Two new questions
When I start to get annoying let me know 
I have two unrelated questions. First, a very simple subjunctive question. I can understand the subjunctive in reading and usually when being spoken by someone else but I'm not really to the point where I use it in conversation - hence the very basic question. This morning I decided I want to stay for an extra day in the hostel I'm staying at, so I told the hostel owner this, and then asked:
Quiere que pague para esta noche ahora?
So I think this is right, but I started having doubts, because in English, it conveys a different feeling when you are ASKING if someone desires something rather than simply saying that someone desires something. I know (I think) that if I were just saying "Ud quiere que yo pague por esta noche ahora" it would require subjunctive, but I'm not so sure about asking the question. Then, just to complicate things, I plugged the sentence into google translate just to see what the computer would say, and it used the infinitive - both for the question and for the statement. Could someone please confirm the correct way to say this?
I came across my second question while reading wikipedia spanish. The verb desarrollar was used in this sentence:
"Durante este periodo se desarrolla el idioma maya, el pueblo maya...". I wasn't sure the exact meaning of desarrollar so I looked in up on spanishdict. Spanishdict says that desarrollar is a transitive verb meaning to develop, but it is also a pronomial verb that means to develop. Since pronomial verbs require the reflexive pronoun and transitive verbs don't, and they have the same meaning, how the heck am I supposed to know whether to use the pronoun or not when forming sentences on my own? Are they both correct? There are other verbs that work like this as well, desarrollar is just the one I came across today.
Thanks.
5 Answers
Hi, thanks for the responses, but I am still not clear on the second question. If I'm reading the linked explanation correctly, desarrollar as used in my example is being used as a transitive verb since it has a direct object (right?) but I still don't understand how that tells you when to use the pronoun and when to leave it out. I'm willing to concede that desarrollar can function as either a pronomial verb or a transitive verb, but how do I know which form to use if I just want to say "it develops"? Or is this when I have to decide if my sentence has a DO or not, and if it does I use the transitive form without a pronoun, and if it doesn't I use the pronomial form with one?
So (again, if I'm understanding correctly, which I'm not at all confident about), in the case given in my example, it is actually a transitive verb that doesn't take the pronoun, but since it's being used in a passive construction it does take the pronoun after all? I know what passive constructions are but I was under the impression that any verb can use the passive construction, it doesn't matter if it's pronomial, transitive, intransitive, etc.
Quiere que pague para esta noche ahora?
I would have said "¿Quiere que pague ahora para esta noche?" but (aside from that quibble) what you asked is fine. The fact that it it is a question (rather than a statement) is irrelevant to the question of the use of the subjunctive. In both cases one is talking/asking about the expression of a wish (that something may happen), not a declaration of what has happened / will happen (to borrow from the preferred terminology of Lazarus).
because in English, it conveys a different feeling when you are ASKING if someone desires something rather than simply saying that someone desires
I can think of no occasion in which the "asking" would make a difference. Perhaps you could provide an example that illustrates this difference.
"Durante este periodo se desarrolla el idioma maya ...
I see this as a simple impersonal construction. "During this period the Mayan language developed .. ." To those who would insist that it is passive, I would ask "Then who/what is the agent of the action?" The essence of passive constructions is that someone/something is acted upon by a foreign agent. Even in the case where the the subject and object coincide, we have special terminology (we call it a reflexive construction, not a passive). The essence of a passive construction is that the subject (A) is acted upon/affected by the the the behavior of the agent (B).
I would not worry about overly tehnical grammar explantions. They are not important to using the language in my opinion I will tell you that in this case it is passive construction. One of the ways of forming the passive voice is se+ verb in the third person singular especially in impersonal passive constructions. During this period the mayan language was developed
¿Quiere que pague para esta noche ahora?
The subjunctive is just fine in the above question.
As for your second question, I will have to leave that to the grammar experts! It is a very valid question, though, and, as you say, it applies to many verbs.
