Dear anyone,
Your duolingo forum registration isn't automaticaly transferred to duome forum so in order to join duome forums you need to register with your existing or any other username and email; in any case it's advised that you choose a new password for the forum.
~ Duome Team

Splitting compound tenses (by inserting the subject between the two parts)?

Moderators: Stasia, xillegas

Cifi

Splitting compound tenses (by inserting the subject between the two parts)?

Post by Cifi »

I always thought this shouldn't been done (which still may be safest for learners), but it seems to be possible at least with continuous tenses.

This was the first one I stumbled into:

Guácala, ¿cuánto tiempo estuvo esa bolsa escondida en su ropa interior? (https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/5075 ... -underwear)

As the folks learning English from Spanish don't object to this word order, I take it that it does not sound too unnatural in Spanish.

Edit: I just realised that this is not present continuous, but rather a past participle used as adjective (which may be considered a type of passive construction)

In Spanish from English, there is another one ¿Están ustedes comiendo? (https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/6327 ... s-comiendo) which might have led to the following question on Spanishdict:

https://www.spanishdict.com/answers/289 ... ound-verbs

This suggests that it would be possible with subject pronouns only (i.e. opposed to the first example), and you wouldn't do it with perfect tenses (haber hecho algo). Is this explanation correct?

And what about periphrastical future (ir a + verb), could you say ¿Cuándo va el paquete a llegar? (to me this sounds strange)?

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

User avatar
gmads
Mexico

Re: Splitting compound tenses (by inserting the subject between the two parts)?

Post by gmads »

Before starting, I just would like to remark that the word "guácala" is a common word in Mexico, and is used to denote disgust toward a smell or a taste.

Regarding word order, Spanish is a relatively flexible language because many grammatical elements, like verbs, adjectives or articles, carry information about the number, person or gender. Therefore, although the usual recommendation is to keep together the two verbs that form a compound tense because this will produce the most natural sounding and grammatically correct expression, people with a better grasp of the language may be able to ignore this advice in some particular cases, specially in written language.

Definition. A compound tense is always formed by the auxiliary verb "haber," which will be conjugated according to the mood (e.g. indicative), time (e.g. past), person (e.g. first person), number (e.g. singular), voice (e.g. active), followed by the main verb, which will always be in its past participle non-finite form.

Let's see a few examples that follow the usual recommendation.

  1. [ella] no ha comido nada desde hace tres horas
  2. [ustedes] no han comido nada desde hace tres horas
  3. [nosotros] hemos llegado temprano, tal como se nos pidió
  4. si [ustedes] hubieran estudiado, no habrían reprobado
  5. ojalá [yo] no hubiese salido el fin de semana, llovió todo el tiempo

Notice, from the first two examples, that the past participle always remains invariable ("comido") regardless of the person or number: ella, ustedes, and that which was conjugated to agree with the subject, was the verb "haber": ha, han, respectively.

As previously mentioned, in some particular cases one may split a compound tense.

  1. [ella] no ha, desde hace tres horas, comido nada
  2. [nosotros] hemos, tal como se nos pidió, llegado temprano

Here are a few other possible examples:

  • había el Señor preparado una hiedra (Jonás 4:6)
  • la directiva había, la semana pasada, renunciado (Diario de Navarra)
  • hemos, como rayo fulminante, caído sobre nuestros enemigos
  • cuando esa visión se hubo ya desvanecido totalmente de su mente

Anyway, regardless of possible exceptions, the best course of action is not to worry about them and to always keep compound tenses together.

As it should start to be clear, the key to differenciate sentences with a compound tense from similar looking expressions is to pay attention to the auxiliary verb (or to what may seem to be the auxiliary verb).

So, in the sentence subject of this thread, "¿cuánto tiempo estuvo esa bolsa escondida en su ropa interior?", we have together a verb and an adjective. Eventhough, in this case the adjective ("escondida") comes from a past participle, we can clearly see that what seems to be an auxiliary verb of a compound tense is actually a conjugation of the verb "estar" (it is the indicative, preterite, third person, singular: "estuvo"). This should immediately tell us that we are not dealing with a compound tense, therefore inserting the noun (or the demostrative and the noun, in this case) in between is perfectly fine. Of course, one may choose to keep them together, as in: "¿cuánto tiempo estuvo escondida esa bolsa en su ropa interior?".

Let's see another example with the sentence: "ayer estaba nadando tranquilamente cuando comenzó a llover" ("yesterday I was quietly swiming when it started to rain"). I may perfectly say: "estaba ayer nadando tranquilamente, cuando [...]," or I could even say: "estaba ayer tranquilamente nadando, cuando [...]."

The same can be said about the sentence, "¿están ustedes comiendo?," as we have the verb "estar" followed by the past participle derived adjective "comiendo." The subject pronoun was inserted to make clear the speaker is talking to a group and not about a group, given that the conjugation is the same in both cases.

¿Están comiendo? Who? Us or them?

  • ¿están ustedes comiendo?
  • ¿están ellas comiendo?


:hash:  ㆍespañol ㆍgramática ㆍSentenceDiscussion

Last edited by gmads on Mon May 01, 2023 3:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

🦎  Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.  🦎
Antinomy - Imagination

🇲🇽 :us:  ·  :it: 🇧🇷  ·  :ru: 🇦🇪

User avatar
gmads
Mexico

Re: Splitting compound tenses (by inserting the subject between the two parts)?

Post by gmads »

🦎  Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.  🦎
Antinomy - Imagination

🇲🇽 :us:  ·  :it: 🇧🇷  ·  :ru: 🇦🇪

Post Reply

Return to “Language”