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Usage of the Third Person Object Pronoun in Representative Mexican Novelsof the Twentieth Century--A Linguistic Study

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Usage of the Third Person Object Pronoun in Representative Mexican Novelsof the Twentieth Century--A Linguistic Study Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1967 Usage of the Third Person Object Pronoun in Representative Mexican Novelsof the Twentieth Century--A Linguistic Study. Raymond Nichlos Sabatini Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Sabatini, Raymond Nichlos, "Usage of the Third Person Object Pronoun in Representative Mexican Novelsof the Twentieth Century-- A Linguistic Study." (1967). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 1263. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/1263 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 6 7- 8794 SABATINI, Raymond Nichlos, 1929- USAGE OF THE THIRD PERSON OBJECT PRONOUN IN REPRESENTATIVE MEXICAN NOVELS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY—A LINGUISTIC STUDY. Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1967 Language and Literature, linguistics University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan USAGE OF THE THIRD PERSON OBJECT PRONOUN IN REPRESENTATIVE MEXICAN NOVELS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY - - A LINGUISTIC STUDY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Foreign Languages by Raymond Nichlos Sabatini •A., University of Southwestern Louisiana, 19^7 January, 1967 ACKNOWLEDGMENT The writer acknowledges the inspiration and scholarly guidance of Professor John A. Thompson, the director of this dissertation, and wishes also to thank Professors Alfredo Berumen, Alfredo Lozada, and Wyatt A. Pickens for their assistance and helpfulness. Only through the encouragement and guidance offered him during the preparation of this study was he able to complete the work successfully. ii TABLE OP CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT............................................................................. iv INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... v i Chapter I . A REVIEW OP GRAMMARIANS' STATEMENTS CONCERNING OBJECT PRONOUN USAGE IN SPANISH................................................ 1 I I . A STUDY OP THE PRONOUN USAGE IN INDIVIDUAL NOVELS........ 13 I I I . COMPOSITE STATISTICS AND ANALYSES. 287 IV. SUMMARY................................................................. 338 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................... 3^9 VITA ..........................................................................................352 i ABSTRACT Because there is a lack of uniformity in Spanish grammarians’ precepts and in writers' usage of pronoun objects of the third person, this study was made in an effort to determine the degree of uniformity or variance of usage by twenty-three Mexican novelists of the twentieth century of the pronoun forms that derive from the Latin accusative case (lo, la, los, las) and of those that derive from the Latin dative pronouns (]£, lea). Tabulations have been made to show the incidence of the two pronoun groups in the following types of construction: single pronoun with a single verb; pronoun with verbs of perception, causation or volition followed by an infinitive; combinations of se plus object pronouns in impersonal active constructions. In the constructions involving a verb plus infinitive, a study was made to determine whether the nature of the dependent infinitive (intransitive, transitive or reflexive) has any appreciable influence on pronominal usage. In all cases involving a relatively high incidence of the le/les forms, a special study was made to determine whether there were Identifiable factors that might explain the usage of these forms. iv Tabulations were made to indicate percentages of occurrences of le/les in each of the twenty-six novels as a group. The tabulations are separately categorized according to the type of grammatical construction, the nature of the referents of the pronouns (usted, ustedes; persons not in direct address; animals; things), and the source of the usage (i.e., whether it occurred in the authors1 narrative or in dialogues of characters in the novels). The utterances in which the pronouns occur are given in the section in which the individual novels are analyzed. Although not specifically within the purview of this study, the occurrences of lafsmo (use of historically accusative forms as dative pronouns) have been recorded. v INTRODUCTION There is considerable variance among speakers and writers of Spanish in usage of "with-verb", or conjunctive, object pronouns of the third person. Grammarians and preceptists have not treated the problem with completeness, clarity and precision. There is general, but not unanimous, agreement among grammarians and reasonable conform ity among users concerning le/les as dative and lo/los/la/la3 as accusative pronouns with single verbs in cases where dative or accusative relationship is clear and unequivocal. However, there is noticeable lack of conformity among users and lack of complete and clear precepts on the part of grammarians in constructions where the case relationship of pronoun to verb is equivocal or less obvious, such as: (a) pronoun objects of verbs of perception followed by a dependent infinitivej (b) pronoun objects of verbs of causation followed by a dependent infinitive; (c) pronoun objects of verbs without an expressed dependent infinitive, but which conceivably could imply a dependent infinitive phrase or clause (los (les) ayudan -- los (les) ayudan a escaparse); (d) pronoun objects of verbs used with impersonal se_ or passive se. Likewise, usage is affected by the category of the noun represented by the object pronoun (usted, ustedes; persons not in direct address, persons of higher or lower social status, animals, things) and, again, the grammarians provide no clear and authoritative gu id an ce• The purpose of this study is to tabulate and analyze the usage of ’’with-verb” object pronouns in representative Mexican novels of the twentieth century in order to determine if there is a discernible regularity of pattern in the novels as a group or in individual novels, and if there are logical or plausible explanations for irregularities in pattern. It Is hoped that these tabulations and analyses may throw some lig h t on current trends o f usage and thereby contribute to an eventual comprehensive and authoritative treatise on the subject. The writer has chosen for the study twenty-six novels published over a fifty- year period (1912 - 1962 ), which represent a variety of types or trends in that genre that were current during that time. The novels that were selected inclu de some that did and some th at did not achieve popular success or critical acclaim. For the sake of convenience and ready reference, in view of the lack of uniform and authoritative guidance, a resume is given in Chapter I of this study v l i of the precepts and discussions pertinent to the lefsmo problem that are contained in representative grammars• Notwithstanding Hanssens’s statement that clear discrimination between accusative and dative forms was prevalent in early documents ,*■ lack of consistency in usage is found throughout Spanish literature from the Poema de m£o Cid and Berceo to the present time. Criado de Val recognizes the historical aspect of the confusion and attempts a partial explanation in the following: El espanol, como las otras lenguas romanicas, se encontro con la heren cia la t in a de una declinacion pronominal reducida a tres casos: nominativo, acu- sativo y dativo. Pero esta de­ clinacion era un residuo conde- nado a ser mal comprendido por el pueblo, y el espanol, mas avanzado en e ste punto que la s otras lenguas neolatinas fue perdiendo la distincion entre el dativo y el acusativo y sustituyendo la nocion de caso por otras dos nociones mas fa- cilmente comprensibles: la de la fu n cio n , que opone e l sujeto al complemento, y la del genero, que opone el masculino al femenino y ambos al neutro. Esta evo lu cio n de lo s pro- nombres es la causa del gran numero de confusion es y pro- blemas que la interpretacion de le, la y lo ha planteado y plantea a las gramatlcas espa- •^•Pederico Hanssen, dramatic a h is to r lc a c a ste lla n a (Halle A. S.: Max Niemeyer, 1913), p. 19^* viii Solas. Confusion agravada por tratarse de una evolucion en curso y que presenta distintos grados, segun la region espa- Kola que se e s tu d ie . La discusion en torno al ’’lefsmo11, ula£smo” y "lofsmo", que todav£a se mantlene, es una prueba de que aun no e s ta con- solidado el sistema pronominal espaSol. En una gramatica de mediados del siglo pasado, como la de Salva, se alude a una cu- riosa discusion sobre el signi- ficado obsceno que en aquella epoca ten£a el uso de l£, que hoy nos resulta casi incompren- sible. La diversidad de usos regionales aumenta la diflcul- tad del problems.^ The geographical factor makes even more complicated the lack of historical uniformity of canons and usage. Martinez Amador summarizes the present-day geographical distribution with respect to regional variations of usage throughout the Spanish-speaking world:
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