Grammatical question- Pronoun Placement with Participles
Why is it that you can attach pronouns to a present participle like "Estoy cepillándome el pelo" but you can't attach to past participles like "Me he cepillado el pelo"
Both have a conjugated helping verb and a participle. Is there a rule for it, or is it just the way that it is and nobody knows why...?
4 Answers
I do not think anyone can say why languages allow certain things and not others, and shift what they allow over time.
For example:
In this article: https://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/i.e.mackenzie/historyofclitics.htm
They discuss the gradual shift of pronoun placement, and point out that apparently you could attach a pronoun to the end of a conjugated preterit verb:
Conversely to examples like (9) and (10), which point to an early erosion of the Tobler-Mussafia law, examples like (11) imply residual observance of it as late as the 19th century. For of the three conjoined clauses in this example, the first two exhibit pronominal enclisis, exactly as if they were subject to the Tobler-Mussafia principle.
(11) Fuele a ver sin embargo a su encierro, diole todavía el nombre de hijo, y le consoló [. . .]
‘He nevertheless went to see him in prison, continued to call him his son and consoled him . . .’ (Manuel José Quintana, Vidas de los españoles célebres, 1814)Thus while the modern system is already partially visible in the 13th century, remnants of the old system can be found right up until the 19th century. In other words, the change from the old system to the modern one took at least 600 years to run its full course.
But why that “fell out of style” and seems distinctly wrong nowadays is still not answered. Sorry this has nothing to do with the past participle vs. gerundio, but it does give you an idea of what the answer might be like, if you found it.
I already speak Spanish, I actually teach it. Yes, English is my native language, but we are on a present perfect lesson and I was telling them the rules for pronoun placement and I know from usage and experience and my own schooling that they don't attach I was just wondering if there was an actual answer as to why.
Since Spanish like most evolving languages are not fabricated or made up at a certain point in time (like Klingon for example), there is no way to answer why the usage is such. You will notice that the position of pronouns in relation to the verb is more often not like English, and that is because Spanish is not closely related linguistically to English. I mention this because usually these kinds of questions come up when you are studying a new language and I am assuming English is your native language.
The two main ways of learning are by immersion: surrounding yourself with the new language and only using it, and a grammatical approach. The question "Why is it this way?" is really not important in learning a language. My advice is to note the usage, learn it, and move on. Being a linguist or a language historian won't help you learn the new language any easier. Believe me I've tried to do both and each has its rewards.
Attaching pronouns to present participles is the rule and it is just the way Spanish developed. French developed differently.
