Re: Comer manzanas (was: Italian Particles)

Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:

>FFlores wrote:
>>     ¿Te gusto [yo]?
>>     ¿Le gustas [a él]?
>
>Interesting!  Do you have any idea if this is used everywhere in the
>Spanish-speaking world, or only in certain parts?  It could be that
>_gustar_ is developing into a less impersonal meaning.  After all, same
>happened in "think" in English, _me thinks_ -> _I think_
AFAIK it's a mainstream usage, and I'm quite sure it has been for
a really long time. There's nothing impersonal about _gustar_; it's
just the strange argument order.

Intransitive _gustar_ is fine too, though rarer; it just
means 'to be liked'. For example:

    La sinfonía gustó.
    'The symphony was liked' (i. e. appreciated, probably
     in the main artistic circles)

which is more commonly found as "La sinfonía les gustó a todos". :)

Something really interesting (for me) is that the clitic object
is beginning to agree in number with the *subject*:

    *La sinfonía le gustó a todos.

(it's difficult to notice given the /s/-aspiration, but I'm pretty
sure). And I'm also sure I've heard (a couple of times, in very
uneducated contexts), the verb agreeing with the object:

    *¿Te gusta las manzanas?


Very strange!



--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  ... I cannot combine any characters that the divine Library
  has not foreseen, which in some of its secret tongues do not
  bear some terrible meaning. No-one can articulate a syllable
  not filled of caresses and fears; which is not, in some one
  of those languages, the powerful name of a god...
                   Jorge Luis Borges, _The Library of Babel_