Movíase, is this construction of se permitted?
I've never seen a grammatical construction like this before today, is it allowed, is it old Spanish?
Movíase, agrupábanse, destacábanse, these are all words I've come across. I would have written them as se movía, se agrupában, se destacaban, and would have thought that no other way was permitted.
The only rules I've found for changing this is:
Reflexive Pronouns are Attached to...
affirmative commands, gerunds, and infinitives.
And these are niether commands, gerunds, nor infinitives.
This is the text from which movíase was pulled.
Al otro lado de los cristales, ligeramente turbios por la humedad exterior, movíase, pasando de una a otra ventana, con lento balanceo, una especie de columna, esbelta, amarilla, de invisible término, acompañándola fieles en este cambio de situación, regular y acompasado como el de un péndulo, unas líneas negras y oblicuas semejantes a cuerdas.
6 Answers
The rules for the position of these clitics (=direct and indirect object pronouns) have changed considerably during the last millennium, and the rule that they can only be attached to infinitives, "gerundios" and imperatives is the modern rule, which reflects the way most people speak under normal circumstances. However, the old tradition of attaching these clitics to other tenses still remains somewhat fashionable in literature,and it can be heard in spoken language sometimes, used to purposefully give the sentence an ancient touch (or for some people, to try to sound sophisticated). It is more used after a pause or at the beginning of a sentence.
In Spain, in Galician this clitic attachment is part of their modern grammatical system, if I'm not mistaken, so their speakers and those in the neighbouring areas tend to use them more. For one reason or another, we are used to hear these forms, even though we don't use them.
Yes. That instead of "se movía"
I think it's Asturian.
Hello Fred, I've noticed it a few times too.
Fuímosnos is one example that gets a lot of Google hits. (I love Google for checking things!)
Here's one of the results:
El pasáu martes 3 de marzu fuímosnos d'escursión andando a "Les Noticies" y pasamos pol Cascu Antiguu d'Uviéu, chiscándonos.
I liked this one because, as you see, I've bolded the second word where it is used as we are taught.
Hmm, what's going on with pasáu there, do you think? Maybe it should read pasáo? Very possibly, as he/she also writes marzu and antiguu.
And chiscar ...
Thanks for asking about it.
I think it's Asturian. said Lorenzo.
More info I found in my book "Exploring the Spanish Language".
Subject: The Castilian of Non-Castilian Regions.
- Quote: In Asturias it is common to hear clitic pronouns following a finite verb, e.g. Fuime a la playa rather than Me fui a la playa and ye for the third person singular of the verb ser, even on the lips of those who are apparently monolingual speakers of Castilia: both these are features of the primary 'asturiano' or 'bable' dialects.
I won't go into any more detail (it's a pretty in-depth book) but that would seem to lend creedence to your opinion, Lorenzo.
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I have tried every google trick I can think of but I can not for the life of me figure out what language this is! Even though I have a page of side by side words to know which is and which isn't Spanish.
However this site seems to highlight the fact that they are two different languages.
I think perhaps it is Portuguese? Only some of the words that are different can be found in online easily as "Portuguese" words.
