by Max Wheeler
He knows which books he wants and tells us to send him them immediately.
Si s’ha oblidat de l’adreça, torna-la-hi a dir.
If she has forgotten the address tell her it again.
The la + hi combination shown in the last example is consistently pronounced as though it were l’hi and it is frequently found in this form in writing. Normative prescription, however, prefers the non-elided group shown above and below in:
Feia temps que reclamava aquesta concessió i finalment la hi han concedida.
She had been asking for this concession for some time and finally she has been granted it.
Similarly the combination li + ho is very frequently pronounced and sometimes reproduced in writing as l’hi, against even stronger prescriptivist censure:
Has explicat al pare com s’ha embolicat l’asssumpte? Si no, l’hi (= li ho) hauries de dir ara mateix.
Have you explained to father how complicated the matter has become? If not, you ought to tell him straightaway.
Li has confessat allò ο no l’hi (= li ho) has confessat?
Did you confess that to him/her or did you not?
(For further discussion of the group l’hi, see 12.9.3.4.)
Expression of the indirect object by hi is accepted as standard only for the singular, substituting li, but not for plural indirect object els. In combination with any third-person direct object pronoun (el, la, els, les, ho) els forms the groups shown in VIII a–d and VIII i of the table on pp. 204–5, thus:
Els ha pres la maleta i encara no els l’ha tornada.
He has taken their suitcase and still hasn’t returned it to them.
Em demanen aquests informes, però no sé com els els podré fer arribar.
They’re asking me for these reports, but I don’t know how I’ll be able to get them to them.
Most written styles observe this formal convention, but in spontaneous speech the portmanteau els hi is pervasive for the combination of indirect object els with any third-person direct object. See 12.9.3.5 below.
12.9.3.4 The groups I’hi and n’hi
In everyday spoken Catalan the groups l’hi, la hi, li ho and li hi are given a pronunciation identical to that of the single pronoun li. In order to get the spelling right, users need to keep in mind the syntactic and semantic functions that are being expressed.
(ii) The group l’hi corresponds to two different sets of functional components:
(a) Masculine singular direct object el combined with adverbial hi, as in Posa el formatge a la nevera ‘Put the cheese in the fridge’ →Posa-l’hi.
(b) Hi standing for singular indirect object li (m. and f.) preceded by masculine singular direct object el (the alternative to the Valencian solution li’l discussed in 12.9.3.3), as in Serveixi el segon plat a la meva senyora ‘Serve my wife her second course’ → Serveixi-l’hi (Val. Servisca-li’l).
(ii) The group la hi corresponds to two different sets of functional components:
(a) Feminine singular direct object la combined with adverbial hi, as in Fica la carta en aquest sobre ‘Put the letter in this envelope → Fica-la-hi.
(b) Hi standing for singular indirect object li (m,. and f.) preceded by feminine singular direct object la (the alternative to the Valencian solution li la discussed in 12.9.3.3), as in Llegeix la carta a l’àvia ‘Read the letter to grandmother’ → Llegeix-la-hi (Val. Llig-li-la).
(iii) The group li ho combines indirect object singular (m. and f.) li with neuter direct object ho, as in Explicaré tot això al meu amic ‘I’ll explain all this to my friend’ → Li ho explicaré.
(iv) The group li hi combines indirect object singular (m. and f) li with adverbial hi, as in El pare vol que li dugui el paquet al despatx ‘Father wants me to take the parcel to his office for him’ → El pare vol que li hi dugui el paquet.
L’hi occurs also as the solution for the combination ho + hi (see 12.9.3.9), as in Porta tot això a l’abocador ‘Take all this to the dump’ → Porta-l’hi.
Against this background it is possible to differentiate in writing between the [li] syllable representing the single pronoun li or colloquial pronunciation of any of the combinations just analysed:
Ja li he contat el que va passar i no li ho penso tornar a repetir.
I have already told her what happened and I don’t intend to repeat it (to her) again.
Escolti, li duc un paquet; on vol que l’hi posi?
Excuse me, I’ve brought you a parcel; where do you want me to put it for you?
The group li’n can also be analogously subjected to the li → hi substitution, producing n’hi. This form is less highly regarded than li’n, but it has wide currency in colloquial usage and does not appear out of place in informal written styles:
Si vostè vol sentir acudits, ja n’hi (= li n’) explicaré un parell.
If you want to hear some jokes, I’ll tell you a couple.
Here again functional analysis is useful to distinguish between this nonstandard combination and the correct use of n’hi, when partitive en combines with adverbial (circumstantial complement) hi: Posaran rètols a tots els passadissos ‘They will put up signs in all the corridors’ → N’hi posaran. See also above 12.6v and 12.7v on partitive en as complement of the verb haver-hi: n’hi ha, etc.
The exclamatory Déu n’hi do (lit. May God provide (some of it to him/her)), expressing mild admiration at an expression of quantity or quality, shows popular fossilization of this li’n → n’hi transformation (though the form can also be justified on the grounds that hi does not correspond to any particular noun phrase; it could equally well be a vague locative).
12.9.3.5 The group els hi: colloquial versus normative usage
As remarked in 12.3.2.2, the indirect object plural pronoun els (-los, ’ls) is frequently pronounced with a support vowel [i], producing [əlzi] which, if represented in writing, appears as els hi. The function of els hi = els, a single pronoun, is seen in an instance like He entregat el manuscrit als editors ‘I’ have delivered the manuscript to the publishers’ → (non-standard) Els hi he entregat el manuscrit.
Correct standard combinations of indirect object els with any third-person direct object pronoun are shown in the table on pp. 204–5 (VIII a–d and VIII i), and are discussed at the end of section 12.9.3.3. In colloquial practice, however, use of els hi is so prevalent that it operates as a kind of communicative and invariable ‘free card’ in any combination of a third-person direct object pronoun with indirect object hi, when either of the complements (direct object or indirect object) is plural. The following set, using programa (m.) ‘programme’ and entrada (f.) ‘ticket’ for the direct object, and company ‘companion’/’friend’ for the indirect object, provides illustration. The correct pronoun combination is given in the third column:
non-standard standard
He demanat el programa als companys. Els hi he demanat. Els l’he demanat.
He demanat els programes als companys. Els hi he demanat. Els els he demanat.
He demanat l’entrada als companys. Els hi he demanat. Els l’he demanat.
He demanat les entrades als companys. Els hi he demanat. Els les he demanat.
He demanat les entrades al company. Els hi he demanat. Les hi (= li les) he demanat.
The presence of locative hi can produce ‘illogical’ els:
non-standard Standard
He demanat les entrades a l’oficina. Els hi he demanat. Les hi he demanat.
while hi itself is ‘illogical’ in analogous combinations of indirect object els with neuter ho and partitive en:
non-standard standard
He demanat tot això als companys. Els hi he demanat. Els ho he demanat.
He demanat entrades als companys. Els hi he demanat. Els n’he demanat.
The examples above are to be contrasted with other correct combinations of els with hi, where each component has its own grammatical function. As well as He demanat els programes al company → Els hi he demanat (els = programe
s, hi (=li) = al company), observe hi as locative in cases like the following: Redactaran els fullets al despatx They will write the leaflets in the office’ → Els hi redactaran; Enviaran els esborranys dels textos als col·laboradors/a les col·laboradores a la facultat ‘They will send the drafts of the texts to the contributors at the faculty’ → Els hi enviaran els esborranys dels textos.
12.9.3.6 First- and second-person pronouns in combination
As shown in the diagram given in 12.9.2, the only possible combination of first-person and second-person pronouns is one in which the second person precedes the first person. In these the first-person pronoun must be an indirect object (including ethic dative). Thus No te m’enfadis ‘Don’t get angry with me’, Te’ns pots adreçar en castellà si vols ‘You may address us in Castilian if you wish’, Ja us ens heu cruspit tots els cacauets? ‘Have you scoffed all the peanuts (that we put out or that we fancied eating)?’ There is no possibility of forming a pronoun group in which a first-person pronoun (direct object or reflexive) precedes a second-person one. In order, then, to express the idea ‘I shall come closer to you’ (sg. and pl.) Catalan resorts to a strong pronoun for the indirect object ‘to you’: M’acostaré a tu/a vosaltres. Likewise, Ens confessarem a tu/a vosaltres ‘We shall confess to you’. While there is perhaps no theoretical objection to ?Me li acostaré or ?Me’ls acostaré, ?Ens li confessarem or ?Ens els confessarem, with li/els (grammatically third person) standing for vostè(s) (semantically second person), in practice the strong pronoun construction invariably replaces the weak pronouns thus, M’acostaré a vostè(s) (or M’hi acostaré with a vostè(s) taken as a location rather than as an indirect object), Ens confessarem a vostè(s).
12.9.3.7 Pronominal verbs with clitic groups
The regularity with which the ethic dative occurs in Catalan (see 12.3.2.3vi, 23.1i and 25.4) together with the wide repertoire of pronominal verbs (Chapter 23 in general) means that many clitic groups are headed by a pronoun with one or other of these functions. Such combinations may involve an ethic dative or a reflexive element, a pronominal verb with an inanimate subject (as discussed in 23.4) or impersonal es (see 29.2):
Ethic dative:
No t’ho prenguis així. Don’t take it like that.
Ja ens en comprarem. We’ll (certainly) buy some (of them for ourselves).
Reflexive:
Sembla que se n’han rentat les mans. It appears they’ve washed their hands of it.
Pronominal verbs:
Poc s’ho podia haver imaginat. Little could he have imagined it.
S’hi han equivocat de mala manera. They have got this badly wrong.
Abans no eres tan sorrut; t’hi has tornat amb els anys. You used not to be so surly; you’ve become so over the years.
Te’ls pots endur si vols. You can take them away with you if you wish.
No s’hi amoïni, senyora. Don’t worry about it, madam.
Se’ns ha embussat l’aigüera. Our sink has got blocked.
Se m’ha acabat el tabac. I’ve run out of tobacco.
No se’n deu haver recordat. She can’t have remembered.
Impersonal:
Se n’ha parlat molt. There has been a lot of talk about it.
No s’hi pot aparcar. There’s no parking there.
No se’ls pot demanar més. No more can be asked of them.
12.9.3.8 Phonetic contact in pronoun groups
Related to the defective forms of single pronouns discussed in 12.1.3 is the persistent appearance, in speech of all registers, of a transitional vowel sound [ə] separating two consonants in contact within a clitic group. This support vowel – an analogue of the initial vowel of the reinforced pronouns – is conventionally represented in deliberately non-standard writing by e standing between the affected pronouns. One frequently hears for example Us e les portaré demà ‘I’ll bring them to you tomorrow’ (parallel with the reinforced masculine plural els in Us els portaré demà), Els e n’hauries d’explicar més, d’acudits com aquest ‘You ought to tell them more jokes like that one’, Ens e l’ha posat al balcó ‘He’s put it on the balcony for us’. The standard form of the above examples is: Us les portaré, Els n’hauries, Ens l’ha posat. The intercalated e appears in only those written texts which deliberately reproduce the colloquial pronunciation.
12.9.3.9 Impossible combinations
A sequence of two identical clitics is ungrammatical. Thus (see 29.2.1i) impersonal use of es is incompatible with verbs that are themselves reflexive or pronominal. The multiplicity of functions of en and hi likewise means that other combinations of identical clitics are semantically interpretable but decisively avoided in practice. A sentence like Traurem moltes conclusions del debat ‘We shall draw plenty of conclusions from the debate’ could have either complement represented by en: En traurem moltes conclusions or En traurem moltes (de conclusions) del debat. It is not possible however for these to be reduced to *en + en in combination; the only solution is (ambiguous) En traurem moltes. Similarly for notional *hi + hi: Anirem a Caldetes amb el cotxe, i els altres també hi aniran ‘We shall go to Caldetes by car and so will the others (go there in it)’, not *… hi hi aniran.
Combinations of ho with either en or hi produce either the conversion of ho to l’ (as mentioned in 12.9.3.4: Porta tota això a l’abocador → Porta-l’hi) or use of a single clitic (suppressing or giving alternative expression to the other complement): Treu això del calaix ‘Take that out of the drawer’ → Treu-l’en/Treu-ho del calaix/Treu-ne això.
This phenomenon may be resolved differently when there is a ‘lexically based’ clitic component of the infinitive (e.g. dur-se’n ‘take away’, passar(s’)ho bé ‘have a good time’). In such cases the lexically based pronouns may remain intact in contact with other clitics:
Això, pots dur-te-n’ho. You can take that away with you.
12.9.4 MOBILITY AFFECTING PRONOUN GROUPS
Clitic mobility is discussed in 12.2.3. The main principles set out there with regard to single pronouns apply also to pronoun groups, and transformations with two (or more) pronouns can readily be created for several of the examples given in the earlier section: e.g., Ens l’estava arreglant/Estava arreglant-nos-el/-nos-la ‘She was mending it for us’, Penses explicar-li-ho aviat?/Li ho penses explicar aviat? ‘Do you intend to explain it to him/her soon?’ (The popular tendency to attach clitics to both verbs, an aspect of redundancy (see 12.8), is avoided in all careful speech, and in all writing: (non-standard: T’ho vaig dir-t’ho ben clarament for T’ho vaig dir/Vaig dir-t’ho ben clarament ‘I told you quite clearly’).)
A pronoun group which logically belongs together will not be split so that one item goes before the conjugated verb and the other is attached to the dependant infinitive or gerund.
Si ens els vinguessin a oferir a nosaltres. = Si vinguessin a oferir-nos-els a nosaltres.
*Si ens vinguessin a oferir-los.
If they were to come and offer them to us.
The only cases where weak pronouns are not combined within the same clause are when they are logically the complements of different verbs, and thus not a group:
Es van atrevir a insultar-lo. They dared to insult him.
T’hauries d’afanyar a corregir-ho. You should make haste to correct it.
Causative verbs (25.5) allow separation in this way or proclitic attachment of the group to the first verb, that is, they allow clitic raising (12.2.3):
Ens deixaran repassar-ho. =
Ens ho deixaran repassar. They will let us revise it.
(But obviously not *Deixaran repassar-nos-ho, which would involve clitic lowering, much less *Ho deixaran repassar-nos which would involve both clitic lowering and illogical splitting.)
Fes-lo parlar-ne. = Fes-l’en parlar. Make him talk about it.
Perception verbs governing an infinitival clause work in the same way:
Li sentiren dir-ho. = Li ho sentiren dir. They heard her say it.
12.9.5 GROUPS CONTAINING MORE THAN TWO PRO
NOUNS
Groups of three, and even four or more, pronouns do occur. In a sentence like He d’enviar la carta als meus parents a Tarragona ‘I must send the letter to my relatives in Tarragona’ all three complements can be represented in pronoun form as either Els la hi he d’enviar or He d’enviar-los-la-hi. The verb anar-se’n ‘to go (away)’ already has a lexically based two-pronoun group in the infinitive, and this group can readily be augmented with other complements:
Se me’n va anar el peu i vaig caure. My foot slipped and I fell.
In another instance involving this verb a parent might ask in surprise to a young child who has gone to school on her own:
Te me n’hi has anat tota sola? Did you go off there all alone?
As in the last example, these complex pronoun groups almost inevitably involve a pronominal verb or use of the ethic dative, present here in me, untranslatable in this case but expressing the speaker’s moral interest in the situation.
The order of three or more pronouns in combination conforms to the diagram shown in 12.9.2.
12.9.6 FORMS OF PRONOUNS IN COMPLEX GROUPS
The following observations describe effects on form and spelling when a two-pronoun group is augmented. A basic rule is that a group may have only one apostrophe, which goes as far to the right as possible:
(i) Alterations to the second pronoun in the group:
(a) ’m/em and ’t/et become respectively m’ and t’ before hi or ho, me and te before any other pronoun:
No se’m sentia. I couldn’t be heard.
No se m’hi sentia. I couldn’t be heard there.
Se’t quedarà l’original. He’ll keep the original (that belongs to you).