What is the reasoning for "yo" in this situation?
The sentence is "No diréis que os lo bebo yo". Doesn't the fact that bebo is already conugated negate the need for "yo" and why would it even be put after the verb? Thank you for your help!
8 Answers
Good question! Here that "yo" in that position feels almost necessary, but an explanation for these colloquial cases is too technical and impractical, especially because there is no clear-cut rule. If you say:
No he sido.
Every native would wonder "¿Sido? ¿Has sido... qué?" It would be like saying "I wasn't" (or worse) without any supporting context. The sentence sounds awfully incomplete. However,
No he sido yo.
clearly means "It wasn't me." You could always try to justify the use of "yo" by saying that it is used in a contrastive manner, but the truth is, you just need to learn these colloquial sentences by hearing how natives intonate them and what sort of overtones they have depending on their intention. You can't learn this by reading explanations, I'm afraid.
No diréis que os lo bebo yo
I was just going to say, makes no sense, when I found this, very old "Lazarillo de Tormes":
No diréis, tío, que os lo bebo yo -decía-, pues no le quitáis de la mano.
He is actually referring to the wine he is robbing a blind guy.
and he is saying: Hey, you are not saying it is ME who is drinking it!
Very old fashioned structure.
No diréis que os lo bebo yo Ok, what am I missing? I do Not understand that in Spanish..... Don't say that you (all) drink it - me? What????
It's a bit like in the north of England when someone says "I love pies, me!" (It looks tautological but it's an emphasis)
I could be completely wrong, but I'm reading it as...
Don't you guys go around saying that ***I*** am drinking up all your {beer/wine/water/whatever}.
More literally:
Don't you all say ***I*** am drinking it all up on/from you.
You guys won't go around saying that I am the one who drank your {beer/wine/whatever} all up.
More literally: You won't say I am the one who drank it all up on/from you.
and why would it (yo) even be put after the verb
Well, in Spanish there isn't the rigid subject-verb pattern as in English. They can leave the subject out, put it before the verb or put it after the verb.
There seem to be some cases where putting the subject after the verb is preferred (but not absolutely required). Gustar is an example of a verb where the subject usually follows the verb. Passive SE is another.
I'm sure other reasons for subject placement are too subtle for me to fully understand, but Spanish is very flexible on it.
Heidita, wow, i'm impressed you found that. That is actually what I was reading! I have it in a book with a translation on the facing page. In the translation it does not suggest a stress on the "Me", therefore I wasn't sure if I was completely missing some sentence structure. It still does not quite make much sense to me to say it this way as I wouldn't stress it in this fashion even in English. Thank you all for the clarification! I'm trying to teach myself and this website has been an amazing help!
I agree with Alanito. And, incidently, we do the same in Welsh English, though, in some parts of South Wales the verb would be conjugated in the second person - 'I loves pies me'.
Irrespective of the complexities of the meaning of the complete sentence, I'd take the 'tautological' 'yo' as adding stress to the fact that the person does not want it said that HE/SHE did the drinking.
Consider the differences that stressing different words in a sentence makes in English:
DON'T tell them that I'm drinking it - here we are stressing that the information is not to be recounted.
Don't tell them that I'm drinking it (with the stress on the I) - here it's implied that it's fine to talk about the drinking, just not who did the drinking...
To my mind, adding the 'yo' adds the stress, or even more stress, that emphasising the word 'I' does in English.
Cheers, Alex
