Comments on: Dog days

By: Big Bro

Big Bro — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 08:16:25 +0000

Re: contractions in Spanish

Elaine, as you recognize, "conmigo" and "contigo" aren't technically contractions. They represent an exceptional use of the "pronombres preposicionales" (prepositional pronouns) "mí" and "tí" and the preposition "con".

Then there's the famous quote from an Argentine politician who said: "Conmigo o sinmigo [sic] vamos a ganar."

Here's what the "Página del Idioma Castellano" has to say about contractions:

Los ejemplos más habituales en nuestra lengua son al (a + el) y del ( de + el) aun cuando existan otros casos como esotro (ese + otro), entrambos (entre + ambos), doquiera (donde + quiera), etcétera.

See:

http://acebo.cnice.mecd.es/...

I have heard "doquiera" (or "doquier") used in hymns and old translations of the Bible. I have never hear "esotro" or "entrambos" used anywhere. I don't believe there are any contractions that involve verbs in the Spanish language.

Thus endeth the Spanish grammar lesson for today. Ain't it grande?

By: elaine

elaine — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 23:38:54 +0000

Three things. One, I love the new ecto interface. The new default toolbar has helped me find features I didn’t know it even had. Two, all that crap about "and" and "had" and adverbs is bullshit (thx). English tenses aren’t as specifically labor-divided as Spanish ones are, so words like "had" and "have" and "have had" and "had had" have had to do dual duty. So be it. If you’re fluent in the language, you absorb the sense of the hads and haves and the woulds and wills without realizing it and land on the nouns and verbs and modifiers–the MEANING. I’ll always be grateful to my Spanish teachers, though, for teaching me what the tenses were called. No one ever taught me about the subjunctive or past perfect in English; I had to make those connections myself. Three, I always thought it was weird that the places where contraction-like formations appeared in Spanish actually sometimes made sentences LONGER. Like "conmigo" and "contigo" especially.