La maestra pidió a todos los niños que...

Question

De 'La Palabra del Día' de ayer, la respuesta de Felizz.

No entiendo porque no necesita el pronombre del objeto indirecto antes de 'la maestra', así:

La maestra les pidió a todos los niños que...

Hice una búsqueda por Google y obtuve resultados tanto con 'les' como sin 'les'.

Por ejemplo -

• Al finalizar la clase la profesora les pide a todos los niños que se queden porque quiere decirles algo, menos a Jaimito.

• La maestra pidió a los alumnos ir a sus casas por una toalla..

Gracias de antemano.

Answer 1

I have said this many times, but why do you need "it" in "It is good to see you", if "to see you is great" doesn't need it and it is says the same thing? That "it" is called "anticipatory it" or "dummy it"; obviously, the first name has been chosen by people who appreciate its function, while the latter has been given by "purists" who don't like the idea of using what they think it is a redundant word.

Both "le" in Spanish and "it" in English were introduced because without them, some sentences were ambiguous or confusing, and eventually they were extended to other sentences that maybe didn't need them, becoming a rule. In Spanish, many sentences surely do not need that "le" in theory, but in others it is essential to clarify and differentiate the exact intended meaning. Without "le", sentences tend to sound cold, formal and/or impersonal, and often the omission is unacceptable.

The reduplication or omission of these pronouns is often ignored by most grammars (not the one I'm writing), probably because there isn't a rule of thumb to use here; the choice of pronoun depends on the meaning of the verb, and although it makes sense in a way, grammars fear rules that have to do with meaning, and just stick to things they can describe with structures.

Bottom line: here, without "le", the sentence is fine, but it gives the impression that the teacher did not have any interaction with the students, as if she didn't ask herself or something unusual, or maybe just a very objective, cold and formal description of what the teacher did, like in a police report. "Le" suggests a clear interaction between teachers and students, the way it is supposed to be. It is not that this "le" here is colloquial (it is standard Spanish) -it simply sounds less like a police report, so in spoken Spanish it will rarely be omitted, while in written Spanish it depends on the intended effect.

P. S. Unlike in English, dropping the pronoun is done to try to achieve a very formal Spanish, although the result is sometimes questionable if it is taken too far. You can't simply drop the pronoun whenever you want and expect to sound formal; you'll end up being corrected all the time by natives.

Could it be dropped out of laziness or informality ever? I've noticed that, in English, it is common to drop the subject when context can clearly define it and a foreigner would not likely get taught that. I did not even notice it myself... - webdunce, May 12, 2011

...(though I do it frequently) until I started studying Spanish...just one day I noticed I frequently drop "I" when it is clear from the context (which helped me with dropping the subject in the imperfect tenses in Spanish). - webdunce, May 12, 2011

Although, from your answer here, I'd tend to think not as you're saying it sounds colder and more formal without the LE. - webdunce, May 12, 2011

Great answer as usual, thanks Laz. - galsally, May 12, 2011

Answer 2

As one of my Spanish teachers once said, "There is no why! It's a language! That's just the way they say it!".

Or, to put it more politically correctly, the rule is that if there is an indirect object you have to have the indirect object pronoun. Why? See above.

Except she's saying she's encountered situations in which the indirect object pronoun is *not* there even though there is an indirect object in the sentence. - webdunce, May 12, 2011

(Or did I misunderstand her?) - webdunce, May 12, 2011

You understood me correctly Webdunce. :) - galsally, May 12, 2011

It's a grammar rule, like you're supposed to never split infinitives. ;-) - KevinB, May 12, 2011

As I thought, until I saw that Cogu didn't change Felizz's sentence which lacked the Indirect Object Pronoun. :/ - galsally, May 13, 2011

Answer 3

Hi again.

Thanks for your comments so far. In case my post in Spanish was confusing, I'll re-phrase my query in English!

I expected to see 'les' because I've been taught throughout that the Indirect Object Pronoun must be included (and before the verb) if there is an Indirect Object in the construction, and here I think 'los niños' are the Indirect Object..

So I was surprised not to see it there.

I'm happy to believe it's ok not to use it sometimes, so long as I know I haven't been misunderstanding the whole issue all along.

Regarding English, I quite often drop the 'Anticipatory It', however I wouldn't drop it in written work.

Answer 4

One more thing. The pronoun le, les, as indirect object is mandatory in this case: when the indirect object comes before the rest of the sentence:

A todos los niños, menos a Jaimito, la profesora les pidió que se quedaran.

Gracias Luis, Creo que voy a usar el pronombre como si fuera siempre obligatorio para no confundirme. - galsally, May 13, 2011

Esa es una regla práctica. Saludos. - LuisCache, May 13, 2011

Answer 5

Lazarus gave a great explanation, but I like what Kevin's teacher said, too. I'm an English teacher, and I often tell my students that English is neither logical nor consistent, and you'll go nuts it you expect it to be. After all, ALL language is completely arbitrary--we made it all up, and things are the way they are because the majority of us say so at any given moment. Heinrich Boell wrote a great essay on this, asking why is a chair a "chair" and not a "bed." That said, of course some rules are useful. For English, I prefer the ones that don't have gazillions of exceptions!