Quererse usage

Question

So I was reading this passage, and this is what it said.

"Los representantes del gobierno me quieren muerto" ha asegurado Snowden en la conversación con el periodista alemán Hubert Seipel.

But when it says this, I know it to mean "The government representatives want me dead" but I just can't understand the "me quieren" part. Why is this a reflexive verb? I'd thought qerererse was to mean 'to love each other' or such. Can someone help clear this up?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Point 1: A verb that works reflexively (or appears to) is a reflexive verb. Reflexive verbs cannot be used without a clitic/direct object (the 'me', 'se' etc.).

Point 2: In Spanish, many verbs are reflexive, or are so commonly used reflexively that they are simply called reflexive verbs. For example, afeitarse. 'me afeito' should be (I do not know the conjugations well) 'I shave'. 'se afeita' = 'he/she/it shaves'.

Point 3: A verb is reflexive if, and only if, it is conjugated in the same person as the direct object.

Point 4: In 'me quieren', 'quieren' is conjugated in the third person plural indicative, while 'me' is the first person direct object. These two are not the same person.

Conclusion: Me quieren does not use some weird reflexive 'quererse', but the normal transitive 'querer' meaning 'to want'. 'Quieren' is 'they want', and 'me quieren' is 'they want me'.

Nice job :) - Kiwi-Girl, Jan 27, 2014

Thanks :) - Helado_eclectico, Jan 27, 2014

Oh, thank you. This was so confusing at first. - Saphire, Jan 28, 2014

Answer 2

Helado electrico is right on the button it's just regular old 'querer' used with the direct object pronoun 'me'.

Also I'm not 100% sure but I'd say that the phrase should really be "me quieren ver muerto" - if not then I would expect the something like "quieren que yo muere' using the subjunctive after a verb of influence like querer and a change of subject. But that is really a bit of a guess, I'd be interested to hear what a native speaker thinks of it.

Just a guess from what I have seen. Me quieren muerto is they want me dead. Me quieren ver muerto is they want to see me dead/they want to kill me if needed. - Helado_eclectico, Jan 27, 2014

Google seems to think that me quieren muerto is used more (but that's mostly because of Snoden, lol). Linguee has three examples of me quieren muerto and one example of me quieren ver muerto, which seem to somewhat confirm my assumptions. - Helado_eclectico, Jan 27, 2014

A native speaker's input would be a great confirmation, however. Also, quieren que yo muere sounds like 'they want that I die', putting, I think, more emphasis on the 'dying' than on the death. Still guessing, though. - Helado_eclectico, Jan 27, 2014

I'll ask my penpal what he thinks on this issue, if someone else doesn't pop in with more input. - Helado_eclectico, Jan 27, 2014