ASSOCIATIVE INTERFERENCE IN OBJECT-PRONOUN COMBINATIONS IN NAVARRE AND ARAGON

Abstract

The solecistic use of se los (se las) for se lo (se la) in cases where se represents a plural indirect object is frequent in Latin-American Spanish and has been amply noted, discussed and condemned by grammarians. Occasional suggestions that the form may be encountered in Spain are to be found, but direct references are in general conspicuous by their absence. Hanssen (Gramática histórica, Buenos Aires 1945, 76) records similar examples in the fifteenth-century Navarrese Crónica de Eugui, and Gilí y Gaya (Curso superior de sintaxis española, 4th ed., Barcelona 1954, 210) has drawn attention to the modern Aragonese use of ya, se les he dicho for ya se lo he dicho [a ellos, a ellas]. It is my present aim to show that such contamination of the direct object pronoun by an accompanying plural indirect object pronoun is a feature which is not only common in Aragonese and Navarrese during the Middle Ages, but one which could well be considered as typical of these dialects.

BSS Subject Index:

• SPAIN — LANGUAGES — SPANISH LANGUAGE & ITS HISTORY — GENERAL

Notes

¹See Amado Alonso and P. Henríqucz Ureña, Gramática castellana, 11 (Buenos Aires 1945). §109–2; A. Bello, Gramática de la lengua castellana (Paris 1936), 251 note; R. J. Cuervo, Apuntaciones criticas sobre el lenguaje bogotano, 7th ed. (Bogota 1939), 254; R. Lenz, La oración y sus partes (Madrid 1935), 262 note; J. B. Rael, “Associative Interference in Spanish”, HR, VIII (1940), 346–49; C. E. Kany, American-Spanish Syntax (Chicago 1945), 109–12. The explanation offered by Kany (op. cit., 109) can be considered typical: “Since the feeling of number is important . . . popular speech in many regions of Spanish America generally insists on indicating plurality of the indirect object se by adding an s to the immediately following direct object, lo or la, making them fos and las, even though the object referred to is singular. The pluralizing -s is added to lo or la, though the plural number belongs to the other pronoun, because los and las are thoroughly familiar forms and a form ses would be unthinkable”.

²See Rael (op. cit., 349) and Kany (op. cit., 109).

³I base my findings on the following seventeen texts, ranging from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. After the two general collections they are listed, as far as possible, in chronological order: Textos lingüísticos del medioevo español, ed. Gifford and Hodcroft (Oxford 1959): Documentos lingüísticos del Alto Aragón, ed. Tomás Navarro (New York 1957) :The ‘Líber Regum’ of the ‘Cronicón Villarense’, ed. Louis Cooper (unpublished thesis submitted to the University of Chicago, 1952); Disputa entre un cristiano y un judio. cd. A. Castro, RFE. 1 (1914), 172–80; El Fuero de Molina de Aragón, ed. M. Sancho Izquierdo (Madrid 1916); Vidal Mayor, ed. G. Tilander (Lund 1956); El Fuero de Teruel, ed. M. Gorosch (Stockholm 1950); Los Fueros de Aragón, ed. G. Tilander (Lund 1937): “Refranes del siglo XIV”, ed. j. Ríus Serra, RFE, XIII (1926), 364.72; Un códice de la Real Biblioteca del Escorial, in Artículos históricos, ed. D. A. Rodríguez Villa (Madrid 1913); “Aragonese texts edited for the first time”, ed. G. W. Umphrey, RHi., XVI. (1907), 244–87; La Flor de las Ystorias de Orient, ed. W. R. Long (Chicago 1934); Crónica de Morea, ed. A. Morel-Fatio (Geneva 1885); Gestas del Rey Don Jayme de Aragón, ed. R. Foulché Delbosc (Madrid 1909); Crónica de Eugui, Escorial ms. X-11–22; Embajada a Tamorlán, British Museum ms. ADD 16613; Lerendas de José y de Alejandro Magno, ed. p. Guillen Robles (Zaragoza 1888).

¹The example of gelos, where contamination of number but not of case appears to have taken place, is similar to modern Latin-American usage: creyo los et diogelos con pleyto que lo goardasen por mayor (Crónica de Eugui, fol. 115V.9).

²Orthographic variants, such as ie lo, jela, gelles, were included in the count, but genuine alternative constructions, such as for, li lo, los les, las hi, were excluded.

¹One exception involves a rare appearance of le for lo: los tartres le dievott Sangolaslar, et el rey ge le torno (Flor de las Ystorias de Orient, 1. 1528). In the others les appears for lo, los: Decabo, si alguno durmiendo los trobaré c delant el iúdez prouar geles [—gelo] pudiere (Fuere'itero de Teruel, §139.3); El el rey fizole tal respuesta, que pues al principio quando el geles [ =gelos] deniandaua 110 gelos auie quesido dar (Gestas de Don Jayme, 216.11). For the second example cf. Gorosch, Fuero de Teruel, 56.

²See Umplirey, The Aragonese Dialect (New York 1911}, 31; Iuduráin, El dialecto navarro-aragonés antiguo (Zaragoza 1945), 72; Tilander, Los Fueros de Aragón (Lund 1937), li; Vives, Juan Fernández de Heredia (Barcelona 1927), 40. Badía Margarit (RFE, XXVIII, 1941, 183) finds occasional examples of lo for le in the works of Heredia, but none of le for lo.

¹The live examples from C, followed for comparison by the A reading (with references to the Estrada edition) are:

non geles consintieron hombres suyos, fol. 4or.12 (gelo, Estr. 81.11)

por que no geles tomassen en el camino, fol. 107r.19. (glo, Estr. 209.31)

pero que geles mandaria pagar, fol. 122r.7 (glo, Estr. 239.12)

el emperador geles prometiera, fol. 14V.25 (gela, Estr. 30.17)

despues geles demandara el patriarcha, fol. 30V.4 (gelas, Estr. 61.19).