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For example, the Spanish reflexive construct "se hundió el barco" ("the boat sank") has no reflexive equivalent in some Slavic languages (which use an intransitive equivalent of sink), though for example Czech and Slovak do use a reflexive verb: "loď se potopila"/"loď sa potopila". Reflexive verbs can have a variety of uses and meanings ...
A reciprocal construction (abbreviated RECP) is a grammatical pattern in which each of the participants occupies both the role of agent and patient with respect to the other. An example is the English sentence John and Mary criticized each other : John criticized Mary, and Mary criticized John.
Although in many cases, either a reflexive or a reciprocal pronoun could appear in the same structural position, in some cases, the asymmetry occurs when a reciprocal may be bound to its antecedent, but a reflexive may not. The following examples from Lebeaux (1983) show that in some sentences, either type of anaphor could be used: (5) a.
NEG se CL puede can. 1SG pisar walk el the césped grass No se puede pisar el césped NEG CL can.1SG walk the grass "You cannot walk on the grass." Zagona also notes that, generally, oblique phrases do not allow for a double clitic, yet some verbs of motion are formed with double clitics: María María se CL fue went.away- 3SG María se fue María CL went.away-3SG "Maria went away ...
Spanish is a pro-drop language with respect to subject pronouns, and, like many European languages, Spanish makes a T-V distinction in second person pronouns that has no equivalent in modern English. Object pronouns can be both clitic and non-clitic, with non-clitic forms carrying greater emphasis.
In practice, cuyo is reserved to formal language. A periphrasis like Alejandro es un estudiante que tiene unas calificaciones siempre buenas is more common. Alejandro es un estudiante que sus calificaciones son siempre buenas (example of quesuismo) can also be found even if disapproved by prescriptivists. [3]
Reflexivity may be expressed by means of: reflexive pronouns or reflexive verbs. The latter ones may be constructed with the help of reflexive affixes (e.g., in Russian) or reflective particles (e.g., in Polish).
Spanish is an example of a modern language with a mediopassive voice, normally indicated by the use of a reflexive pronoun. This can variously have a middle-voice meaning (subject acting onto itself, or for its own benefit) or a passive-voice meaning (something acts onto the subject).