[Multilingual Monday] Passiveness

[aadroma]

Today's Multilingual Monday covers the passive voice. It's used in English quite a bit -- "The meal was cooked by my husband; isn't it great?" "I was robbed by two men." "I got fired for looking at porn in the office." Here the focus isn't on the ACTIONS, but the RESULTS -- the meal is done, and that's because of the husband in example one. The

Comments

[gorkabear]

Just a minor note.

When we study the "Pasiva del SE" in class, we don't call it reflexive, we call it "Pasiva del SE". Reflexive refers to actions performed on oneself, or related to oneself - and we use it a lot: me lavo la cara, me peino, me visto, me veo gordo, me corto el pelo (which somebody else does on us, not ourselves)... Grammatically, we use it either as Direct or Indirect object.

The "pasiva del se" works as the "ON" in French (although they use it as well to mean "WE"). In Catalan, the original passive form was "HOM", like in French, but because of Spanish, we say "SE" in informal language and "hom" in formal language.

Examples:
El cine se inventó en 1895
Hom inventà el cinema en 1895 (El cinema es va inventar en 1895)
Le cinéma fut inventé en 1895 / On inventa le cinéma en 1895.

There is also a very shocking passive form in English for us romance language speakers, which gets a lot of time to get used to: "I had my hair cut" or "I got my shirts pressed". We use different expressions altogether (Fui a cortarme el pelo, Llevé mis camisas a planchar)

[muckefuck]

Se habla español may be passive in meaning, but it's still grammatically active and reflexive. Similarly, sentences with hom and on have the effect of minimising the importance of the agent (which, as dr_tectonic points out, is one of the primary functions of the passive voice), but grammatically these are still active sentences. Another term used for both sorts of constructions is "impersonal", since the agent is depersonalised, either by being replaced with a generic pronoun (on) or left out altogether.

[gorkabear]

Ok, this might be a question of terms and grammar opinions, but they were called in my school books and the ones my students have now as this:

Usos del SE
- Forma reflexiva de tercera persona
- Uso en voz pasiva
- Modo impersonal

I've found an extensive list of the uses of SE here:
http://usuarios.lycos.es/grupozc/ayudaescolar/gramat-se.htm - although they're a mix-match of grammar and significate uses.

To what I just can sing like la Pantoja "Se me enamora el alma, se me enamora..."

[aadroma]

I think all Da's pointing out (and my original point) -- is that there's PHYSICALLY no differentiation between the reflexive and the passive, and the difference can only be made by CONTEXT alone. After all, if you just have "Se cortó", this can be "it was cut" or "he cut himself," and one can't tell outside of knowing the rest of the sentence.

[gorkabear]

You are completely right in this. A spanish humorist would surely use this to make a joke.

(there's another meaning, which is more idiomatic: "he became shy")

[muckefuck]

Q: What's so great about having an emo lawn?
A: It cuts itself!

[muckefuck]

Well, that's grammar books for you. They'll also tell you that English has a "future tense" when really all we have are modal constructions.

One source I found called the SE forms "mediopassive", which is an interesting term. "Middle voice" is a category which exists in many languages and expresses reflexive action ("I shower daily") or action that the subject undergoes rather than initiates (e.g. "The food is cooking"). So "mediopassive" means a form which covers both middle voice and passive voice.