# personal "a" in Spanish



## ppaul562

Hello,

Can anyone tell me the origin of personal "a". I have a feeling that it may be something to do with the Latin accusative case. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

Paul


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## wardo

Could you be more specific? I have no idea what you mean by "personal "a"".


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## Milton Sand

Hello:
It has nothing to do with the Latin accusative case, of which function is the same as our indirect objects. 

Rather than a heritage from Latin or something, it has always seemed to me like a practical need. This is a morfologic mark of the Spanish animated direct object, which help us not to get confused by the Spanish license of changing the placements of the sentence's elements:

El jefe controla a Carlos = A Carlos controla el jefe = Controla el jefe a Carlos = The boss controls Carlos.
La máquina controla Carlos = Carlos operates the machine.
La máquina controla a Carlos —> Carlos is operated by the machine.

So it seems to have become a general rule for animated indirect objects regardless the subject being animated or not.

I'm going to search the actual origin...

Regards,


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## berndf

Milton Sand said:


> It has nothing to do with the Latin accusative case, of which function is the same as our indirect objects.


Accusative is the case of the direct object. The case of the indirect object is dative.
 
As you described, the "personal a" in Spanish is a direct object marker. So it would not be wrong to call it an accusative marker. It is derived from the Latin preposition _ad_ (_=to_) which required an accusative. What is a bit confusing is that _a, à_ has become an *in*direct object maker in other Romance languages (Fr: _Je donne l'argent _*à*_ Pierre_).


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## Hulalessar

The use of _a(d)_ before a human direct object can be traced back to Vulgar Latin. No one is quite sure why the use arose, but the general explanation is that it was to avoid ambiguity. In Latin, word order was fairly free because case endings marked the syntactic relationship between nouns in a sentence. Presumably, as case endings were dropped word order became more important to determine the syntactic function of a noun, but obviously there was not an overnight switch from one to the other.

The fact that, on the whole, there is less likely to be ambiguity when the direct object is inanimate would seem to explain why the use attaches to human (and animal) direct objects only. However, in earlier forms of Spanish examples can be found both of _a_ being used for inanimate direct objects and not being used for human direct objects - indeed to an extent this still persists in modern Spanish.

In modern Spanish, the use of _a _tends to be restricted to known human beings (and animals). In_ Busco al camarero que habla inglés_ you know the English speaking waiter exists. In_ Busco (a) un camarero que hable inglés _you are uncertain of his existence.

It should also be noted that, whilst it does not have anywhere near the same freedom as Latin, word order in Spanish is a little freer than in, say, French. Information considered important may come first and in relative clauses the verb may precede the subject. This means that _a_ may also be used to designate an inanimate direct object to avoid ambiguity. In _La regla que perjudica al asunto... _we know for sure that the rule prejudices the affair, but in _La regla que perjudica el asunto... _we are uncertain whether the rule is prejudicing the affair, or the affair is prejudicing the rule.


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## Outsider

berndf said:


> What is a bit confusing is that _a, à_ has become an *in*direct object maker in other Romance languages (Fr: _Je donne l'argent _*à*_ Pierre_).


_A_ is _also_ an indirect object marker in Spanish. Conversely, _a_ is used as a direct object marker in other RL, too, though much less frequently than in Spanish.


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## berndf

Outsider said:


> _...__a_ is used as a direct object marker in other RL, too...


Interesting. In which ones? Do you have examples?


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## Outsider

In Portuguese, when the direct object is a person, it may be preceded by _a_ in certain circumstances:

- in clitic doubling (used e.g. for emphasis): _Eu levo-te a ti ao lugar de encontro_, "I will drive _you_ to the meeting place".
- in certain constructions with an archaic flavour. Here's one I remember from Sunday school, the 1st commandment: _Amar a Deus sobre todas as coisas_, "To love God above all things".

Although I couldn't come up with any French examples off the bat, I'm pretty sure that _à_ is used before the DO at least in clitic doubling.


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## Milton Sand

berndf said:


> Accusative is the case of the direct object. The case of the indirect object is dative.
> 
> As you described, the "personal a" in Spanish is a direct object marker. So it would not be wrong to call it an accusative marker. It is derived from the Latin preposition _ad_ (_=to_) which required an accusative. What is a bit confusing is that _a, à_ has become an *in*direct object maker in other Romance languages (Fr: _Je donne l'argent _*à*_ Pierre_).


 
Your so right! I was thinking in ablative case. I'm sorry, I'm going to fix it right away.

Hulalessar's explanation was great.


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## palomnik

Hulalessar said:


> The fact that, on the whole, there is less likely to be ambiguity when the direct object is inanimate would seem to explain why the use attaches to human (and animal) direct objects only. However, in earlier forms of Spanish examples can be found both of _a_ being used for inanimate direct objects and not being used for human direct objects - indeed to an extent this still persists in modern Spanish.


 
The use of _a _removes other ambiguities too, most notably in reflexive sentences:

_Se mat__ó al rey_ - the king was killed.
_Se mat__ó el rey_ - the king killed himself.

Which is somewhat off topic, so I will close.


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## ppaul562

Many Thanks,
Thanks you so very much. I had never considered the question before, but when my teacher said,
"Well, that is just the way it is" it was like a red rag etc and I just had to find out.

Paul



Hulalessar said:


> The use of _a(d)_ before a human direct object can be traced back to Vulgar Latin. No one is quite sure why the use arose, but the general explanation is that it was to avoid ambiguity. In Latin, word order was fairly free because case endings marked the syntactic relationship between nouns in a sentence. Presumably, as case endings were dropped word order became more important to determine the syntactic function of a noun, but obviously there was not an overnight switch from one to the other.
> 
> The fact that, on the whole, there is less likely to be ambiguity when the direct object is inanimate would seem to explain why the use attaches to human (and animal) direct objects only. However, in earlier forms of Spanish examples can be found both of _a_ being used for inanimate direct objects and not being used for human direct objects - indeed to an extent this still persists in modern Spanish.
> 
> In modern Spanish, the use of _a _tends to be restricted to known human beings (and animals). In_ Busco al camarero que habla inglés_ you know the English speaking waiter exists. In_ Busco (a) un camarero que hable inglés _you are uncertain of his existence.
> 
> It should also be noted that, whilst it does not have anywhere near the same freedom as Latin, word order in Spanish is a little freer than in, say, French. Information considered important may come first and in relative clauses the verb may precede the subject. This means that _a_ may also be used to designate an inanimate direct object to avoid ambiguity. In _La regla que perjudica al asunto... _we know for sure that the rule prejudices the affair, but in _La regla que perjudica el asunto... _we are uncertain whether the rule is prejudicing the affair, or the affair is prejudicing the rule.


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## berndf

Outsider said:


> In Portuguese, when the direct object is a person, it may be preceded by _a_ in certain circumstances...


Thank you. But you don't find it outside of the Iberian peninsular, right?


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## Outsider

I don't know. I find _aimer à Dieu_ on the Net (French), but it was just 10 hits, so this may not mean much...


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## Hulalessar

ppaul562 said:


> ...my teacher said, "Well, that is just the way it is"


 
Not an entirely unreasonable position for a teacher to take - when learning a language "why?" is not always a good question - you have to accept that things are the way they are.




ppaul562 said:


> ...it was like a red rag etc and I just had to find out.


 
It is good to have an enquiring mind.


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## berndf

Outsider said:


> I don't know. I find _aimer à Dieu_ on the Net (French), but it was just 10 hits, so this may not mean much...


It doesn't sound right in French. And 7 of these 10 hits seem to stem from Spanish or Portuguese speakers.


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## Outsider

That's very likely. I was too tired to check. 

I wonder if anything unexpected happens in the languages of Italy...


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## jazyk

In southern Italy you may hear Chiama a Marco (Call Marco). This isn't considered standard Italian, though.

In Romanian you use the preposition pe, which is obligatory when the direct object is definite, as the Spanish a: O iubesc pe mama mea (I love my mom). Here the pronoun o (her) has to be duplicated before the verb, like saying (I) her love (to) mother my.


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## Milton Sand

Hello again,
I hope I won't say any _burradas_ again. I did my homework (I hope I did it well). It is clear so far that the actual reason for Spanish to use the "personal a" (I won't insist in not calling it that way) is to avoid ambiguity. There's a bit more to it; this is what I've been told, which somehow confirms Ppaul562's suspictions and what Brend and Hulalessar told us:

Latins (at least late Latins) used to avoid ambiguity too, when speaking, by including prepositions to the case's declension of a noun. The declension could be different from the corresponding one; for instance, "rosae color" _(the rose's color)_ could be said "de rosa color", using the preposition "de"_ (from)_ with the noun's ablative declension "rosa" instead of the genitive declension "rosae"_._ But this is not what we want to know right now…

Accusative and dative cases were sometimes helped (in non-formal speech) by the preposition "ad" _(towards) _—sometimes "in" _(towards, into),_ only for dative—, both using the accusative declination. Hence the Spanish 'habit'.

Ancient Spanish laguage used this resource for human DO’s, specially if they were names. This usage was gradually extended to almost any animated OD. But it was only during the Spanish Golden Age when the use of "a" introducing an animated known/specific DO became one of gramatical use.

I hope all of that makes sense.

I'll be back


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## Áristos

Sr. Sand, I take my hat off to you (again).
That makes complete sense, and it's so well explained...

Thanks for bringing back old memories of when I used to study Latin.

Regards.


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## Hulalessar

Sometimes explanations are difficult to find. One just has to accept that things are the way they are. One may just as well ask why in English no preposition is needed to show an indirect object, as in:

_Give John the book_

and then go on to ask why, if you do use _to,_ the indirect object has to come after the direct object:

_Give the book to John_


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## ppaul562

My first thread, and I am amazed at the number of informed and interesting people who have taken an interest.

So, the answer appears to be, that as latin moved away from its cultural and literary home, it became less inflected; the lack of case endings leading to  ambiguity. The construction that I refer to as "personal a" and others, were used to restore clarity. 

Homo feminam amat
Hominem femina amat
_(hope that is right, I last looked at latin almost half a century ago)_
It is all quite clear until you remove the case endings and then you really don't know where you are.

Thanks to all respondents

Paul


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## Hulalessar

ppaul562 said:


> So, the answer appears to be, that as latin moved away from its cultural and literary home, it became less inflected;


 
Not quite. Latin changed wherever it was spoken, including in Italy. Side by side with the changes Latin was preserved (though not quite in its classical form) as a written language. It was only when the spoken and written forms had diverged considerably that the vernaculars started to be written. Even in Ancient Rome the spoken language must have differed from the written language.



ppaul562 said:


> ...the lack of case endings leading to ambiguity. The construction that I refer to as "personal a" and others, were used to restore clarity.


 
I do not think it is as simple as that. When looking at the history of a language it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that some earlier form was "intermediate". However, at any given moment in history a language is a complete system. I do not think that at any time there was ambiguity because language cannot be ambiguous if it is to be a useful means of communication. The loss of case endings and strategies to compensate for the loss must have taken place simultaneously. 

Language change is a bit like a kaleidoscope that you turn a little at a time. Each time you tweak it a few of the beads move, but the pattern is still recognisably related to the last pattern. The more you turn it, the more different the pattern is from the first pattern, but each pattern of beads is still a complete pattern.


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## ppaul562

Thanks for your insight.

A blinding glimpse of the obvious. You are so right. A language must always be complete - until the next revision.

I like the kaleidoscope analogy.


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## Forero

Here is an example from _The Story of Latin and the Romance Languages_, by Mario Pei:

Latin:
_Canis videt cervum.
Cervum videt canis._

Old French:
_Li chiens veit le cerf._ [= Spanish _El perro ve al ciervo._]
_ Le cerf veit li chiens._ [= Spanish _Al ciervo ve el perro._]

Pei says that French held on to case endings (at least for accusative vs. nominative) longer than Spanish, and that, for example, the form _murs_ [= Spanish _muro_(_s_)] was nominative when singular, accusative when plural; the form _mur_ (muro/moros), without the _s_, was nominative when plural, accusative when singular.

Modern French, like English, has to use strict word order: _Le chien voit le cerf._ [= _The dog sees the deer._]


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## effeundici

jazyk said:


> In southern Italy you may hear Chiama a Marco (Call Marco). This isn't considered standard Italian, though.
> 
> In Romanian you use the preposition pe, which is obligatory when the direct object is definite, as the Spanish a: O iubesc pe mama mea (I love my mom). Here the pronoun o (her) has to be duplicated before the verb, like saying (I) her love (to) mother my.


 
Actually southern italian dialects use a lot this strange (for me) _*a*._

But in standard italian _a _is used for dative cases.

Perhaps spanish domination of southern italy can be an explanation.


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## stultus

Here is a great excerpt from the Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas which show exactly how ambiguities led to the mandatory use of the personal "a" as well as the immobilization of a verb in singular in passive sentences: 



> *2.2.* _Se venden casas_ o _se vende casas_. Aunque tienen en común el omitir el agente de la acción, conviene no confundir las oraciones impersonales (carentes de sujeto y con el verbo inmovilizado en tercera persona del singular) y las oraciones de pasiva refleja (con el verbo en tercera persona del singular o del plural, concertando con el sujeto paciente). La confusión puede darse únicamente con verbos transitivos, pues son los únicos que pueden generar ambos tipos de oraciones: _Se busca a los culpables_ (impersonal) / _Se buscan casas con jardín_ (pasiva refleja).
> 
> 
> En el castellano antiguo solo existían las oraciones de pasiva refleja, que no planteaban ningún problema cuando el sujeto denotaba cosa: _«Se cantan cosas torpes e malas»_ (Cuéllar _Catecismo_ [Esp. 1325]); pero cuando el sujeto denotaba persona se producían casos de ambigüedad entre los significados reflexivo, recíproco y de pasiva refleja; así, una oración como _Se tratan bien los pobres_ podía tener una interpretación reflexiva (a sí mismos), recíproca (entre sí) o de pasiva refleja (por alguien que no se menciona). *Para evitar la ambigüedad se fue extendiendo la práctica de anteponer al sustantivo de persona la preposición *_*a*,_ cuando la oración debía interpretarse como pasiva refleja: _«Que se respeten a los prelados de la Iglesia»_ (Palafox _Carta _[Esp. 1652]). Finalmente se inmovilizó el verbo en singular, dando lugar a la estructura impersonal con _se_ del español actual: _«A pesar del régimen excepcional con que se trataba a los reclusos extranjeros» _(Chavarría _Rojo_ [Ur. 2002]). Así pues, las oraciones impersonales nacen solo referidas a persona.


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