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The Passive Reflexive as Applied to Persons in the Primera Crónica General

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Charles Barrett Brown
Charles Barrett Brown*
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
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Extract

The treatment accorded by grammarians to the passive reflexive construction as applied to personal subjects in Old Spanish is either incomplete or inexplicit. Diez, for example, gives no indication as to the extent of its use in either early or modern Spanish. Cuervo asserts that the passive reflexive is “arraigado” in the language of the early period, but cites examples with only inanimate subjects. We infer from his remarks that with a personal subject this construction came into general use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. According to Meyer-Lübke, its use with personal subjects was extensive only during these centuries. Hanssen is of the opinion that the passive reflexive was of little use in the early period and that with a personal subject its use was limited to the single verb uencerse. The present study will indicate the status of this construction in Old Spanish: the extent of its use as applied to persons insofar as may be demonstrated by an examination of a representative text of that period. As such a text the Primera crónica general has been chosen, because, with its plurality of authorship and great length, it represents an admirable cross-section of Old Spanish prose.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , June 1930 , pp. 454 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1930

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References

1 F. Diez, Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen, III, Syntax, 2d ed., Bonn 1860, p. 294.

2 A. Bello, Gramática de la lengua castellana, 20a ed. . . . . con notas . . . . de R. F. Cuervo. Paris 1921. Note 106, pp. 98 f.

3 Grammaire des langues romanes, tr. par A. et G. Doutrepont, III, Syntaxe, p. 422, par. 382.

4 F. Hanssen, Gramática histórica de la lengua castellana, Halle a. S. 1913, p. 199, par. 513.

5 Idem, “Das spanische Passiv,” Roman. Forsch., XXIX (1911), 766, note.

6 Ed. R. Menéndez Pidal.

7 eo ore cui se debet salus publica, Suasoriae VI, 3; littera se scribit, Introduction to Vulgar Latin by C. H. Grandgent, Boston, [19071 p. 52, par. 114. Cf. A. Castro, “La pasiva refleja en español,” Hispania, I, 81; Cf. É. Bourciez, Éléments de linguistique romane, 2d ed., Paris 1923, pp. 113 f., par. 126a: Clamor se tollit, Æneid XI, 454; Myrina quae Sebastopolim se vocat, Naturalis Historia V, 30; nec medici se inveniunt, Cena Trimalchionis, ed W. E. Waters, Chicago 1924, p. 47; morbus se abscondit, Mulomedicina Chironis, ed. M. Niedermann, Heidelberg 1910, p. 174.

8 Ed. R. Menéndez Pidal.

9 “Zusammenflossen,” op. cit., p. 766.

10 Cf. R. Lenz, La oración y sus partes, 2a éd. Madrid 1925, pp. 87, 90.

11 Ibid., p. 90.

12 Ed. R. Menéndez Pidal, Orígenes del español, Madrid 1926, p. 8.

13 Text-book of Modern Spanish, 3d ed. N. Y. [1894], pp. 296 f., par. 829.

14 When the subject is inanimate, fazerse is the verb most common in the passive reflexive construction.

15 Cf. Lenz, op. cit., p. 234, who argues that recibir is, so to speak, the passive of dar.

16 Pp. 60 ff.

17 Cf. the first 100 pages of the Crónica where the ratio in favor of perderse is 12 to 1.

18 Pp. 1-100.

19 Lenz, op. cit., p. 85.

20 Diez, op. cit., p. 294.

21 Meyer-Lübke, op. cit., p. 421, par. 382.

22 R. J. Cuervo, Note 106, p. 104 of Bello, op. cit.

23 “Das spanische Passiv,” Rom. Forsch., XXIX, 766, note.

24 Ed. Real Academia Española, Madrid 1917.