Spanish object pronouns

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Spanish object pronouns are Spanish personal pronouns that take the function of an object in a sentence. They may be analyzed as clitics which cannot function independently, but take the conjugated form of the Spanish verb. Object pronouns are generally proclitic, i.e. they appear before the verb of which they are the object; enclitic pronouns (i.e. pronouns attached to the end of the verb) appear with positive imperatives, infinitives, and gerunds.

In Spanish, up to two (or rarely three) clitic pronouns can be used with a single verb, generally one accusative and one dative. They follow a specific order based primarily on person. When an accusative third-person non-reflexive pronoun (lo, la, los, or las) is used with a dative pronoun that is understood to also be third-person non-reflexive. Simple non-emphatic clitic doubling is most often found with dative clitics, although it is occasionally found with accusative clitics as well, particularly in case of topicalization. In many dialects in Central Spain, including the one from Madrid, there exists one of the variants of leísmo; which is, using the indirect object pronoun le for the object pronoun where most other dialects would use lo (masculine) or la (feminine) for the object pronoun.

Video Spanish object pronouns

History

As the history of the Spanish language saw the shedding of Latin declensions, only the subject and prepositional object survived as independent personal pronouns in Spanish: the rest became clitics. These clitics may be proclitic or enclitic, or doubled for emphasis. In modern Spanish, the placement of clitic pronouns is determined morphologically; by the form of the verb. They precede a conjugated verb but follow the infinitive or positive imperative form. For example: me vio but verme, viéndome, ¡véame! Exceptions exist for certain idiomatic expressions, like "once upon a time" (Érase una vez).

Old Spanish

Unstressed pronouns in Old Spanish were governed by rules different from those in modern Spanish. The old rules were more determined by syntax than by morphology: the pronoun followed the verb, except when the verb was preceded (in the same clause) by a stressed word, such as a noun, adverb, or stressed pronoun.

For example, from Cantar de Mio Cid:

• e tornós pora su casa, ascóndense de mio Cid
• non lo desafié, aquel que gela diesse

If the first stressed word of a clause was in the future or condtional tense, or if it was a compound verb made up of haber + a participle, then any unstressed pronoun was placed between the two elements of the compound verb.

• daregelo he (modern: se lo daré) = "I'll give it to him".
• daregelo ia/ie (modern: se lo daría) = "I would give it."
• dado gelo ha (modern: se lo ha dado) = "He has given it."

Before the 15th century, clitics never appeared in the initial position; not even after a coordinating conjunction or a caesura. They could, however, precede a conjugated verb if there was a negative or adverbial marker. For example:

• Fuese el conde = "The count left", but
• El conde se fue = "The count left"
• No se fue el conde = "The count did not leave"
• Entonces se fue el conde = "Then the count left".

The same rule applied to gerunds, infinitives, and imperatives. The forms of the future and the conditional functioned like any other verb conjugated with respect to the clitics. But a clitic following a future or conditional was usually placed between the infinitive root and the inflection. For example:

• Verme ha mañana = "See me tomorrow", but
• No me verá mañana = "He will not see me tomorrow"
• Mañana me verá = "He will see me tomorrow"

Early Modern Spanish

By the 15th century, Early Modern Spanish had developed "proclisis", in which an object's agreement markers come before the verb. According to Andrés Enrique-Arias, this shift helped speed up language processing of complex morphological material in the verb's inflection (including time, manner, and aspect).

This proclisis (ascenso de clítico) was a syntactic movement away from the idea that an object must follow the verb. For example, in these two sentences with the same meaning:

1. María quiere comprarlo = "Maria wants to buy it."
2. María lo quiere comprar = "Maria wants to buy it."

"Lo" is the object of "comprar" in the first example, but Spanish allows that clitic to appear in a preverbal position of a syntagma that it dominates strictly, as in the second example. This movement only happens in conjugated verbs. But a special case occurs for the imperative, where we see the postverbal position of the clitic

• Llámame = "Call me"
• dímelo = "Tell it to me"

This is accounted for by a second syntactic movement wherein the verb "passes by" the clitic that has already "ascended".

Maps Spanish object pronouns

Clitic substitution for the accusative

In most cases, one can identify the direct object of a Spanish sentence by substituting it for the accusative personal pronouns "lo", "la", "los", and "las".

• Aristóteles instruyó a Alejandro = "Aristotle instructed Alejandro"
• Aristóteles lo instruyó = "Aristotle instructed him"

But "lo" (only in its masculine and singular form) can also replace an attributive adjective, so it is necessary to identify first whether the sentence is predicative or attributive. An example of the attributive:

• Roma es valiente = "Rome is brave"
• Roma lo es = "Rome is [brave]"

The "¿Qué?" method

Traditional Spanish grade school language pedagogy teaches that one may identify the direct object by asking the question "What?" ("¿Qué?"). But this method is not always reliable, because the answer to the question "what" may be the subject:

• La nave surca el mar = "The ship crosses the sea"
  • ¿Qué surca? > "La nave." = "What crosses?" "The ship."

This method also fails to analyze question sentences:

• ¿Qué pueblos sometió César? = "Which peoples did Caesar conquer?"
  • ¿Qué sometió? > ... (nonsensical, "What conquers?")

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Mandatory proclitic

Object pronouns are generally proclitic, i.e. they appear before the verb of which they are the object. Thus:

• Yo te veo = "I see you"
• Él lo dijo = "He said it"
• Tú lo has hecho = "You have done it"
• El libro nos fue dado = "The book was given to us"

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Mandatory enclitic

In certain environments, however, enclitic pronouns (i.e. pronouns attached to the end of the verb or similar word itself) may appear. Enclitization is generally only found with:

• positive imperatives
• infinitives
• gerunds

With positive imperatives, enclitization is always mandatory:

• Hazlo ("Do it") but never Lo haz
• Dáselo a alguien diferente ("Give it to somebody else") but never Se lo da a alguien diferente (as a command; that sentence can also mean "He/she/it gives it to somebody else", in which sense it is entirely correct)

With infinitives and gerunds, enclitization is often, but not always, mandatory. With all bare infinitives, enclitization is mandatory:

• tenerlo = "to have it"
• debértelo = "to owe it to you"
• oírnos = "to hear us"

In all compound infinitives that make use of the past participle (i.e. all perfect and passive infinitives), enclitics attach to the uninflected auxiliary verb and not the past participle (or participles) itself:

• haberlo visto = "to have seen it"
• serme guardado = "to be saved for me"
• habértelos dado = "to have given them to you"
• haberle sido mostrado = "to have been shown to him/her/you"

In all compound infinitives that make use of the gerund, however, enclitics may attach to either the gerund itself or the main verb, including the rare cases when the gerund is used together with the past participle in a single infinitive:

• estar diciéndolo or estarlo diciendo = "to be saying it"
• andar buscándolos or andarlos buscando = "to go around looking for them"
• haber estado haciéndolo or haberlo estado haciendo = "to have been doing it"

With all bare gerunds, enclitization is once again mandatory. In all compound gerunds, enclitics attach to the same word as they would in the infinitive, and one has the same options with combinations of gerunds as with gerunds used in infinitives:

• haciéndolo = "doing it"
• hablándoles = "talking to them"
• habiéndolo visto = "having seen it"
• siéndome dado = "being given to me"
• habiéndole sido mostrado = "having been shown to him/her/you"
• habiendo estado teniéndolos or habiéndolos estado teniendo = "having been holding them"
• andando buscándolos or andándolos buscando = "going around looking for them"

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Proclitic or enclitic

In constructions that make use of infinitives or gerunds as arguments of a conjugated verb, clitic pronouns may appear as proclitics before the verb (as in most verbal constructions, or, in the case of positive imperatives, as enclitics attached to it) or simply as enclitics attached to the infinitive or gerund itself. Similarly, in combinations of infinitives, enclitics may attach to any one of them:

• Quería hacerlo or Lo quería hacer = "He wanted to do it"
• Estoy considerándolo or Lo estoy considerando = "I'm considering it"
• Empieza a hacerlo or Empiézalo a hacer = "Start doing it"
• Sigue diciéndolo or Síguelo diciendo = "Keep saying it"
• querer vernos or querernos ver = "to want to see us"
• tener que poder hacerlo, tener que poderlo hacer, or tenerlo que poder hacer = "to have to be able to do it"

Enclitics may be found in other environments in literary and archaic language, but such constructions are virtually absent from everyday speech.

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Metaplasm

Enclitization is subject to the following metaplasmic rules:

• The s in the first-person plural ending -mos drops before nos, se, and os: vámonos ("let's go"), démoselo ("let's give it to him"), mostrémoos ("let's show you [pl.]"), etc.
• The d in the informal second-person plural positive imperative drops before os: sentaos ("[you all] sit down"), apuraos ("[you all] hurry up"), etc., except for the verb ir: idos ("[you all] leave")

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Combinations of clitic pronouns

In Spanish, up to two (and rarely three) clitic pronouns can be used with a single verb, generally one accusative and one dative. Whether enclitic or proclitic, they cluster in the following order:

Thus:

• Él me lo dio = "He gave it to me"
• Ellos te lo dijeron = "They said it to you"
• Yo te me daré = "I will give myself to you"
• Vosotros os nos mostráis = "You [pl.] are showing yourselves to us"
• Se le perdieron los libros = "The books disappeared on him" (lit. "The books got lost to him")

Like Latin, Spanish makes use of double dative constructions, and thus up to two dative clitics can be used with a single verb. One must be the dative of benefit (i.e. someone (or something) who is indirectly affected by the action), and the other must refer to the direct recipient of the action itself. Context is generally sufficient to determine which is which:

• Me le arreglaron la moto = roughly "They fixed the bike [motorcycle] for him on my behalf" or "They fixed the bike for me on his behalf" (literally more like "They fixed the bike for him for me" or vice versa)
• Muerte, ¿por qué te me lo llevaste tan pronto? = "Death, why did you take him from me so soon?"

Only one accusative clitic can be used with a single verb, however, and the same is true for any one type of dative clitic. When more than one accusative clitic or dative clitic of a specific type is used with a verb, therefore, the verb must be repeated for each clitic of the same case used:

• Me gusta y te gusta but never Me y te gusta = "You and I like him" (lit. "He pleases you and me")
• Lo vi y te vi but never Lo y te vi = "I saw him and you"

Occasionally, however, with verbs such as dejar ("to let"), which generally takes a direct object as well as a subsequent verb as a further grammatical argument, objects of two different verbs will appear together with only one of them and may thus appear to be objects of the same verb:

• Me la dejaron ver = "They let me see her" (la is the object of ver; Me dejaron verla is thus also acceptable)
• Te lo dejará hacer = "He/she will let you do it" (Te dejará hacerlo is also acceptable)

Se

When an accusative third-person non-reflexive pronoun (lo, la, los, or las) is used with a dative pronoun that is understood to also be third-person non-reflexive (le or les), the dative pronoun is replaced by se:

• Se lo di = "I gave it to him"
• Él se lo dijo = "He said it to him"

If se as such is the indirect object in similar constructions, however, it is often, though not always, disambiguated with a sí:

• Se lo hizo a sí or Se lo hizo = "He did it to himself"
• Se lo mantenían a sí or Se lo mantenían = "They kept it for themselves"

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Clitic doubling

Non-Emphatic

Simple non-emphatic clitic doubling is most often found with dative clitics, although it is occasionally found with accusative clitics as well. Because all personal non-clitic direct as well as indirect objects must be preceded by the preposition a, an appropriate dative clitic pronoun is often used to mark non-clitic indirect objects as such, even with non-personal things such as animals and inanimate objects. With all non-clitic dative personal pronouns, which take the form a + the prepositional case of the pronoun, and all non-pronominal indirect objects that come before the verb, in the active voice, clitic doubling is mandatory:

• A mí me gusta eso but never A mí gusta eso = "I like that" (lit. "That pleases me")
• Al hombre le dimos un regalo but never Al hombre dimos un regalo = "We gave the man a gift"
• Al perro le dijo que se siente but never Al perro dijo que se siente = "He/She/You told the dog to sit"

With non-pronominal indirect objects that come after the verb, however, clitic doubling is usually optional, though generally preferred in spoken language:

• Siempre (les) ofrezco café a mis huéspedes = "I always offer coffee to my guests"
• (Le) Dijeron a José que se quedara donde estaba = "They told Jose to stay where he was"
• (Le) Diste al gato alguna comida = "You gave the cat some food"

Nevertheless, with indirect objects that do not refer to the direct recipient of the action itself as well as the dative of inalienable possession, clitic doubling is most often mandatory:

• No le gusta a la mujer la idea but never No gusta a la mujer la idea = "The woman doesn't like the idea" (lit. "The idea doesn't please the woman")
• Le preparé a mi jefe un informe but never Preparé a mi jefe un informe = "I prepared a report for my boss"
• Les cortó a las chicas el pelo but never Cortó a las chicas el pelo = "He/She/You cut the girls' hair" (dative of inalienable possession, cannot be literally translated into English)

With indefinite pronouns, however, clitic doubling is optional even with such dative constructions:

• Esta película no (le) gusta a nadie = "No one likes this movie" (lit. "This move pleases no one")
• (Les) Preparó esta comida a todos = "He/she/you made this food for everyone"

In the passive voice, where direct objects do not exist at all, simple non-emphatic dative clitic doubling is always optional, even with personal pronouns:

• (Le) Era guardado a mi amigo este pedazo = "This piece was saved for my friend"
• (Te) Fue dado a ti = "It was given to you"

Dative clitic personal pronouns may be used without their non-clitic counterparts, however:

• Él te habló = "He spoke to you"
• Se lo dieron = "They gave it to him/her/you"
• Nos era guardado = "it was saved for us"

Simple non-emphatic clitic doubling with accusative clitics is much rarer. It is generally only found with:

• the pronoun todo ("all, everything")
• numerals that refer to animate nouns (usually people) and are preceded by the definite article (e.g. los seis - "the six")
• the indefinite pronoun uno when referring to the person speaking

Thus:

• No lo sé todo = "I don't know everything"
• Los vi a los cinco = "I saw the five (of them)"
• Si no les gusta a ellos, lo rechazarán a uno = "If they don't like it, they'll reject you"

Accusative clitic doubling is also used in object-verb-subject (OVS) word order to distinguish it from simple subject-verb-object (SVO). The appropriate direct object pronoun is placed between the direct object and the verb, and thus the sentence La carne la come el perro ("The dog eats the meat") is distinguished form the nonsensical La carne come el perro ("The meat eats the dog").

Clitic doubling is also often necessary to modify clitic pronouns, whether dative or accusative. The non-clitic form of the accusative is usually identical to that of the dative, although non-clitic accusative pronouns cannot be used to refer to impersonal things such as animals and inanimate objects. With attributive adjectives, nouns (appositionally, as in "us friends"), and the intensifier mismo, clitic doubling is mandatory, and the non-clitic form of the pronoun is used:

• Te vi a ti muy feliz = "I saw a very happy you"
• Os conozco a vosotros gente (or, in Latin America, Los conozco a ustedes gente) = "I know you people"
• Le ayudaron a ella misma = "They helped her herself" (ayudar governs the dative)

With predicative adjectives, however, clitic doubling is not necessary. Clitic pronouns may be directly modified by such adjectives, which must be placed immediately after the verb, gerund, or participle (or, if used in combination or series, the final verb, gerund, or participle):

• Mantente informado = "Keep yourself informed"
• Viéndolo hecho en persona, aprendí mucho = "By seeing it done in person, I learned a lot"
• Lo había oído dicho a veces = "He/she/you had heard it said occasionally"

Emphatic

Clitic doubling is also the normal method of emphasizing clitic pronouns, whether accusative or dative. The clitic form is used in the normal way, and the non-clitic form is placed wherever one wishes to place emphasis:

• Lo vi a él = "I saw him"
• Te ama a ti = "He loves you"
• A ella le gusta la idea = "She likes the idea" (lit. "The idea pleases her")

Because non-clitic accusative pronouns cannot have impersonal antecedents, however, impersonal accusative clitics must be used with their antecedents instead:

• Se las di las cosas but never Se las di ellas = "I gave the things (them) to her"
• Lo vi el libro but never Lo vi él = "I saw the book (it)"

Impersonal dative clitic pronouns, however, may be stressed as such:

• Se lo hiciste a ellos = "You did it to them"
• Esto le cabe a ella = "This fits it [feminine noun]"

Emphatic non-pronominal clitic doubling is also occasionally used to provide a degree of emphasis to the sentence as a whole:

• Lo sé lo que dijo = "I know what he/she/you said" (with a degree of emphasis)
• ¡Lo hace el trabajo! ¡Déjalo solo! = "He's doing his work! Leave him alone!"

Prepositional and comitative cases

The prepositional case is used with the majority of prepositions: a mí, contra ti, bajo él, etc., although several prepositions, such as entre ("between, among") and según ("according to"), actually govern the nominative (or sí in the case of se): entre yo y mi hermano ("between me and my brother"), según tú ("according to you"), entre sí ("among themselves"), etc., with the exception of entre nos ("between us"), where the accusative may be used instead (entre nosotros is also acceptable). With the preposition con ("with"), however, the comitative case is used instead. Yo, Tú, and se have distinct forms in the comitative: conmigo, contigo, and consigo, respectively, in which the preposition becomes one word with its object and thus must not be repeated by itself: conmigo by itself means "with me", and con conmigo is redundant. For all other pronouns, the comitative is identical to the prepositional and is used in the same way: con él, con nosotros, con ellos, etc.

As often with verbs used with multiple object pronouns of the same case, prepositions must be repeated for each pronoun they modify:

• Este vino es solamente para mí y para ti but never Este vino es solamente para mí y ti = "This wine is only for me and (for) you"
• Ella estaba con él y con ella but never Ella estaba con él y ella = "She was with him and (with) her"

The use of le/les

The pronouns le (singular) and les (plural)--which do not change form for gender--are used to replace the indirect object of a sentence. They also usually accompany an explicit indirect object, "redundantly". For example, in "Le di el libro a María" (I gave the book to María), both "Le" and "a María" refer to the same person (María) as the indirect object. In spoken language, les is frequently replaced by le, and this replacement--although not approved by normative grammar--can often be found in written, published texts as well. When the indirect object pronoun is followed in sequence by a direct object pronoun beginning with l- (lo, la, los, las), both le and les are replaced by se:

• Le di el libro = "I gave the book to him/her/you"
• Se lo di = "I gave it to him/her/you/them"

Direct-object le/les

Generally, the unstressed third-person object pronouns in Spanish are lo, la, los, and las. This is the Real Academia Española's current position on the subject. This is a reasonable generalisation given that it is true in over ninety percent of the Spanish-speaking world. However, it is helpful to take note of the various exceptions to this general rule whereby le/les rather than lo, la, los, las are used. Note however that this use is rather modern and often found only in part of Spain whereas the use of lo, la, los, las is considered more traditional.

Theoretical basis for the use of direct-object le/les

There are various diachronic and synchronic reasons for the use of le/les for direct objects. To understand why there is vacillation and hesitation in usage, it is helpful to understand these often-conflicting linguistic forces.

a) Masculine e

There is a strong tendency in Spanish, inherited from Latin, for pronouns and determiners to have a set of three different endings for the three genders. These are: -e or -o for masculine pronouns, -a for feminine pronouns and -o for neuter pronouns.

Thus, éste, ésta, esto; ése, ésa, eso; aquél, aquélla, aquello; el, la, lo; él, ella, ello.

In this context, it would make sense to say le vi "I saw him" for any masculine noun, la vi "I saw her/it" for any feminine noun, and lo vi "I saw it" when no noun is being referred to. This gives us a set like the above: le, la, lo.

b) Indirectness for humans -- general

Spanish has a tendency, discussed at Spanish prepositions, to treat as indirect objects those direct objects which happen to refer to people. In this context, it would make sense to say le/les vi "I saw him/her/them" when referring to people and lo/la/los/las vi "I saw it/them" when referring to things.

b1) Indirectness for humans -- respect for the interlocutor

The general tendency to use indirect objects for people is intensified when the speaker wishes to convey respect. The third person in Spanish can be used as the second person to mean "you". In this context, it would make sense to use lo/la/los/las vi "I saw him/her/it/them" when one is speaking about a third party or an object, but le/les vi "I saw you" when the pronoun is intended to represent usted/ustedes.

b2) Indirectness for humans -- contrast with inanimate things

The general tendency to use indirect objects for people is intensified when the subject of the sentence is not human, thus creating a contrast in the mind of the speaker between the human and the thing. In this context, it would make sense to say la halagó "he flattered her" when the subject is "he" referring to a person, but le halagó "it flattered her" when the subject is "it", a thing.

b3) Indirectness for humans -- humanity otherwise emphasised

The general tendency to use indirect objects for people is intensified when the humanity of the person who is the object of the sentence is emphasised by the way the verb is used. In this context, it would make sense for a subtle distinction to be made between lo llevamos al hospital "we took/carried him to the hospital" when the patient is unconscious and le llevamos al hospital "we took/led him to the hospital" when the patient is able to walk.

b4) Indirectness for humans -- with impersonal se

The general tendency to use indirect objects for people is intensified when impersonal se is used instead of a real subject. This is to avoid the misinterpretation of the se as being an indirect object pronoun. In this context, it would make sense to say se le lee mucho "people read him/her a lot" if "se" means "people" and "le" means "him/her", and reserve se lo/la lee mucho "he/she reads it a lot for him/her" for sentences in which the "se" is not impersonal.

Direct-object le/les in practice

All of the theoretical reasons for using le/les detailed above actually influence the way Spanish speakers use these pronouns, and this has been demonstrated by various surveys and investigations.

Extreme preference for le/les is a dialectalism known as leísmo; however, not all use of direct-object le/les is dialectal. In some cases, it is universal across the educated Spanish-speaking world.

Let us first look at dialectal extremes. There is leísmo (covered under point a above) motivated by the tendency towards masculine e in uneducated Madrid speech. This actually used to be quite standard, and the Real Academia only stopped endorsing it in the 1850s. We therefore find in old texts:

Unos niegan el hecho, otros le afirman = "Some deny the fact; others assert it" (Feijóo, mid-eighteenth century; emphasis added)

Such speakers would say le afirman in reference to a word like el hecho, la afirman in reference to a word like la verdad, and lo afirman only in reference to a general neuter "it".

The second extreme leísmo is the one motivated by the second point mentioned: the tendency to use indirect objects for people. This is noticeable in Northwestern Spain, especially Navarre and the Basque Country, where regional speech uses le vi for "I saw him/her" and lo/la vi for "I saw it". The same phenomenon is sporadically heard elsewhere, e.g. in Valencia and Paraguay.

Now let us look at less extremely dialectal cases. For the majority of educated speakers in Spain and parts of Latin America, neither of the two tendencies (a or b) is enough on its own to justify the use of le/les; but together they are. Thus, speakers who would reject sentences like le vi for "I saw it" and le vi for "I saw her" would nevertheless accept and use le vi for "I saw him". Indeed, this use of le to mean "him" is so common in an area of central Spain that some would call the use of lo vi to mean "I saw him" an example of loísmo/laísmo, i.e. the dialectalism whereby lo is overused. The Real Academia's current line is that le for "him" is officially "tolerated".

A case on which the Academy is silent is the tendency described in point b1. It is perfectly common in educated speech in many parts of the world to distinguish between no quería molestarlo "I did not mean to bother him" and no quería molestarle "I did not mean to bother you". Those Spaniards who would not just say le anyway for the reasons explained in the last paragraph are likely to use le in this case. Butt & Benjamin (1994) says that their Argentine informants made this distinction, whereas their loísta Colombian informants preferred molestarlo always.

The Academy is also silent on the tendency described in b2; however, it is universal across the Spanish-speaking world. In a questionnaire given to 28 Spaniards in the Madrid region, 90% preferred la halagó for "he flattered her" and 87% preferred le halagó for "it flattered her". García (1975) reports a similar but less extreme tendency in Buenos Aires: only 14% of García's sample said él le convenció for "he convinced him" (the rest said él lo convenció). With an inanimate subject, a slight majority (54%) said este color no le convence.

García reports Buenos Aires natives differentiating between lo llevaron al hospital and le llevaron al hospital depending on how active the patient is, although anecdotal evidence suggests that Argentines are more loísta than this, and would prefer lo in both cases.

Point b3 is also backed up by the fact that many Latin Americans distinguish between le quiero "I love him" and lo quiero "I want him" (or indeed "I want it").

Notes

Bibliography

• Nueva Gramática de la Lengua Española, Espasa, 2009.
• Gramática descriptiva de la Lengua Española, Ignacio Bosque y Violeta Demonte, Espasa, 1999.

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