# Past participle agreement in 13th Century Spanish



## Beachxhair

Hi everyone

I've been reading about the history of the Spanish language, Penny's _A History of the Spanish Language. _He says that past participle agreement (with direct object) disappeared in the 13th and 14th century periods, but he doesn't explain why. 

Could anyone shed any light on this?


Thank you


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## Angelo di fuoco

As they say, the two (contradictory) principles that rule the development of any language are economy and maximal expressivity. If you can make your point clear without repeating the same (grammatical) information, you can dispense with one reduntant element.
You can see that French, which does shorten the singular direct object pronouns (le, la) to l' if the following verb begins with a vowel, has the most developed past participle agreement of all "big" Romance languages (I don't know anything about Romanian), at least in writing.
Italian used to shorten words a lot (not only pronouns & articles, but also other parts of speech), but nowadays this feature is getting lost, so you can observe that the past participle agreement is losing ground.
Spanish doesn't shorten the object pronouns at all, you can always recognise their gender, so the agreement was lost at a very early stage. You can also observe that ser as auxiliary verb for intransitive verbs disappeared at more or less the same time, and it also required past participle agreement. Nowaday you have ser with participle agreement only when you use the passive voice.


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## berndf

I suppose you talk about ppl agreement for the Romance periphrastic perfect forms for transitive verbs, because ppl agreement in general is alive and kicking (_un hombre respetad*o*/una mujer respetad*a*_).

I would say, it was lost because there is no obvious reason for it given the modern interpretation as a verb form. The more relevant question would then be: Why was there ever such an agreement? It still exists in some Romance languages. In French it still exists but only for pronominal objects while for verbs that construct their perfects with _être _the ppl (always) agrees with the subject.

To understand why these agreement rules existed in Vulgar Latin/Proto-Romance (with the direct object for verbs with _habere_ and with the subject for verbs with _essere_) one needs to understand the semantics behind these periphrastic forms:
(1) For intransitive and and reflexive verbs, the ppl has active meaning, i.e. is expresses a property of the agent of an action (remember that by its basic nature, a participle is an adjective).
(2) For transitive verbs is expresses a property of the patient of the action.

For verbs (1) the ppl serves semantically as predicative adjective and like all predicative adjectives agrees with the subjects: _She has arrived = elle est arrivé*e* =_ (literally) _she is an arrived one_.
For verbs (2) the ppl serves semantically as an attributive adjective of the direct object (= the patent):_ he some girls > he saw them__ = il les a vu*es*_ = (literally) _he has them (= girls) which are seen ones._


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## aefrizzo

berndf said:


> To understand why these agreement rules existed in Vulgar Latin/Proto-Romance (with the direct object for verbs with _habere_ and with the subject for verbs with _essere_) one needs to understand the semantics behind these periphrastic forms:.........
> (2) For transitive verbs is expresses a property of the patient of the action........
> For verbs (2) the ppl serves semantically as an attributive adjective of the direct object (= the patent):_ he some girls > he saw them__ = il les a vu*es*_ = (literally) _he has them (= girls) which are seen ones._


Do the same semantics apply to the following sentence: Les filles que j'ai vu*es*? Anyway this agreement is recommended just when the ppl *follows* the DO, or am I wrong? 
Thank you.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Yep, you are right that agreement takes places (or doesn't, according to the rules - French knows no facultative past participle agreement, unlike Italian) only if the past participle follows the direct object (or subject of a verb which uses être as its auxiliary verb).


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## berndf

aefrizzo said:


> Do the same semantics apply to the following sentence: Les filles que j'ais vu*es*? Anyway this agreement is recommended just when the ppl *follows* the DO, or am I wrong?
> Thank you.


Yes. But the two explanations amount to the same thing as only pronominal objects precede the participle (in this case _que_ is the accusative pronoun).


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## jmx

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Spanish doesn't shorten the object pronouns at all, ...


That is perhaps true for formal registers, but not for the informal ones.


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## CapnPrep

berndf said:


> Yes. But the two explanations amount to the same thing as only pronominal objects precede the participle (in this case _que_ is the accusative pronoun).


No, it also occurs with fronted non-pronominal objects in interrogative structures: _Quelles filles as-tu vues ?_ But I agree with what you said in #3, that speakers just don't find this agreement very meaningful or useful, and they can get along just fine, or even better, without having to do it. Even in cases where _la_/_le_ elides to _l'_. And I imagine that Spanish went through the same evolution long ago.


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## berndf

CapnPrep said:


> No, it also occurs with fronted non-pronominal objects in interrogative structures: _Quelles filles as-tu vues ?_ But I agree with what you said in #3, that speakers just don't find this agreement very meaningful or useful, and they can get along just fine, or even better, without having to do it. Even in cases where _la_/_le_ elides to _l'_. And I imagine that Spanish went through the same evolution long ago.


Touché


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## aefrizzo

Angelo di fuoco said:


> ... (or subject of a verb which uses être as its auxiliary verb).


Thank you, *Angelo*.
An example, please?


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## berndf

aefrizzo said:


> Thank you, *Angelo*.
> An example, please?


Like in Italian:
_I pacchett*i* sono arrivat*i*.
Les coli*s* sont arrivé*s*.
_


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## aefrizzo

berndf said:


> Like in Italian:
> _I pacchett*i* sono arrivat*i*.
> Les coli*s* sont arrivé*s*.
> _


Donc, les fille*s* sont arriv*ées*? Merci


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## CapnPrep

Angelo di fuoco said:


> French knows no facultative past participle agreement, unlike Italian


There are a number of borderline cases where agreement is optional according to French grammars, for example: when the direct object is _en_ representing an indefinite plural, or when the participle is causative _laissé_. In more ordinary situations, grammarians continue to insist on agreement, but actual speech shows that past participle agreement with _avoir_ is highly variable.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Thank you for the information. I'd like to see some examples, to make it clearer.


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## CapnPrep

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Thank you for the information. I'd like to see some examples, to make it clearer.


You can find some in these threads in the French forums:
FR: accord du participe passé avec "en" / past participle agreement with "en"
laissé(e)(s) + infinitif - accord du participe passé de "laisser"

Past participle agreement is one of the most common topics in the French forums. These threads are often started by native speakers, and the native speakers who respond are often also unsure, or provide incorrect or contradictory answers. And in the majority of cases, the agreement is purely orthographic, with no effect on pronunciation, so no one can rely on their intuitions about what "sounds" right. (The potential parallel between Old Spanish and modern French breaks down here, since agreement has always been clearly audible in Spanish.)


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## Angelo di fuoco

Thanks you!


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## mackyaj

May I ask a quick question about the original subject - the loss of past participle agreement.

Is anything known about the order of loss relating to number and gender? 

I have read a paper that speculates about a reduction in Catalan participle agreement following the order: first masculine plural reduces to masculine singular (ie the standard form) agreement, then feminine plural and finally feminine singular. Was this the case in old Spanish?

Thank you


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## CapnPrep

I don't know if any particular sequence of loss has been established for Old Spanish. And it may not have been a case of constant loss of agreement: Menéndez Pidal suggests that agreement was more strictly applied in the 13th century than in the 12th century (see here), so copyists modified invariable participles in earlier texts in order to add the "correct" agreement.

Could you give the reference of your paper on Catalan?


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## mackyaj

CapnPrep said:


> I don't know if any particular sequence of loss has been established for Old Spanish. And it may not have been a case of constant loss of agreement: Menéndez Pidal suggests that agreement was more strictly applied in the 13th century than in the 12th century (see here), so copyists modified invariable participles in earlier texts in order to add the "correct" agreement.
> 
> Could you give the reference of your paper on Catalan?



Thanks: a most interesting link.
I have found:
“La disminución de la sintaxis concordante afecta en primer lugar […] a aquellas construcciones con objeto femenino singular” while “los objetos directos masculino plural y femenino plural son más resistentes”  according to Concepción Company (1983:248) 'Sintaxis y valores de los tiempos compuestos en el español medieval'.

Araceli Calzado Roldán cites the above but also observes that “dentro de la Teoría de la Transividad la explicación es diferente: los objetos singulars son más individuados que los plurals” (1997:23) 'La pérdida de la concordancia del participio con el objeto en los tiempos compuestos medievales'.
So plenty of reading & research to be done there!

As for the Catalan participle agreement reduction (which is probably off topic), the MP, FP, FS hypothesis seems to trace back to Wheeler, Max. (1988) ‘Catalan’ in Harris, M. and Vincent, N. (eds.), The Romance Languages. London: Routledge. I haven't managed to track this down...yet!


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