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Most impersonal constructions in Spanish involve using a special verb in [clarification needed] third-person defective verb with a direct object as its only argument or use of impersonal se (not to be confused with other uses of se). There are two main impersonal verbs in Spanish: haber (to have, to be (there is/are, there were)) and hacer (to do).
Many ideas that would be expressed with an impersonal pronoun in English would more often be expressed with so-called pasiva refleja (passive reflexive) constructions in Spanish: "That is not done" (Eso no se hace), rather than "You (One) wouldn't do that" (Uno no hace eso). Impersonal tú might be a recent phenomenon. It is conjugated with the ...
Despite se being grammatically diverse in Spanish grammatical application, it does certain specific roles. Zagona, author of a comprehensive Spanish syntax textbook, has extensively outlined form and function in depth, stating that: [sic] the only true subject clitic in Spanish is "impersonal" se "one". [6]
For example, él, ella, or usted can be replaced by a noun phrase, or the verb can appear with impersonal se and no subject (e.g. Aquí se vive bien, 'One lives well here'). The first-person plural expressions nosotros , nosotras , tú y yo , or él y yo can be replaced by a noun phrase that includes the speaker (e.g. Los estudiantes tenemos ...
Spanish pronouns in some ways work quite differently from their English counterparts. Subject pronouns are often omitted, and object pronouns come in clitic and non-clitic forms. When used as clitics, object pronouns can appear as proclitics that come before the verb or as enclitics attached to the end of the verb in different linguistic ...
Se lo habrían dado a ellos los muchachos = "The boys would have given it to them" Non-clitic accusative pronouns cannot have impersonal antecedents; impersonal accusative clitics must therefore be used with their antecedents instead: Se las di las cosas but never Se las di ellas = "I gave the things (them) to her"
Spanish is a relatively synthetic language with a moderate to high degree of inflection, which shows up mostly in Spanish conjugation. As is typical of verbs in virtually all languages, Spanish verbs express an action or a state of being of a given subject, and like verbs in most Indo-European languages , Spanish verbs undergo inflection ...
Se may be used in Spanish to form passive and impersonal constructions, as well. [7] Uno (or Se) debe pensar antes de actuar. (Spanish) Deve-se pensar antes de agir. (Portuguese) 'One should think before acting.'