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thfarrell

Nov 15, 2002, 7:23 AM

Post #1 of 8 (1722 views)

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abolir - defective?

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Hi...
What makes the verb "abolir" unuseable in a sentence such as "I abolish the old policy"?

REY

Nov 15, 2002, 12:51 PM

Post #2 of 8 (1607 views)

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Re: [thfarrell] abolir - defective?

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I was going to try to explain, but found this article that explains it a lot better then I could.

http://spanish.about.com/...-defective-verbs.htm

HTH

Rey

thfarrell

Nov 15, 2002, 1:24 PM

Post #3 of 8 (1576 views)

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Re: [REY] abolir - defective?

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Thanks - an excellent reference.

Jim in Cancun

Nov 17, 2002, 4:56 AM

Post #4 of 8 (1560 views)

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¿Cómo amaneciste? Voy a comer. ¿Gustes? ¿No? Bueno--como gustes.

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Despite what the article says about the infrequency of these personal usages, at least these 2 uses are quite common--here in Mexico anyway.

"1. Verbs that logically are conjugated in the third person only. These verbs, sometimes known as impersonal verbs, are the verbs of weather and natural phenomena, such as amanecer (to dawn), anochecer (to get dark), helar (to freeze), granizar (to hail), llover (to rain), nevar (to snow), relampaguear (to flash lightning) and tronar (to thunder)."

And in the case of Gustar, faltar, importar and quedar, these are used quite commonly in the personal form as well.

Denis

Nov 18, 2002, 11:17 AM

Post #5 of 8 (1529 views)

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Re: [Jim in Cancun] ¿Cómo amaneciste? Voy a comer. ¿Gustes? ¿No? Bueno--como gustes.

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That was an interesting article. I've never understood the concept of the defective verb (category 2 in the article), and I have heard forms of agredir that supposedly don't exist.

I've seen a translation of Shakespeare's As You Like It titled Como gustéis, which is backwards from the way I would have translated it, Como os guste.

As for the other examples in your subject line, I've finally gotten used to ¿Cómo amaneciste? but for the life of me I can't figure out Se le transparentaban las bragas, which my pocket dictionary gives as an example of transparentarse, which it translates as "to be transparent."

REY

Nov 18, 2002, 11:53 AM

Post #6 of 8 (1536 views)

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Re: [Denis] ¿Cómo amaneciste? Voy a comer. ¿Gustes? ¿No? Bueno--como gustes.

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Depends on who translated it.

"como gustéis" is a "you" understood sentence....but from spain. long form - "como vosotros gustéis"

"os" is not used in spain but in south america (or am I wrong?)

so, both forms are correct - just different dialect.

Rey

lin robinson

Nov 27, 2002, 11:52 AM

Post #7 of 8 (1496 views)

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Other defectives

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Some good respoinses here, but I still don't see why yo abolo would be a problem.

I remember an old Mafalda cartoon where her egotistic amiga Susanita thinks her textbook has left out a conjugation of amar-- Yo me amamos.

Many people are unaware that there are defective verbs in English (and not just "to vote" :-) not just Spanish and Latin. The most egregious example is "can" and "could" which is so defective it doesn't even have an infinitive!

And, since chilangolandia is so often referred to as El Defectuoso are there there special DF verbs that don't conjugate completely? (Tu chilangas, ellos chilangan?)

REY

Nov 27, 2002, 1:37 PM

Post #8 of 8 (1528 views)

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Re: [lin robinson] Other defectives

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"Tu chilangas", "ellos chilangan"...WHAT THE...??!! :Þ

Just so that some don't get confused....

Mexico City = "Chilangolandia", "El D.F.", "El DeFe", "El DeFectuoso"

Chilango/a is a person from Mexico City.

Good observation, though.....hehehe ;)

Rey