Re: Comer manzanas (was: Italian Particles)

Roger Mills wrote:
>
> >Needless to say, thanks to this, the English verb "to like" is one
> >of the most difficult things to teach to a native Spanish speaker.
>
> And vice versa! Somehow "I like" = "it pleases me" is very
> counter-intuitive.
As it should be!  It was once an impersonal verb!  Weirdly, early Welsh
adapted this verb, and you get in Modern Welsh the equally strange
"rwyn lico coffi" in the south of Wales, instead of Northwalian "rwyn
hoffi
coffi."

> BTW with reference to Muke's "tu me gustas" etc.... granted I'm not current
> on all varieties of spoken Spanish, but I've never seen or heard gustar in
> any but 3rd person..... i.e. in the sense of liking a person:  ¿te gusta de
> mí?, me gusta de Pablo etc.
Again, as I said before, it strikes me that it is functioning exactly
like
the Germanic impersonal verbs.  These are verbs that are always in the
third person and have an implied "it" for a subject, and take the dative
as their object.  Early English had an abundance of these, in which,
believe
it or not, "like" was one:

                me liketh  (it is pleasing to me)  --compare _me gusta_
                  (later Eng: melikes)
                me thinketh (it seems to me)
                  (Shakespeare: methinks)
                me reweth  (it is painful to me)
                   Me reweth, Marie, thy sonne and thee (thirteenth cent.)

I've always considered this to be a Germanic feature, and although I
studied
Spanish for years, the occasion with _me gusta_ is a kind of "oh, right!
Of
course!" recollection for me.  How many other impersonal verbs like this
are
there in the romance languages?  I can't think of any, off hand, in
French,
but that may just be a senior moment.

They remind me strongly of Tokana's "emotion" verbs, IIRC, which take
their
objects in the dative.  I think this may be a somewhat universal feature
for
some language types.  Note that in English they all have to do with
feelings
or impressions:  Me listeth,  "it is preferable to me."

Sally
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