Has anyone read this document?

Question

I just noticed this 69 page pdf file on anything and everything that you might want to know about verbs. The link is from a page in our conjugator. Since it is entirely in Spanish (because my page is in Spanish??) I wanted to see if anyone had read it and could describe the book before I delved into trying to read it.

I only looked at the first few pages (for the Table of Contents) and noticed something interesting on the listing of abbreviations:

This answers the question that occasionally is asked here about whether usted, ustedes is a 3rd person or 2nd person subject pronoun.

As you can see it seems to have lots of interesting facts about verbs? Has anyone already read it?

this may be a direct link to the pdf file (it takes a while to load)

It seems to be in Spanish whether your page is in English or Spanish. - 0074b507, Mar 30, 2011

Answer 1

No Quentin, I have never come across this before. Thanks for finding it and bringing it to our attention. I would like to read it when I come home later tonight.

In recent months my preference has been to read grammar lessons, etc. in Spanish rather than English. It takes a bit longer, but I feel like I am accomplishing more by doing it this way.

También - lorenzo9, Mar 30, 2011

I completely agree. I started doing this close to a year ago and have found it to be a far more productive method - Izanoni1, Mar 30, 2011

Answer 2

In recent months my preference has been to read grammar lessons, etc. in Spanish rather than English.

I used to think that way myself, until I bought this book:

That book now sits on my bookshelf gathering dust. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy over my head!

I want to read it! - lorenzo9, Mar 30, 2011

Perhaps it is because I read books on the level of "Spanish for Dummies". :) - Nicole-B, Mar 30, 2011

I got this book for Christmas and absolutely love it! - Izanoni1, Mar 30, 2011

This used to be one of my favorite books. Of course, the "nueva" of fifty years ago is not the "nueva" of today. - samdie, Mar 30, 2011

This version of the RAE manual is available for about 10 bucks in the states. - Izanoni1, Mar 30, 2011

Hee h, i've seen that in shops! That's for native speakers writing dissertations I think?There's a great series of books that explain grammar in Spanish called "Aprende" and published by SGEL and only 12 euro each if you happen to be lucky&live; in Spain. - rabbitwho, Mar 30, 2011

Answer 3

The traditional point of view is that any form of direct address (singular, plural, formal, informal, [and in some languages] masculine, feminine) is by definition, 2nd person. For historical reasons, Spanish has substituted the grammatical 3rd person for the semantic 2nd person in formal address. The same sort of substitution happens in English but only at the most formal/ceremonious levels (e.g. your majesty/honor/reverence/worship/etc.)

nicely stated - 0074b507, Mar 30, 2011

Answer 4

Of course, the "nueva" of fifty years ago is not the "nueva" of today

That is not altogether surprising when one considers that fifty years ago Chomsky had barely written his first work on transformational grammar. It seems to me that over the past 50 years, grammar, broadly speaking, has witnessed a bit of a change of focus to include many of the concepts which have been developing as a result of or in tandem with the various branches of generative grammar.

So your saying that generative grammar and not spanking misbehaving children arose at the same time?!?!?!?!!? - lorenzo9, Mar 30, 2011

Answer 5

Lorenzo,

Try following the links in the conjugator. After you click on the link at the bottom of the page your get:

Thanks: I'll try that tomorrow. - lorenzo9, Mar 30, 2011

Answer 6

Wow, you seem to find everything and anything on this site, I had no clue this existed!

NO idea if this is a good book , ask Lazarus, I am sure he actually has the book

Answer 7

My conection is too slow to download it. I just get a bunch of error messages, then have to close the (empty) page.