Can Spanish "lo" be a pronoun in the nominative case?

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Can Spanish "lo" be a pronoun in the nominative case?

Postby Kraut » Sun Aug 22, 2021 9:17 pm

El tramo más corto, o así me lo pareció a mi, es llegar al aparcamiento, a partir de ahí es todo cuesta abajo.


"asi me LO pareció à mi" = "so it seemed to me"

"it" subject corresponds to "lo" subject??
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Re: Can Spanish "lo" be a pronoun in the nominative case?

Postby smallwhite » Sun Aug 22, 2021 9:51 pm

Kraut wrote:"asi me LO pareció à mi" = "so it seemed to me"

"it" subject corresponds to "lo" subject??

ASÍ il me LO pareció
it seems to me SO
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Re: Can Spanish "lo" be a pronoun in the nominative case?

Postby Kraut » Sun Aug 22, 2021 11:11 pm

Die Nominativergänzung von parecer wird durch lo pronominal vertreten.

Bsp.: | Es extranjero, pero hace lo posible por no parecerlo.
| Er ist Ausländer, aber er will partout nicht den Eindruck vermitteln, dass er es ist.


Thanks. I have found the rule, it is clear to me now: the subject of "pareció" is "tramo mas corto".

All the following sentences could be shortened by inserting "lo"

http://hispanoteca.eu/gramáticas/Grammatik%20im%20PDF/Kopulaersätze.pdf

parecer
Parecer + adjetivo / sustantivo dient zur Wiedergabe von Eindrücken jeder Art.
Bsp.: | La chica parecía sordomuda.
| Man hatte den Eindruck, das Mädchen sei taubstumm.
| Ese chico parece listo. Der Junge macht einen aufgeweckten Eindruck.
| El dormitorio parecía un campo de batalla.
| Das Schlafzimmer sah wie ein Schlachtfeld aus.
| Parece muy feliz. Er sieht sehr glücklich aus.
| La casa parece abandonada. Das Haus sieht verlassen aus.
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Re: Can Spanish "lo" be a pronoun in the nominative case?

Postby Cainntear » Mon Aug 30, 2021 4:51 pm

Kraut wrote:
Die Nominativergänzung von parecer wird durch lo pronominal vertreten.

Bsp.: | Es extranjero, pero hace lo posible por no parecerlo.
| Er ist Ausländer, aber er will partout nicht den Eindruck vermitteln, dass er es ist.


Thanks. I have found the rule, it is clear to me now: the subject of "pareció" is "tramo mas corto".

That's not quite it-- "lo" is an object pronoun, not a subject.

In the example above, "he" is the subject -- he is foreign, but he does whatever he can to not appear it [=foreign]
Your German version has the same thing -- "er es ist" -- even though in English the "it" feels out of place in this construction.

Your example is slightly different, and there's two possible ways of looking at it
El tramo más corto, o así me lo pareció a mi, es llegar al aparcamiento, a partir de ahí es todo cuesta abajo.
It could be implicit that the subject of "pareció" is just "el tramo" and that lo simply refers to "más corto" -- i.e "the shortest road, or at least the road that seemed shortest to me, ..."

That's probably how I would parse it, but the alternative is quite interesting

I don't really understand why it happens, but Spanish tends to duplicate the subject as an object pronoun in certain emphatic situations.

Eg. "no me lo puedo creer" -- literally something like "I can't believe me it"/"no me lo creo" -- "I don't believe me it."
(Both stronger than "no puedo creerlo" or "no lo creo" respectively)

It's conceivable that "me lo pareció a mí" is duplicating the "el" as "lo" in the same way that "no me lo creo" duplicates "yo" as "me". ("... or [at least] it seemed it that way to me")
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Re: Can Spanish "lo" be a pronoun in the nominative case?

Postby Querneus » Mon Sep 06, 2021 10:07 am

Cainntear wrote:
Kraut wrote:
Die Nominativergänzung von parecer wird durch lo pronominal vertreten.

Bsp.: | Es extranjero, pero hace lo posible por no parecerlo.
| Er ist Ausländer, aber er will partout nicht den Eindruck vermitteln, dass er es ist.


Thanks. I have found the rule, it is clear to me now: the subject of "pareció" is "tramo mas corto".

That's not quite it-- "lo" is an object pronoun, not a subject.

In the example above, "he" is the subject -- he is foreign, but he does whatever he can to not appear it [=foreign]
Your German version has the same thing -- "er es ist" -- even though in English the "it" feels out of place in this construction.

Your example is slightly different, and there's two possible ways of looking at it
El tramo más corto, o así me lo pareció a mi, es llegar al aparcamiento, a partir de ahí es todo cuesta abajo.
It could be implicit that the subject of "pareció" is just "el tramo" and that lo simply refers to "más corto" -- i.e "the shortest road, or at least the road that seemed shortest to me, ..."

FWIW, I think this is the right interpretation (and the second not at all).

El tramo me pareció más corto.
The section (of the road) seemed shorter to me.

El tramo me lo pareció.
The section seemed that way to me.

Así el tramo me lo pareció.
The section seemed that way to me.

If anything, maybe you could say "lo" is repeating "así"... Maybe...
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Re: Can Spanish "lo" be a pronoun in the nominative case?

Postby Iversen » Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:20 pm

The Spanish grammars I have checked are unanimous that "lo" isn't a subject pronoun, and then they call it an object pronoun, and then "parecer" should be a transitive verb - but it isn't. It is constructed with a subject predicative, and that's the only logical role I can see for "lo".

I checked a Spanish grammar (from Denmark) which has the following example: "¿Es necesario para triunfar? Sí lo es." Here "lo" clearly refers to "necesario", and the only possible role is as a subject predicative. The explanation in the book (in my translation) runs as follows "The neutral 'lo' in 3. person singular is used as object or predicative. It refers to 'a whole sentence' or an adjective".

OK, in the sentence "El tramo más corto, o así me lo pareció a mi, es llegar al aparcamiento,(...) the "así" clearly refers to either specifically "mas corto" or in a more general interpretation to "El tramo más corto (...) es llegar al aparcamiento,". And the second interpretation is more likely because "así" normally behaves like an adverb: "lo hice así", but in examples like "enferma podría tener una idea así" it definitely functions like an adjective, a synonyme for "tal". Never mind, if "lo" can't be a subject then it must be either a subject predicative itself or a dummy reference to the real subject predicative "así".

"Me" is just an indirect object - not qualms about that.

And then the rebel in me asks the forbidden question: how do you prove that "lo" isn't a neutral subject pronoun with a reference to a whole sentence in this kind of constructions? With verbs like "parecer" you would need a subject predicative, and you have got one here - "así". And probably also an indirect object to indicate the observer, and you have got "me". The crucial test would then be that "lo me parece así" should be acceptable to a native Spaniard, but I'm not quite happy about that construction. I think that "la situación en general me pareció así" is OK, but I doubt that you just can put "lo" instead" of a full subject. There must be a reason that the original quote used the longer formula "así me lo pareció a mi"...
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Re: Can Spanish "lo" be a pronoun in the nominative case?

Postby sirgregory » Tue Sep 07, 2021 7:06 pm

Wouldn't the neuter/general subject pronoun be "ello"? And with prepositions as well, wouldn't it be "por ello," rather than "por lo"?
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Re: Can Spanish "lo" be a pronoun in the nominative case?

Postby Iversen » Tue Sep 07, 2021 7:59 pm

sirgregory wrote:Wouldn't the neuter/general subject pronoun be "ello"? And with prepositions as well, wouldn't it be "por ello," rather than "por lo"?


It probably would, but my aim was not to prove that "lo" could be a neutral subject - rather to find out why it can't (barring the emergence of new conflicting evidence created by native speakers).

In most cases we just accept what the grammars say, but their statements about syntax are ultimately based on a combination of observations and deduction, and sometimes it is worth checking those deductions once again just to see whether the traditional analysis is the only (let alone best) one. In this case I ended up accepting the traditional wisdom, but there are other cases where I see dubious claims from even distinguished grammarians - not so much about what is possible, but more about how certain constructions should be analyzed or what certain forms should be called to get a logical nomenclature.
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Re: Can Spanish "lo" be a pronoun in the nominative case?

Postby Cainntear » Wed Sep 08, 2021 9:09 am

Iversen wrote:The Spanish grammars I have checked are unanimous that "lo" isn't a subject pronoun, and then they call it an object pronoun, and then "parecer" should be a transitive verb - but it isn't. It is constructed with a subject predicative, and that's the only logical role I can see for "lo".

Which presupposes that there is such a thing as a subject predicative in Spanish, but there's an argument that predicatives have been subsumed into the role of object using the oblique (=everything other than nominative) case... like in English.

In Spanish, the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that might be considered explicitly subject predicative is "soy yo", but I'd be tempted to analyse that as grammatically "I am", even when it functions semantically as equivalent to "It's me"*

( * Of course, many would insist that that should be "It is I" on the grounds it's a subject predicative, but Modern English is not strictly nominative-accusative, rather nominative-oblique, or even subject-object by some people's analysis.)
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Re: Can Spanish "lo" be a pronoun in the nominative case?

Postby Iversen » Wed Sep 08, 2021 11:27 am

I can't see the point in merging (direct) objects and subject predicatives. The epithome of a subject predicative is the one that appears with a copula verb ("(yo) soy danés"), and verbs like "parecer", "semejar" and "semblar" are constructed in exactly the same way with just minor difference in the semantics. On the other hand there is both a direct obect ("la") and an object predicative ("estimulante") in this quote from a discussion in Wordreference: "La televisión, la encuentro bastante estimulante". I would even accept "a la señora" as a direct object in spite of the preposition, but that view could be challenged. "Considerar" has also an object, but typically combined with a prepositional clause: "La televisión, la considero como poco estimulante".

The distinction between direct objects and the predicatives is found in all the languages I know, and even though the consequences of mixing them up may seem minor in English because of its minimal use of cases ("me" in "it's me" has the same form - the oblique - as the object in "he saw me"), the consequences would be unbearable with languages that distinguish nominatives and accusatives (mixing the instrumental into the soup in the case of Russian). So I don't feel any urge to drop the distinction - I like my categories to be functional across language borders unless there are compelling reasons not to do so (otherwise I would also have to be deeply worried by the "a" with personal objects in Spanish or the "pe" with impersonal objects in Romanian).

And what then about your example "soy yo"? Well, if it had been an object you would expect "me". So either it is the subject or a subject predicative. And subjects can be dropped in Spanish, but not the subject predicative that comes with a form of the copula verb "ser". So let's cross the border and look at French that doesn' practice subject dropping. Here the parallel would be something like "c'est moi", where "ce" hardly can be anything but the subject .

So I have to insist that subject predicatives do exist, even in Spanish, and that the form "lo" can be that thingy as well as an object - but I salute a Cainntear for asking the bold question whether there really is any reason to retain the distinction.
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