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

Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Moderators: Stasia, xillegas

Cifi

Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by Cifi »

I found this in a publication from RAE today:

He aquí algunos ejemplos

https://aplica.rae.es/grweb/cgi-bin/v.c ... gTxyYFdgKV (last sentence of the first paragraph)

It must be correct (RAE can't be wrong about Spanish grammar, can it?), and not uncommon, there are several examples on Reverso context, too.

But it still confuses me, because I have been taught to use haber as an auxiliary verb along with past participles (haber hecho algo) or on it's own, but if the latter, then only in 3rd person singular (hay que limpiar, había una vez).

This should be 1st person singular as far as I can tell, and yet it doesn't seem to express a personal/subjunctive statement. I haven't found any other conjugations, e.g. *hemos aquí ..." either.

Is it something like a set expression that lost its literal meaning (which to me would something similar to here I've got some ...)?

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.)

Cifi

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by Cifi »

Wait, I might have found it:

https://dle.rae.es/he

It's he¹ #1, isn't it? I still can't imagine the usage with pronouns they mention there, could someone perhaps give an example?

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
EranBarLev
Israel

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by EranBarLev »

Cifi wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2022 9:59 pm

But it still confuses me, because I have been taught to use haber as an auxiliary verb along with past participles (haber hecho algo) or on it's own, but if the latter, then only in 3rd person singular (hay que limpiar, había una vez).

The 3rd person singular of "haber" isn't "ha"? I think that's the form used in the present perfect. I have no idea what person/tense/mode "hay" is.

🇮🇱N 🇬🇧C1 🇪🇸B2 🇵🇹B1 🇫🇷B1 🇸🇦A1 🇷🇺A1

User avatar
Julian_L.
Argentina

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by Julian_L. »

It's just a way used in some countries to say "here is/are":

  • He aquí algunos ejemplos = Here are some examples

Cifi wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2022 9:59 pm

This should be 1st person singular as far as I can tell, and yet it doesn't seem to express a personal/subjunctive statement. I haven't found any other conjugations, e.g. *hemos aquí ..." either.

Because it's not «hemos aquí», but «henos aquí».

Cifi wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2022 10:14 pm

Wait, I might have found it:

https://dle.rae.es/he

It's he¹ #1, isn't it? I still can't imagine the usage with pronouns they mention there, could someone perhaps give an example?

It's precisely that: «he» here is an adverb.

  • Heme aquí. = Here I am.

I have read these forms are not common in a normal conversation, but I'm not sure, because in my country not even «he aquí» (the most common usage of «he») is used.

EranBarLev wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 1:21 am

The 3rd person singular of "haber" isn't "ha"? I think that's the form used in the present perfect. I have no idea what person/tense/mode "hay" is.

«Hay» is the impersonal equivalent of «ha». I means "there is/are".

:argentina:N :it: Image

Cifi

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by Cifi »

Thanks, [mention]Julian_L.[/mention] ! So it's an adverb, but one that is used without a verb? At least I have not yet seen verbs in any of the example for "he/heme/hemos aquí".

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
EranBarLev
Israel

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by EranBarLev »

Julian_L. wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 2:44 am

Because it's not «hemos aquí», but «henos aquí».
...

  • Heme aquí. = Here I am.

Now this suspiciously looks like the imperative with object pronouns. So I guess you also have "hete", "helo", "hela", etc.?

Julian_L. wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 2:44 am

«Hay» is the impersonal equivalent of «ha». I means "there is/are".

I know what it means, but I've never seen an impersonal form of any other verb which is not the infinitive.

🇮🇱N 🇬🇧C1 🇪🇸B2 🇵🇹B1 🇫🇷B1 🇸🇦A1 🇷🇺A1

Cifi

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by Cifi »

EranBarLev wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 8:49 am
Julian_L. wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 2:44 am

«Hay» is the impersonal equivalent of «ha». I means "there is/are".

I know what it means, but I've never seen an impersonal form of any other verb which is not the infinitive.

I'm not aware of any other either. But as you learn french, too, they do the same thing:

Il a fait ça (personal; present perfect)
Il y a beaucoup de ... (impersonal expression; there is)

Last edited by Cifi on Wed Apr 13, 2022 10:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

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
pawndemic
Germany

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by pawndemic »

Julian_L. wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 2:44 am

«Hay» is the impersonal equivalent of «ha». I means "there is/are".

Random fact: Vi recientemente un vídeo en que ha explicado de dónde proviene esta y. Inicialmente eran dos palabras ha + ibi (hoy ahí).
y ha + ahí finalmente terminó en hay. Entonces, es más o menos como en el francés il y a

native: 🇩🇪, B2 - C1: 🇬🇧 🇪🇸, A1: 🇫🇷 🇮🇹

User avatar
EranBarLev
Israel

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by EranBarLev »

Cifi wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 10:09 am

But as you learn french, too, they do the same thing:

Il a fait ça (personal; present perfect)
Il y a beaucoup de ... (impersonal expression; there is)

No, in French it's the same form of the verb "avoir" in the 3rd person singular. They don't have this impersonal form as in Spanish. The "y" in French is a pronoun which means "à qqch" = "at/in/to something that has been mentioned before", and often can just be translated to English as "there". So "il y a" literally means "he has there".

🇮🇱N 🇬🇧C1 🇪🇸B2 🇵🇹B1 🇫🇷B1 🇸🇦A1 🇷🇺A1

User avatar
EranBarLev
Israel

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by EranBarLev »

pawndemic wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 10:21 am

Random fact: Vi recientemente un vídeo en que ha explicado de dónde proviene esta y. Inicialmente eran dos palabras ha + ibi (hoy ahí).
y ha + ahí finalmente terminó en hay. Entonces, es más o menos como en el francés il y a

Eso es muy interesante. ¿No tienes el enlace de ese vídeo?

🇮🇱N 🇬🇧C1 🇪🇸B2 🇵🇹B1 🇫🇷B1 🇸🇦A1 🇷🇺A1

Cifi

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by Cifi »

EranBarLev wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:29 pm

No, in French it's the same form of the verb "avoir" in the 3rd person singular. They don't have this impersonal form as in Spanish. The "y" in French is a pronoun which means "à qqch" = "at/in/to something that has been mentioned before", and often can just be translated to English as "there". So "il y a" literally means "he has there".

I would understand "il y a" as "there is" (impersonal) rather than "he has there" (personal). But the times I learned some french are decades ago, and it does not really matter much to me.

Last edited by Cifi on Wed Apr 13, 2022 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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
pawndemic
Germany

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by pawndemic »

Cifi wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:41 pm

I would understand "il y a" as "there is" (impersonal) rather than "he has there" (personal).

Not sure what you excatly mean, but hay and il y a mean both there is.

EranBarLev wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:33 pm

Eso es muy interesante. ¿No tienes el enlace de ese vídeo?

ta-chaaan, si no quieres esperar está alrededor de 7:00:

And who wants to dig even deeper:
Fundamento teórico de un modelo para trabajar los verbos haber, estar y ser en el aula de ELE ad 2.1

Last edited by pawndemic on Wed Apr 13, 2022 5:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

native: 🇩🇪, B2 - C1: 🇬🇧 🇪🇸, A1: 🇫🇷 🇮🇹

Cifi

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by Cifi »

pawndemic wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 4:34 pm
Cifi wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:41 pm

I would understand "il y a" as "there is" (impersonal) rather than "he has there" (personal).

Not sure what you excatly mean, but hay and il y a mean both there is.

I was referring to EranBarLev stating there is no impersonal usage in French. I pasted his quote now for clarification.

And I perfectly agree with you, for me Il y a = hay = there is/are (but not for him if I got him right).

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
pawndemic
Germany

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by pawndemic »

Cifi wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 5:03 pm

And I perfectly agree with you, for me Il y a = hay = there is/are (but not for him if I got him right).

y is an pronoun locative and in its ancient form ha + ahí/allí it means "has there" and it is literally the same in french with il y a .
But nowadays it means of course "there is" in both cases. See e.g. one of the source in my last comment.

native: 🇩🇪, B2 - C1: 🇬🇧 🇪🇸, A1: 🇫🇷 🇮🇹

User avatar
pawndemic
Germany

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by pawndemic »

also interesting for the entire topic:
Wikilengua haber

native: 🇩🇪, B2 - C1: 🇬🇧 🇪🇸, A1: 🇫🇷 🇮🇹

User avatar
EranBarLev
Israel

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by EranBarLev »

pawndemic wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 4:34 pm

ta-chaaan, si no quieres esperar está alrededor de 7:00:

¡Muchísimas gracias! Ella habla exactamente del mismo pronombre "y" del francés lo que expliqué en mi respuesta a Cifi. Entonces de verdad es lo mismo que en francés: "ha y" = "il y a" = "he/it has there". :D

🇮🇱N 🇬🇧C1 🇪🇸B2 🇵🇹B1 🇫🇷B1 🇸🇦A1 🇷🇺A1

User avatar
pawndemic
Germany

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by pawndemic »

EranBarLev wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 5:35 pm

Entonces de verdad es lo mismo que en francés: "ha y" = "il y a" = "he/it has there". :D

And this is btw. the reason why it is always in singular. Hay una cosa, hay mil cosas.

native: 🇩🇪, B2 - C1: 🇬🇧 🇪🇸, A1: 🇫🇷 🇮🇹

User avatar
EranBarLev
Israel

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by EranBarLev »

It's interesting that this "y" is not preserved in the past tense in Spanish: "Había algo", but it is preserved in French: "Il y avait qqch."

🇮🇱N 🇬🇧C1 🇪🇸B2 🇵🇹B1 🇫🇷B1 🇸🇦A1 🇷🇺A1

User avatar
pawndemic
Germany

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by pawndemic »

EranBarLev wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 6:02 pm

It's interesting that this "y" is not preserved in the past tense in Spanish: "Había algo", but it is preserved in French: "Il y avait qqch."

Yes that question once I was asking myself, too. And there are a lot of people who use mistakenly the plural instead of the singular, something like habían muchas personas en la calle.
I am not sure why they don't need the extra form for the past tense. Maybe habíay was to complex.

native: 🇩🇪, B2 - C1: 🇬🇧 🇪🇸, A1: 🇫🇷 🇮🇹

User avatar
Julian_L.
Argentina

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by Julian_L. »

Cifi wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 6:24 am

Thanks, @Julian_L. ! So it's an adverb, but one that is used without a verb? At least I have not yet seen verbs in any of the example for "he/heme/hemos aquí".

That's what dictionaries says. I didn't even know «he» here was an adverb and I cannot explain why we have an adverb that doesn't modify any verb. Probably because «he» is already taking the place of a verb: you either say «he aquí» or «aquí/acá está» (or «aquí/acá + (tener)»).

EranBarLev wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 8:49 am

Now this suspiciously looks like the imperative with object pronouns. So I guess you also have "hete", "helo", "hela", etc.?

Technically yes, but I don't remember ever hearing or reading those forms. In fact, Spanish (and English) Wiktionary says this adverb is obsolete or literary.

EranBarLev wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 8:49 am

I know what it means, but I've never seen an impersonal form of any other verb which is not the infinitive.

«Hay» is supposed to be the only impersonal verb form that differs from the personal one.

pawndemic wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 10:21 am

Random fact: Vi recientemente un vídeo en que ha explicado de dónde proviene esta y. Inicialmente eran dos palabras ha + ibi (hoy ahí).
y ha + ahí finalmente terminó en hay. Entonces, es más o menos como en el francés il y a

Estoy enterado, lo leí de casualidad en el Wikcionario en inglés. Supongo que eso explica por qué «hay» es impersonal: diríamos «el lugar tenía dos casas» (en singular), así como también diríamos «había dos casas», en lugar de *«habían dos casas». Es totalmente opuesto al inglés o al italiano, en donde se usa frases equivalentes a «ahí está» («there is» y «c'è») y «ahí están» («there are» y «ci sono»).
Por mi parte, en un video (minuto 20:09) de Langfocus descubrí que en el polaco es más curioso: para indicar existencia, en una oración positiva se usa el verbo «być» («ser» o «estar»), mientras que en una negativa se usa «mieć» («tener»).

:argentina:N :it: Image

User avatar
Fer²
Spain

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by Fer² »

I had always parsed this he as the first-person singular present tense of verb haber. In my mind it made sense in a fuzzy way as "I have here", as it typically introduces information that is known to the speaker but not to the listener. And I chalked up the odd position of the object pronouns to "We used to do that in the days of yore".

So after reading [mention]Cifi[/mention]'s and [mention]Julian_L.[/mention]'s exchange I decided to do some digging and RAE's full answer is "We don't know". Some grammarians think it is the first-person singular present tense of verb haber, some think it's an outdated variant of the imperative, and some indeed think it's the Arabic adverb meaning 'lo!' or 'behold!'. It is certainly parallel to Portuguese eis in most constructions, but multiple sentences also classify that as either an adverb or a corrupted form of haver, or even the Latin pronoun ipse.

Regarding hay and [mention]EranBarLev[/mention]'s question, that is solidly attested as a combination of the verb form ha and the now extinct adverb? pronoun? y. In a sense, it is analogous to French il y a or Catalan hi ha, except that the two words are fused together. And the fact that this y has otherwise disappeared from our language or evolved beyond recognition doesn't help matters...

:es: | :gb: :fr: :it: Image | :sweden: :de: :ru: | ···

User avatar
gmads
Mexico

Re: Usage of haber: "He aquí algunos ..."

Post by gmads »

Regardless of the RAE classifying it as an adverb, I would definitely go more with what Manuel Seco proposed in his Gramática Esencial de la Lengua Española, page 80:

The word "he" (as in "he aquí el resultado"), which grammars and dictionaries classify sometimes as "imperative of the verb 'haber'" and sometimes as "demonstrative adverb", is, in fact, a verb that is both defective (because it doesn't have all conjugated forms) and impersonal.

First of all, as Seco indicates, one has to understand that this "he" is not a conjugation of the verb "haber," but a verb all in itself, that is, "he" is not only a verb, but one without tenses, persons or numbers, therefore, "he" is the only existing form and that is why it is a defective verb. While this may seem a little strange, truly it is not. In Italian, for example, there is a verb ("ciavere") that doesn't actually exist 😆 which can be used in spoken language, but that should not be used in written language because no one has agreed in how it should be written. In fact, defective verbs are quite common.

Secondly, having "he" as a verb immediately vanishes all the struggling regarding its usage: both with clitic pronouns (e.g. "me", "lo": heme, helo) and with direct objects.

In his Diccionario de dudas (PDF file), on page 243, Seco expresses that "he":

[...] always has two forced companions: 1st, the adverb "aquí" ("here") or "ahí" ("there") (occasionally, another adverbial complement of place: "henos ya en casa" '--"here we are already at home"); 2nd, a direct object: "he aquí el resultado" ("here is the result"); "he aquí a tu madre" ("behold your mother"); "heme aquí" ("here I am"). It is mainly a word of literary use.

As seen then, by having "he" work as a defective, impersonal verb, both clitic pronouns and direct objects fit properly, just like with any other verb:

  • He aquí las consecuencias de mi desidia.
  • Heme aquí sin saber qué hacer.
  • Hételas [ahí] todas desamparadas justo cuando más requerían de tu apoyo.

Back to the first quote, Manuel Seco then continues to explain:

The non-verbal origin of this word, an old Arabic interjection, which has fooled so many grammarians, is of no importance when it comes to defining it by its actual functioning in the language.

We should note here the "is of no importance" part, so we should not worry much about the origins of this defective verb. Anyway, as a brief cultural summary regarding the Arabic "hā" (ها) interjection, here are a couple of links that may be of interest: wiktionary, wordhippo. One may also check the Spanish "he" page.


For anyone wanting to practice their Spanish reading and improve their grammar and general knowledge:


:hash:  ㆍespañol ㆍvocabulario ㆍgramática

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

🇲🇽 :us:  ·  :it: 🇧🇷  ·  :ru: 🇦🇪

Post Reply

Return to “Language”