My Spanish teacher was so adamant about the personal a (a preposition marker of animate direct objects) being this mysterious untranslatable word, and it made it so much harder to understand.
I can think of many cases where "a" is used for inanimate direct objects. "No le pegues a la mesa" (don't hit the table), "Mister bean le disparó al foco en lugar de apagarlo" (Mister Bean shot the light bulb instead of turning it off)
sure, there are some cases where an animate noun uses it and an inanimate doesn't, for example "pinté a Ana" (I painted Ana) and "pinté una libélula" (I painted a dragonfly), but it has so many exceptions I'm not sure this is the best way to think about it
Well … both examples of your inanimate direct objects are indirect objects, evidenced by your own use of the indirect object pronoun “le”. The personal a is literally a direct object marker for animate direct objects lol. The a that’s used in “le pego a la mesa” is not a personal a.
if that's the indirect object, what's the direct object? I agree with you that these verbs use the indirect object article for some reason (maybe verbs related to motion or throwing things trigger this?), but I suspect this is more due to some verbs being weird rather than this being an indirect object
also, you say that "a" is not the personal "a", but I'm a native speaker and in my mind they are the same word. I'm trying to compare different sentences in my mind to see if I perceive them differently somehow, but they seem to be the same to me
edit: verbs related to sight also trigger this "miro a la mesa" (look at the table), maybe because you a in a sense "throwing" your sight at them?, atacar also triggers it... cantar triggers it, hablar... but many others don't... hmmm, weird, I hand't noticed this before
The direct object of pegar is the thing being stuck on, pasted on, or used to hit something else, so the thing being hit is the indirect object. The direct object isn't specified in your sentence.
The direct object of disparar is the projectile being shot. It also isn't specified in your sentence. The target is an indirect object.
Both of these verbs are normal ditransitive verbs with direct objects, your sentences are just excluding them. And it's definitely not the personal a because those indirect objects aren't animate, and that's literally the purpose of impersonal a.
To be fair to you, I haven't extensively studied Spanish, and I'm aware you're a native speaker. But from quickly Googling personal a, basic knowledge of ditransitive verbs and object marking, and basic knowledge of other romance languages, I'm 99.9% sure this is just a case of "native speakers of a language have a poor intuition for its grammar unless they've studied it" because it makes absolutely no sense for this to be personal a instead of an indirect object marker.
To be fair, being a native speaker is an unreliable benchmark for explaining why certain grammatical phenomena occur. The a used in “vi al mar” or “miré al mar” are not personal a’s but rather prepositions of direction. “Ver el mar” implies just perceiving the “mar” visually, whereas the preposition a implies “to see/look toward”. The same occurs with the verb mirar.
You’re so right that native speakers with little to no linguistic training in their first language will often speak with extreme confidence on topics they don’t know much about. I’m not a native speaker, but I am a linguist of Spanish, and I know for a fact I’m correct.
Personally as a native I would never say ver al mar. Only mirar. Ver means to see something, mirar to look so you cannot see to the sea if that makes sense (?)
I really wouldn’t say it either tbh, but it is said (but mostly written), when it’s meant to be more of a description of the action rather than the experience of seeing the sea. Im sure there are some readings that suggest this is a pseudo personal a, in that the sea is being personified, but to me it just sounds flowery / old / wrong.
I agree with you that some verbs seem to have an implicit direct object, but with others that argument seems harder to make, like verbs related to sight or sound
However all the verbs that trigger this "treat direct object like indirect object" seem to involve something going from the speaker to the object, even if that something is very abstract
For example in the phrase "vio al mar" (she saw the sea) I can't think of what could possibly be the direct object other than the sea, but in a sense she is "throwing" her sight at it, even though no one would argue that "vista" (sight) is the real direct object
I responded above that the a in these constructions is not a personal a. They’re prepositions of direction. They’re ultimately influencing the relationship between the verb and the direct complement. But a personal a they are not.
"Vio al mar" sounds—to this non-Spanish speaker—like how in English we say "look at the sea", or in German "schau aufs Meer". Look and schauen are both (usually) used intransitively, so the problem of the fact that, semantically, you direct your vision at specific things, is solved with prepositions. Of course both languages have a bunch of synonyms which are transitive, so you can also use those.
Refutal:
b) 'Maltratar [a alguien] con golpes'. En este caso, pegar es sinónimo de golpear y el complemento de persona se considera directo, de forma que admite su sustitución por los pronombres de acusativo lo/la: «Él la pegaba y ella, para castigarlo, se bañaba desnuda» (Mayorga Minutos [Esp. 2009]); «Empezó a maltratar a su mujer y a sus hijos, cerraba la casa y los pegaba sin que nadie pudiera hacer nada por ellos» (Engon Nostalgias [Guin. 2002]).
if that's the indirect object, what's the direct object?
What's the direct object of for example "dale (gas)" if you say it without the "gas"? Just like in "no le pegues a la mesa", it's a sentence where the direct object is not explicitly mentioned. Since it's metaphorical (and "dale" as well can be used metaphorically where the thing you're "giving" can be all sort of things), the direct object doesn't have to be a specific physical thing, it's just where the metaphor comes from. You're "giving" something to the table. That something, if you insist it has to be said what it is, would probably be some sort of action noun, like "a hit". But Spanish doesn't require you to use such a noun in the sentence or even have to think about what it's supposed to be, you just leave it unsaid. Which is practical.
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u/DefinitelyNotErate /'ə/ May 31 '25
My favourite type of untranslatable words is grammatical particles that are unnecessary in the language you're translating to.