Clarification on an answer in reference article

Question

I am (again!!!) going through direct and indirect object pronouns. So I thought I would read the reference article "Practice with Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns - for beginners - week 2"

One of the answers in there seems to contradict what Lazarus told me in response to an earlier question I had on IOPs.

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The answer in the article says:

¿Le has prepardo la lección para la clase? (when you have an IO in the sentence, you always have to have the IO pronoun before the conjugated verb or following an infinitive.)

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My question is, is this still the case because the sentence is using "para la clase" - ie not the preposition 'a'? Sorry for rambling on, I am just trying to ensure that I havent mis-understood.

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This is what Lazarus answered in a previous question regarding IOP:

without I.O.: Compró unos regalos para nosotros. ¿Para quién(es)? Para nosotros. with I.O.: Nos compró unos regalos. ¿A quién(es)? A nosotros.

I won't go into the semantic distinction between "para" and "a" here, but I'll point out a couple of things:

Compró unos regalos a nosotros. [wrong!]

Nos Compró unos regalos a nosotros. [correct]

Compró unos regalos para nosotros. [correct]

Nos Compró unos regalos para nosotros. [wrong!]

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Answer 1

¿Le has prepardo la lección para la clase? (when you have an IO in the sentence, you always have to have the IO pronoun before the conjugated verb or following an infinitive.)

That sentence means "Have you prepared for him/her (=le) the lesson for the class (=para la clase)? You can actually elaborate more by duplicating the IO, and say:

¿Le has prepardo a él/ella la lección para la clase?

You cannot interpret that sentence as "le" being equal to "para la clase", because it would be the wrong. In other words:

Le = a él / ella

Le para ? él / ella

...debido a que parece que puede ser substituido por clíticos de dativo en ocasiones:

(1) Las cogí para ti / Te las cogí.

That's not a substitution, but two sentences syntactically not equivalent with a nearly identical meaning. The proof that "para ti" is not the indirect object is that the first sentence can be given an indirect object and the second one can accept an extra prepositional object:

Se las cogí para ti.

Te las cogí para ella.

So what's the difference between "Las cogí para ti" and "Te las cogí"? Not much, in this case, because the indirect object is used for recipients that seem natural or normal for the meaning of the verb, while the object with "para" doesn't have to. You can say "He traído flores para el salón", but not "Le he traído flores al salón". This restriction has nothing to do with the fact that "el salón" is an object, but the intimate relationship between the meaning of the verb and the object. Thus, "Le he puesto cortinas al salón" is perfect, while "He puesto cortinas para el salón" sounds strange.

Excelllent!! Thank you so much Lazarus, this clears it up for me. I was right to doubt my understanding lol! - billygoat, Jun 22, 2011

The same thing in English is often misunderstood. - lorenzo9, Jun 22, 2011

Answer 2

And to add fuel to the fire there is this:

Muchos autores consideran que el sintagma precedido por la preposición para no es complemento indirecto, sino complemento circunstancial de finalidad, aunque la gramática tradicional estimaba que era indirecto debido a que parece que puede ser substituido por clíticos de dativo en ocasiones:

• (1) Las cogí para ti / Te las cogí.
• (2) Las coleccioné para ti / *Te las coleccioné

Está claro que aunque en (1) parece que las dos oraciones pueden tener el mismo significado, está claro que en (2) la substitución por el clítico te conduce a una oración agramatical. Otra evidencia que muestra que muchos sintagmas introducidos mediante para no son complementos indirectos es cuando aparece otro complemento más, como en (3):

• (3a) Han traído un sobre para Pedro
• (3b) Le han traído un sobre a Luis, para Pedro

So first we have to decide if the para xxxx is even an i.o. before we start wondering about whether to use an i.o.p. or not.

[for the beginning Spanish students...

the issue with para xxxx is whether the xxxx is the recipent of the direct object or not.

This is easier to see in English.

I bought Mary a book. Mary is the recipient of the book. She is the i.o.

Le compré un libro a Mary.

I bought a book for (para...to give to) Mary. Mary is still an i.o. if she is the recipient of the book.

I bought a book for (para...as a favor to, in lieu of) Mary. I went to the bookstore and bought the book as a favor for Mary, but gave her gift, the book, to John for his birthday. Mary is not the i.o. or the recipient of the book.

In English you can see that the for (para) is ambiguous as to its meaning]

Answer 3

Lazarus is correct. If what would normally be the IO is instead expressed as an object of the preposition para, no IOP is used.

The article to which you refer is not an official reference article. Also, no one involved in that thread is a native Spanish speaker.

So, it would be: ¿Has preparado la lección para la clase?

Thank you. I would never doubt Lazarus lol - I was doubting whether I had understood correctly! - billygoat, Jun 22, 2011