Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns With Impersonal 'Se'
Hi all,
Considering these examples....
"When you say nice words to someone...." , "when you say them (nice words) to someone"
or
"When one gives gifts to others......"
If I'm going to translate that in impersonal se construction, where should the direct and indirect object pronouns be placed?
"When you say them (nice words) to someone", saying that in impersonal se construction, we have 'se', direct object pronoun (las) and the indirect object pronoun (le).
Cuando se las se dice a alguien....???. This seems very wrong.
Help, please!
4 Answers
The term impersonal is used to refer to two different things, which makes it very difficult to understand what people mean by this term. Impersonality can be a semantic term, meaning that the person or thing that performed the action is deliberately omitted or concealed (e.g. "The bridge was built" - we didn't say by whom). The second one is probably more restricted to the Spanish grammar tradition, because it is a syntactic impersonality, i.e. there is no grammatical subject in the sentence. E.g. "Llueve", "Se duerme bien"...
Constructions with passive reflexive 'se' are semantically impersonal, but not syntactically impersonal, whereas those with an impersonal 'se' (e.g. Se duerme bien) are both semantically and syntactically impersonal.
Spanish can't have two 'se' in the same block (as far as I know), so any attempt to merge an impersonal (or passive) 'se' with "se las dije" (I said them to him/her) will result in failure. In these cases, all native speakers would follow what the academic grammar recommends in these cases: with transitive verbs, you don't use the impersonal 'se', unless the direct object is a specific person.
In other words, "regalos" ("gifts") is the subject of this construction, so you can't replace it with "los". "A otros" (or "les") is a normal indirect object, and "se" is a passive reflexive marker:
Cuando se le dan regalos a la gente = When people are given gifts
There is a temptation to try to replace "regalos" with "los", and say something like "Cuando se le lo..." or "Cuando se se lo...", but they all sound incredibly awful, even for the average native speaker who knows nothing about grammar. But grammatically speaking, the explanation is simple: once you use that 'se', "regalos", which used to be a direct object (and therefore, it can be replaced by "los"), becomes a subject, and subjects cannot be replaced by direct object pronouns.
In this passive reflexive construction, "regalos" cannot be replaced by anything, other than another equivalent pronoun, like "esos":
Cuando se le dan esos a la gente = When people are given those
Cuando se le dicen las palabras buenas a alguien???
I would say something like "Cuando se le dicen halagos a alguien", depending on the exact meaning of "nice".
Cuando se le dicen las palabras buenas a alguien???
That "las" sounds as weird in Spanish as in English, unless those nice words are some specific words we were expecting: "When you say THE nice words to someone"
In other words, "regalos" ("gifts") is the subject of this construction, so you can't replace it with "los". "A otros" (or "les") is a normal indirect object, and "se" is a passive reflexive marker
So "When you say nice words to someone...." or "When one says nice words to someone.." should be translated into...
Cuando se le dicen las palabras buenas a alguien???
