How to distinguish "leísmo" from true iop ?

Question

Everyone

Sorry to bring up this sore topic again but there has to be a proper way for newbies like me to figure out whether a "le" is a true IOP or rather a DOP that was squeezed into a "le" because of leismo.

Please don't read this wrong ! I do accept the fact that leismo exists. I just cannot always spot it. Here is a classic example. Your word of the day today is :

socorrer - (transitive verb) - to help, to aid, to come to the aid of

With that in mind I'd translate the following example :

"She was screaming but no one came to her aid"

into

"Se estaba gritando pero nadie la socorrió".

The big question is : Why does your example say "le socorrió" ? We have 2 choices here as far as I see.

1. Whoever came up with this example is a true leismo meaning that "le" is not the IOP "le" but really a DOP at heart ("la" in this case). If this is true then I'd much prefer you guys label it as such. Or even better you guys don't use leismo in your examples at all and stick with what grammar books teach.

2. The "le" here is in fact a true IOP. If this is true I don't understand why. This would make "her" an indirect object meaning that the action word "help" goes to some unknown or implied object other than the girl. What would that DO be if not the girl ? I don't see where else "helping" can be acted upon. This reminds me of the same problem with "ayudar". Is it that any word having to do with helping or assisting a person can never take a DOP in Spanish ? Does this mean that in Spanish you don't actually help a person directly but rather "are of help to them" and there simply is no DO ? I suppose I could accept that too.

Please help me distinguish. Is there a clear way I could find out whether its 1. or 2. for this example ?

Answer 1

Stucky,

I apologize for not getting to this sooner. I've been trying to learn html lately to design new parts of the site (which I'll announce at a later date , so I haven't had as much time on the forum.

To answer your questions in random order:

1. I am the only person who writes the Word of the Day emails
2. Unfortunately, because I am the only employee, there isn't a dedicated person to help me proofread the WotD emails, so they will inevitably contain errors, as I am sure many users have noticed.
3. I am sorry for confusing you with any leísmo stuff. It was simply a typo (that I have corrected). The example sentence should be "Se estaba gritando pero nadie la socorrió".
4. I try never to use leísmos in the example sentences as I agree with you. First a person should learn the grammatically correct way to use a new language, then they can experiment with the more relaxed versions.
5. If you ever find an error in the WotD, please PM me immediately so I can fix it and the correct version will be in the archive.
6. I am always open to users volunteering WotD examples for future entries. I asked a while back for ideas or full entries and didn't get much of a response.

• Paralee! Thanks for what you do! - Don_José Mar 30, 2010

Answer 2

Gfreed

Thanks for the clarifying comment. As we can see you are also not 100% sure. Let's ask this to the site maintainers :

Who comes up with these daily examples ? What is your policy on accepting/embracing the various *ismos ?

You might :

1. Accept no *ismos whatsoever.
2. Accept only "leísmo de cortesía" but not the others.
3. Use *ismos freely as you see fit.
4. Leave that up to the author of the examples.

Which is it ? I'd personally much prefer 1. Should a particular example of a leísmo be so extremely common that it's used almost exclusively then you should still mark it a such. I could imagine little markers such as :

"sg - strictly grammatical" "cs - commonly spoken" "le - Leísmo" "lec - leísmo de cortesía"

Example :

¿Lo ayudo? - Can I help you (Ud) ? (sg) ¿Le ayudo? - Can I help you (Ud) ? (cs, lec)

Same with our example :

Se estaba gritando pero nadie la socorrió - She was screaming but no one came to her aid (sg)

Se estaba gritando pero nadie le socorrió - She was screaming but no one came to her aid (le)

What do you guys think ? This would help sooo much I cannot stress it enough.

Answer 3

I would suggest that you look the verb up in our dictionary. socorrer

It is listed as a transitive verb, so the object being helped is a direct object. It is not a gustar-like verb that is translated as the transitve "to like" in English, but used intransitively in Spanish. It has no intransitive use listed.

Oops. Had the rest incorrect. Deleted same.

This type of a leísmo (using le for la as a direct object) isn't accepted as much as using le for lo when referring to a male person.

Answer 4

gfreed

To be honest I have no idea what you just said.

I did look it up on your site and saw exactly that - a transitive verb that's not like gustar. Yet there is your example...

So your "Oops" means that the first part of your post is wrong ?

Are you saying that this is in fact the less common form of leísmo ("le" for "la") ?

If it is leísmo I feel strongly that it should be labled as such. You do see the problem otherwise right ? People like me will try to figure out why "her" is an IOP when it's not an IOP after all.

Can you please clarify what you're trying to say ?

• I made some incorrect statements about a laísmo rather than a leísmo so I deleted them. If le was used in the sentence I belive it was a leísmo, but you need to ask a native. - qfreed Mar 27, 2010
• With some verbs what appears to be a d.o. in English is an i.o.p. in Spanish. And sometimes it's regional like the leísmo. - qfreed Mar 27, 2010

Answer 5

With some verbs what appears to be a d.o. in English is an i.o. in Spanish.

LLamar (in the context of telefonear) is transitive (has a direct object). In English we say "Call him when you get there". The "him" is a direct object. Yet, I have seen many examples of "llámale cuando llegues". I don't think that this is a leísmo as much as it is the person seeing the verb as "place a call to" where the d.o. is " a call" and the "him" is an indirect object.

Answer 6

I just saw your last post so let's add another marker.

rvt - reversed transitivity (meaning its an iop in one language but dop in the other or the other way round.)

Then label that as well. So you're saying we might have such an example here ?

Le secorro - I come to the aid of him/her

rather than "I help him/her" ?

• I gave up a long time ago trying to fiure out when leísmos are beiing used. There are all kinds of reasons for using i.o.p's where to the English eye a d.o.p. is needed. That's why I say we need a native to tell us if this is a true leísmo . - qfreed Mar 27, 2010

Answer 7

Anybody native who could help ?

I'd also really like feedback from the site owners on the policy you guys have.

Heidita, Paralee .. ? If I knew your examples never use any *ismos then that'd help too but right now I have no idea.

This is really important for learners.

Answer 8

gfreed

You might find this link interesting

http://www.spanishgrammargenius.com/le_les_lo_leismo.htm

It mentiones "llamar" as one of the verbs that "take le for what English speakers may take to be direct object pronouns".

Apparently, even "creer" is one of those. Now that is news to me.

No le creo. - I don't believe you.

And that is not supposed to be a leismo now ? What does that mean ? That "creer" takes a true "le" meaning "I dont believe you" becomes "I am not believing of you" in Spanish ? Again, I could accept that if I had a comprehensive list of such verbs. I only brought that up since you'd mentioned "llamar" so you must also not have been aware of these special verbs.

Arrghhh..help please anybody ? I find it hard ot believe that nobody has any input.

Can we not at least find out whether or not *ismos are used on this site ?

Answer 9

Ok so according to

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?p=8764567#post8764567

gfreed is right.

That brings me back to asking why this form of leismo was chosen and whether that is a good idea. I strongly disagree.

What do other learners think ?

Answer 10

Paralee

Thank you so much for your answer ! I can't believe you're doing this all alone. I thought there were like a hundred people running this site - amazing !

The problem is simple. I'd love to help you spot errors but how do I do that considering I'm a bleeding beginner and have no clue what I'm talking about ? I'm trying to use this very site to figure out what i'm talking about so it's a bit of a chicken and the egg thing.

I'm sure you'd get very tired of my asking you twice a week whether your latest WotD was a typo or not. You'd prolly ban me from the site haha...

However, it is good to know that any "le" I spot was meant as a true iop by you. I'm glad you agree with me there.

How about a small policy header or footer stating what you do and don't support ? This would pre-empt questions like mine.

As far as this sentence goes. I simply used my gut which told me that "Nobody helped her" sounds like a dop. However, I know that this method doesn't always work reliably from English to Spanish.

I keep hearing about using the passive voice to try and figure this out. Could you break down this example using the passive to show how I could have figured this out myself without guessing ? Or, how did you know for sure that this was in fact a typo ? I'm looking for something as close to a "formula" as possible.

Answer 11

Paralee

Looks like the example is still leismo'fied.

http://www.spanishdict.com/wordoftheday/514/socorrer