# i-a



## 盲人瞎馬

Reușita noastră i-a stresat pe politicieni.
Our success stressed the politicians.

I don't understand this sentence and what i-a is doing there. Apparently i- is ea in the dative form, but how and why? Is i- referring to reușită? "To the success" was stressed? Shouldn't there be a comma after nostră? I don't get it.


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## jazyk

I is the masculine plural personal pronoun (os in Portuguese). It's required in Romanian when there's a pe introducing the direct object. 

Respect niște politicieni. I respect a few politicians.
Îi respect pe politicienii brazilieni  I respect (the) Brazilian polticians.

Why a comma? Most languages forbid the use of a comma between a verb and its object.


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## danielstan

I totally disagree.

First a matter of orthography:
the dash ('-') sign in Romanian marks the pronounciation of 2 separate words as a single one, similar with the French '-' in examples like:

_prends-le_

French orthography uses the single quote (l'apostrophe) when 2 words are pronounced as one, but some sounds are missing due to the 'liason'.
Eample:

_t'as vu (tu as vu)_

Romanian orthography does not make the distinction between the 2 situations above, so it uses always the dash '-', even in examples when a sound is missing:
_i-a stresat_

Hint:
In order to 'discover' what sound is missing in the Romanian example above 
we can rephrase that sentence at present tense:

Reușita noastră *îi* stresează pe politicieni.

where *îi*  is an indirect complement in Dative case ("them").

So, the _i-a_ part of the original phrase is a contracted form of _'îi a'_.

A literal translation (which, of course, sounds weird in English) would be:

"Our success *them *has stressed the politicians."


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## danielstan

On a related topic I will give all declensions of the above sentence in present tense versus past tense:

Ea mă  stresează  pe mine.  / Ea m-a stresat  pe mine.
Ea te stresează  pe tine.  / Ea te-a stresat pe tine.
Ea îl stresează  pe el.  / Ea l-a stresat pe el.
Ea o stresează  pe ea.  / Ea a stresat-o  pe ea.    !!! (exception here)
Ea ne stresează  pe noi.  / Ea ne-a stresat  pe noi.
Ea vă  stresează  pe voi.  / Ea v-a stresat  pe voi.
Ea îi stresează  pe ei.  / Ea i-a stresat  pe ei.
Ea le stresează  pe ele.  / Ea le-a stresat pe ele.


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## irinet

Hi,

A little grammar correction, which is not important for the case: here, the pronoun 'îi' is a Direct Object, doubling or better, anticipating the noun 'politicieni', which is another Direct Object, both in the Accusative Case.
_Reușita noastră i-a stresat*. (Whom?)  - them - 'i' = (who's 'them'?) =  [pe politicieni - the politicians]*_

As for the Dative,
_We do have '*'îi*' in the Dative as well. However, it's a pronoun in the singular form (either masculine or feminine) like, 1. *Îi oferā flori de ziua ei. 2. Iar lui îi spune ceva acel lucru.(present tense)
 3. I-a dat o veste.(past tense)*

So, there's no ortographic difference for any of the above cases when we change the tense. Thus, the confusion, I believe , appears so often. However, we do have the singular # plural forms to pay attention to.

1.DO, sg: Reușita *l*-a stresat / a stresat-o.
The success stressed *him*/her. (doesn't matter whose success it is.)
2.IO, pl.: *Le* oferā flori. *Le*-a dat o veste.
*They* are given flowers. He/she gave *them* the news._


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## 盲人瞎馬

But I wanna know why write " Reușita noastră i-a stresat pe politicieni" instead of " Reușita noastră a stresat pe politicieni. ". What is the pronoun doing there?


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## jazyk

jazyk said:


> It's required in Romanian when there's a pe introducing the direct object.


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## 盲人瞎馬

I thought "pe" was there as complement of a stresa, as if  "a stresa pe" was the entire verb, almost like a phrasal verb.


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## jazyk

No, it's not.


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## 盲人瞎馬

Alright, thanks everyone!


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## danielstan

Vitalore said:


> But I wanna know why write " Reușita noastră i-a stresat pe politicieni" instead of " Reușita noastră a stresat pe politicieni. ". What is the pronoun doing there?


I know this reduplication of direct objects is strange as this phenomenon is not encountered (or rarely encountered) in other Romance languages.
Practically the  _ îi_   from _ i-a_   and   _prieteni    _are identifying the same concept in this sentence: the direct object upon which the action has effect.

I read somewhere of a possible Slavic influence, but I don't remember well this part...


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## danielstan

Vitalore said:


> I thought "pe" was there as complement of a stresa, as if  "a stresa pe" was the entire verb, almost like a phrasal verb.


This 'pe' is a feature developed isolated in Romanian (Aromanian does not have it) and is similar to the Spanish 'a' in a sentence like:

_Ion o vede *pe *Maria_    vs.  _ Juan ve *a* Maria_

There are many linguistic debates regarding the origin of this 'pe'  (< lat. _per_)  and no general consensus was reached.
In my opinion the 'necessity' of a preposition attached to the direct object derived from the fact that without it
a sentence would need to follow the pattern SVO (Subject Verb Object):

_Ion vede Maria_

In fact there are Romanian texts from XVI century with such kind of sentences.

With 'pe' the speaker has a greater freedom in chosing the words order in sentence:
_Pe Maria o vede Ion.
Ion pe Maria o vede._


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