly the same in Spanish, this whole reflexivity topic is actually about the "se" pronoun. Unfortunately, both, pronominal verbs and the morpheme "se" are among the most complex and fundamental problems of Spanish grammar. To give a little hint about how overwhelming this can be, the following are some of the ways in which "se" has been classified (the terms were, for obvious reasons, left in Spanish):

  • pronombre reflexivo, pronombre recíproco, reflejo de interés, intrínseco, reflejopasivo, impersonal reflejo

  • reflexivo, recíproco, marcador de voz media, formante léxico, formante aspectual, denotador de participación del sujeto, pronombre de pasiva refleja, pronombre o signo de indiferenciación del sujeto

  • reflexivo directo, reflexivo externo, reflexivo dativo, indicación de gusto especial, participación psíquica, cortesía, reflexivo autonomizante, pasiva impersonal, valor fluctuante entre pasivo e impersonal, impersonal sin la mención del agente, impersonal sin sujeto precisable, signo redundante de proceso impersonal sin agente

  • oblicuo, reflexivo directo e indirecto, recíproco directo e indirecto, pasivo, indeterminativo, léxico, aspectual, sociocultural, dialectal, afectivo, estilístico, narrativo, morfológico o estructural

  • pronominal como variante formal de le(s); pronominal como pronombre personal de tercera persona con valor reflexivo o recíproco; pronominal como pronombre personal de tercera persona con valor expresivo; pronominal como componente de las formas de tercera persona de los verbos pronominales), en oraciones impersonales, en las oraciones de pasiva refleja (this last classification comes from the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas)

Yes... absurd to the point of being practically impractical.

Last edited by gmads on Wed Aug 03, 2022 3:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Cifi

Re: Reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by Cifi »

But... to me this is just grammar terminology.

Many languages use verbs with a reflexive pronoun. In French, they always used the term "verbes pronominaux" as far as I know. Spanish used to call them "verbos reflexivos" once and renamed them to "verbos pronominales" according to what you wrote. In German, "pronominale Verben" wouldn't mean anything to me, the same(*) grammatical feature is referred to as "reflexive Verben". Scandinavian and Slavic languages also use it, but I don't know enough about these.

So, I would avoid the term "verbos reflexivos" when talking about Spanish grammar in Spanish, basically to avoid confusion.

Should I avoid in English? I don't know. I can't imagine this would be some kind of magic key to understand them more easily.

(*) Or is a not the same? Apart from their name, I don't see any fundamental difference between Romance vs other languages yet.

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gmads
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Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by gmads »

Cifi wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 12:55 pm

But... to me this is just grammar terminology.

Initially, it is. But even if it were only it, grammar is supposed to help us understand a language, how it works, how it is structured, how can it be used, etc, How can this be achieved if terms, and their definitions, change time after time?

Anyway, putting this grammar terminology issue aside, as it has more to do with the "se" morpheme and how it has been defined, the question here is about how a reflexive verb is defined in Spanish grammar and how can one determine when a verb is truly acting as one in a particular sentence according to the supposed grammar rules that should allow us to achieve that, which, by the look of the endless posts in all the Spanish language forums, is not actually happening.

Cifi wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 12:55 pm

Many languages use verbs with a reflexive pronoun. In French, they always used the term "verbes pronominaux" as far as I know. Spanish used to call them "verbos reflexivos" once and renamed them to "verbos pronominales" according to what you wrote. In German, "pronominale Verben" wouldn't mean anything to me, the same(*) grammatical feature is referred to as "reflexive Verben". Scandinavian and Slavic languages also use it, but I don't know enough about these.

Yes, at least in Spanish —and I would assume the same for all the romance languages— it all started with reflexive verbs, only to turn into the understanding of the "se" morpheme, which then caused them to be redefined as pronominals because this whole reflexivity issue is directly related to how "se" is defined.

Cifi wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 12:55 pm

So, I would avoid the term "verbos reflexivos" when talking about Spanish grammar in Spanish, basically to avoid confusion.

It should definitely help.

Cifi wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 12:55 pm

Should I avoid in English? I don't know. I can't imagine this would be some kind of magic key to understand them more easily.

(*) Or is a not the same? Apart from their name, I don't see any fundamental difference between Romance vs other languages yet.

Regarding this topic, English grammar is not as complex as that of romance languages, so no, I don't think one should. Anyway, in this thread I'm only focusing on Spanish reflexive verbs... I'll better update the title :lol:

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Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by elizadeux »

I'm a little late to this party, but there's no way to avoid learning "se" in Spanish. Like the prepositions, it's often one of the first things to be taught but one of the last things to be truly mastered because it's used in so many different contexts. I often say it's the smallest words that can be the most difficult to understand.

Beginner who first encounter se as a reflexive will be confused if they think that is the only use of se. Even as we progress, my grammar has 25 pages on prenominal verbs with "eight possible meanings of Spanish prenominal verb forms."

When figuring out the meaning, I consider not only the sentence but the entire conversation or passage in a book. I also frequently look up the pronominal form of the verb in the dictionary if the meaning isn't clear or obvious to me. Or, I just might ask someone if I can't figure it out. There's no easy way as far as I know.

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gmads
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Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by gmads »

elizadeux wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:51 am

I'm a little late to this party

There is never neither a little late nor a too late ;)

elizadeux wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:51 am

[…] but there's no way to avoid learning "se" in Spanish.

In fact, there isn't. However, I'm focusing on the so-called reflexive verbs, or more specifically, on the concept of reflexivity, which I think should be completely discarded because it introduces another, and unneeded, layer of complexity: it forces both students and native speakers to do a grueling effort to determine whether or not a verb "is" reflexive. One needs just to look around and see how people struggle to make sense of this. First of all, are there any actual rules, methods or steps to achieve this? And most importantly, knowing that a verb "is" reflexive changes anything about its usage? In my opinion, the answer is "no" to both questions. Regardless of my opinion, the core of the matter lies on the fact that

gmads wrote: Tue Aug 02, 2022 10:49 pm

9. Finally, in 2009, the Real Academia Española (RAE) states that "The so-called reflexive verbs do not form any special class[…]

Why then the insistence everywhere to try to explain and teach a non-existent concept (ie reflexive verbs)?

elizadeux wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:51 am

I often say it's the smallest words that can be the most difficult to understand.

A great truth!

elizadeux wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:51 am

Beginner who first encounter se as a reflexive will be confused if they think that is the only use of se. Even as we progress, my grammar has 25 pages on prenominal verbs with "eight possible meanings of Spanish prenominal verb forms."

And therein lies the problem: trying to make sense of very granular "uses" of the particle "se" when one only needs to focus on two or three broad categories. As for the first, that is, the pronominal verbs, they should be taught the same way that phrasal verbs are taught because that is what they ultimately are. In English, no one tries to "understand" how the independent parts of a phrasal verb (e.g. put + up + with) derive the final meaning (i.e. put up with): that is impossible and would drive anyone trying to do so crazy. Yes, like phrasal verbs, one has to learn exactly that, the meanings! As a whole.

At most, this particle should be explained only with respect to how it is manipulated during pronominal verb conjugation.

elizadeux wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:51 am

When figuring out the meaning, I consider not only the sentence but the entire conversation or passage in a book. I also frequently look up the pronominal form of the verb in the dictionary if the meaning isn't clear or obvious to me. Or, I just might ask someone if I can't figure it out. There's no easy way as far as I know.

Exactly, that is the wise thing to do.

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elizadeux
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Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by elizadeux »

"the pronominal verbs, they should be taught the same way that phrasal verbs are taught because that is what they ultimately are"

I can see this from a couple different points of view. When I was very young (3 - 7 or 8 years old), I learned these exactly as you are suggesting. I was taught "como se dice..." (sorry about the missing accents, I know how to do these on a mac, but not this PC) , "se habla espanol," "me llamo," and "me voy." At no point, did I ever wonder "what does se mean?" or "what does me" mean here? That was just how it was said in Spanish. Punto final.

However, I sometimes approach this a little differently as an adult especially in Duolingo. I might wonder "Huh? Where did that "se" come from? What does it mean?" As we discussed, it often doesn't have one particular meaning. The prenominal verbs are frequently ambiguous and it depends on the context. For example, "what does se ven mean"? They see themselves (maybe in a mirror). They see each other. They're going to see each other later. They look like someone or something. They find/see/imagine themselves in a particular situation. And so on.

Native Spanish speakers intuitively know which of these are meant depending on the context. Those of us who are still learning Spanish often have to figure out which of the possible meanings are intended. As prenominal verbs often have idiomatic meanings, that complicates things a lot. Idioms are often the hardest thing to learn in other languages.

"I'm focusing on the so-called reflexive verbs, or more specifically, on the concept of reflexivity, which I think should be completely discarded because it introduces another, and unneeded, layer of complexity"

Here's what my grammar book has to say about "so-called reflexive verbs":

"Pronominal verbs (confusingly called reflexive verbs in many traditional grammars) are those which are accompanied by an object pronoun... which is of the same person and number of the verb's subject. Pronominal refers to the form of these verbs, not their meaning... It is misleading to give the name reflexive to this verb form. Reflexive refers to just one of the meanings that a pronominal verb can have. The range of meanings expressed by prenominal verbs is much wider than this, and the relationship between them is sometimes subtle."

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gmads
Mexico

Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by gmads »

elizadeux wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 11:00 pm

"the pronominal verbs, they should be taught the same way that phrasal verbs are taught because that is what they ultimately are"

I can see this from a couple different points of view. When I was very young (3 - 7 or 8 years old), I learned these exactly as you are suggesting. I was taught "como se dice..." (sorry about the missing accents, I know how to do these on a mac, but not this PC) , "se habla espanol," "me llamo," and "me voy." At no point, did I ever wonder "what does se mean?" or "what does me" mean here? That was just how it was said in Spanish. Punto final.

Exactly, and that's how I started learning English phrasal verbs, and not even as an adult I would dare imagine myself trying to dismember any particular PhV to understand its meaning. This is the kind of topics where language is utterly dogmatic.

elizadeux wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 11:00 pm

However, I sometimes approach this a little differently as an adult especially in Duolingo. I might wonder "Huh? Where did that "se" come from? What does it mean?" As we discussed, it often doesn't have one particular meaning. The prenominal verbs are frequently ambiguous and it depends on the context. For example, "what does se ven mean"? They see themselves (maybe in a mirror). They see each other. They're going to see each other later. They look like someone or something. They find/see/imagine themselves in a particular situation. And so on.

As adults we have come to recognize and accept that it is exactly during our adult life that we overcomplicate everything, from learning to relationships. We must now unlearn.

Anyway, the simple truth is, as you have just said, that the "se" doesn't mean anything, there's no way to derive any knowledge from it. Only in really very few cases it denotes, in the stricter sense of the concept, a reflexive action, or grammatically speaking, that case where the subject and the direct object are the same: yo miro al niño jugando vs. yo me miro al espejo. But as I remarked, when you think about this idea, the actual cases in which this happens are really scarce. If I say, me levanto, am I actually picking myself up? Of course not. And what when I say, me acuesto, or me despierto, or so many others seemingly good examples of this so-called reflexivity. The return on investment, to speak in terms of economics, is so low that it makes the effort useless.

elizadeux wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 11:00 pm

The prenominal verbs are frequently ambiguous and it depends on the context. For example, "what does se ven mean"? They see themselves (maybe in a mirror). They see each other. They're going to see each other later. They look like someone or something. They find/see/imagine themselves in a particular situation. And so on.

Native Spanish speakers intuitively know which of these are meant depending on the context. Those of us who are still learning Spanish often have to figure out which of the possible meanings are intended. As prenominal verbs often have idiomatic meanings, that complicates things a lot. Idioms are often the hardest thing to learn in other languages.

More than ambiguous it is just that they may have several meanings or acceptions, but this is just the usual case for regular verbs in any language. Check for example how many values the verb cargar has! 27 transitive uses, 12 intransitive, and 7 pronominal. Uf! English, of course, doesn't fall behind :D I can't think of a good example right now, as most are part of a phrasal verb, like get,however… check this: English word with the most meanings!

elizadeux wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 11:00 pm

"I'm focusing on the so-called reflexive verbs, or more specifically, on the concept of reflexivity, which I think should be completely discarded because it introduces another, and unneeded, layer of complexity"

Here's what my grammar book has to say about "so-called reflexive verbs":

"Pronominal verbs (confusingly called reflexive verbs in many traditional grammars) are those which are accompanied by an object pronoun... which is of the same person and number of the verb's subject. Pronominal refers to the form of these verbs, not their meaning... It is misleading to give the name reflexive to this verb form. Reflexive refers to just one of the meanings that a pronominal verb can have. The range of meanings expressed by prenominal verbs is much wider than this, and the relationship between them is sometimes subtle."

From start to finish, spot on!

I am doing a guide for the Italian pronominal verbs and I exactly said that, the name is just a convention, the concept goes beyond. I definitely agree a thousand percent with this, "Pronominal refers to the form of these verbs," and that's the only thing that as students we need to learn, how to work with the form: combine the pronouns, conjugate the verbs, and such. Regarding the meaning, as you rightly said, we just have to check a dictionary and that's it.

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Cifi

Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by Cifi »

gmads wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 3:10 pm

Initially, it is. But even if it were only it, grammar is supposed to help us understand a language, how it works, how it is structured, how can it be used, etc,

My problem with this is that the term "pronominal" is not really intuitive to me, by no means more than "reflexive".

There are pronouns everywhere, direct, indirect, and se (which I don't dare to call reflexive anymore here). Don't we use transitive verbs with pronouns frequently? Admittedly they don't require pronouns, unlike pronominal verbs. But thinking about verbs like gustar, they (almost?) always require a pronoun, too, don't they?

I know what the term means by now, so it's not much of a problem and I will remember to use verbos pronominales when talking about Spanish grammar in Spanish but most likely I'd stay with reflexive Verben (which in German is understood as verb that require a reflexive pronoun, rather than verbs that are reflexive in meaning) when talking about Spanish grammar in German.

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gmads
Mexico

Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by gmads »

Cifi wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 4:52 pm
gmads wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 3:10 pm

Initially, it is. But even if it were only it, grammar is supposed to help us understand a language, how it works, how it is structured, how can it be used, etc,

My problem with this is that the term "pronominal" is not really intuitive to me, by no means more than "reflexive".

To tell you the truth, you really threw me off since your first answer ("But... to me this is just grammar terminology") in this thread because I actually started it given the series of comments at the other thread.

As your initial comment was, "I still kind of fail to see why these are not reflexive," it was quite clear to me that terminology was the root cause: why a verb said to be reflexive didn't actually denote a reflexive action, thus my effort to provide both, the historical and grammatical supporting arguments to prove and explain why it was not worth/correct to name them that way (i.e. reflexive), which in very few words is, because that leads to confusion.


Cifi wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 4:52 pm

[…] and se (which I don't dare to call reflexive anymore here).

Dare in here? Well, by all means, do call them as you have learned to call them. From my part, I do not have any problem with that, after all, this whole topic hasn't anything to do with me, that is, it is not my opinion (i.e. something "I say"), but a fact, and one to which I offered proof (v. TL;DR).


Cifi wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 4:52 pm

My problem with this is that the term "pronominal" is not really intuitive to me, by no means more than "reflexive".

I don't think that many language (grammatical) concepts are. If only they were! However, these two I think are not that complicated, at least compared with others.


Cifi wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 4:52 pm

There are pronouns everywhere, direct, indirect, and se (which I don't dare to call reflexive anymore here). Don't we use transitive verbs with pronouns frequently? Admittedly they don't require pronouns, unlike pronominal verbs. But thinking about verbs like gustar, they (almost?) always require a pronoun, too, don't they?

It is not the same to talk about pronouns (a whole topic by itself) than to talk about pronominal verbs (another whole topic by itself). This is just an unnecessary mixing of concepts, which most certainly will lead to more confusion.


Cifi wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 4:52 pm

I know what the term means by now, so it's not much of a problem and I will remember to use verbos pronominales when talking about Spanish grammar in Spanish but most likely I'd stay with reflexive Verben (which in German is understood as verb that require a reflexive pronoun, rather than verbs that are reflexive in meaning) when talking about Spanish grammar in German.

Ok…

  1. I am not telling anyone how to name things; I am just recommending something based on a series of facts (starting with that of people accepting to see and understand some verbs as being "reflexive," and then wondering how come "a door can close itself…" :roll:)

  2. I don't know about how it works in other languages, but I'd say that the title of the topic is quite specific: Spanish reflexive verbs ;)

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Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by fremanolas »

Thank you @gmads for the entire thread!

I agree because most of us on here are not linguists but language learners who try to progress in learning the language itself rather than grammatical concepts. In my opinion grammar should give language learners an easily accessible framework which can be referred to when needed, but should not be taken as an aim in itself.

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Cifi

Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by Cifi »

gmads wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 7:51 pm

To tell you the truth, you really threw me off since your first answer ("But... to me this is just grammar terminology") in this thread because I actually started it given the series of comments at the other thread.

I really didn't mean to upset you, gmads. I did notice that your behaviour towards me changed at some point, but I wasn't able to guess why it was, else I would have apologised earlier.

gmads wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 7:51 pm

It is not the same to talk about pronouns (a whole topic by itself) than to talk about pronominal verbs (another whole topic by itself). This is just an unnecessary mixing of concepts, which most certainly will lead to more confusion.

But aren't the terms closely related? I understand the inherent meaning of "pronominal" as "used with (or possibly as in other context) a pronoun". Anyway, I was trying to explain why the term itself confused me. It wasn't my intention to confuse others with this. If I did, I apologise again.

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Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by gmads »

fremanolas wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 10:09 am

Thank you @gmads for the entire thread!

I agree because most of us on here are not linguists but language learners who try to progress in learning the language itself rather than grammatical concepts. In my opinion grammar should give language learners an easily accessible framework which can be referred to when needed, but should not be taken as an aim in itself.

Hi, you're welcome!

Exactly. I just mentioned that in another thread: we are not linguists, just people that love languages and, at least some of us, that also find grammar interesting.

Well, I must confess that when I started learning Italian I was very clear on the idea that my goal was to learn Italian, more than being able to speak it, given that I don't have the need to :D

I more than agree with you, that's exactly what grammar should do: help us understand that which intuition doesn't manage to.

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Re: Spanish reflexive verbs. Is it time to annihilate them?

Post by gmads »

Cifi wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 11:28 am
gmads wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 7:51 pm

To tell you the truth, you really threw me off since your first answer ("But... to me this is just grammar terminology") in this thread because I actually started it given the series of comments at the other thread.

I really didn't mean to upset you, gmads. I did notice that your behaviour towards me changed at some point, but I wasn't able to guess why it was, else I would have apologised earlier.

More than upset, at its moment it did really surprise and left me wondering the change of focus, the change of argument. Any way, one does what one does, and no effort is ever wasted. It should be no secret that I do like writing about grammatical concepts :D

No problem ;)

Cifi wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 11:28 am
gmads wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 7:51 pm

It is not the same to talk about pronouns (a whole topic by itself) than to talk about pronominal verbs (another whole topic by itself). This is just an unnecessary mixing of concepts, which most certainly will lead to more confusion.

But aren't the terms closely related? I understand the inherent meaning of "pronominal" as "used with (or possibly as in other context) a pronoun". Anyway, I was trying to explain why the term itself confused me. It wasn't my intention to confuse others with this. If I did, I apologise again.

Yes, related, indeed, but not the same. You briefly, but correctly, showed it: there is a relatively large set of pronouns that one needs to learn and deal with, however, pronominal verbs only have to do with what are called clitic pronouns and, as I mentioned somewhere else, not so much with their meaning but with their form, fortunately.

Don't worry, I wasn't implying or saying that you were confusing others. My reference was to other people's posts in order to show how easy is in general terms to end up in a total state of confusion and all because of a simple term, but that carries a concrete unambiguous meaning (i.e. reflexivity):

gmads wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 2:06 am

Unsurprisingly, all this ends up creating a lot of confusion in the minds of students, as in doors opening themselves? or in Please get up.

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