anna8 - ¡Debiste llamarte Dolores!
Warning: Do not read this unless you are a grammar nerd. May cause headache, nausea, dizziness, dysphoria and impairment of short-and longterm memory...
Shortly after I started studying Spanish three years ago, a friend taught me the expression "Debiste llamarte Dolores" (They should have called you Dolores, i.e., you complain so much, you have so many pains, that should have been your name) Fine. A couple of years later, I happened to think of it and tried to make grammatical sense of it and couldn't. I started to wonder if I remembered the phrase correctly: what, after all, had happened to the "have called" part?
Yesterday I came across this sentence in the reading group book, Todo Bajo el Cielo:
p. 360: Diría, sin temor a exagerar, que aquel monstruoso instrumento musical debía de medir unos ochos metros de largo por cuatro o cinco de alto. I would say, without fear of exaggeration, that that monstrous musical instrument must have measured some eight meters in length by four or five in height.
Again, there's no trace in the Spanish of the English modal+haber+past participle.
So without trying to do a complete comparative analysis of how English and Spanish differ in their expression of supposition and obligation, I offer a few naive observations:
First concerning English:
1. "Must" can express obligation or supposition; context supplies the meaning:
Obligation: He must be ready for anything (if he is to survive the attack.)
Supposition: He must be ready for anything (judging from how confident he seems.)
2. "Must" can only exist in the past as "must have" and only has the meaning of supposition:
He must have been ready for anything.
3. In modern English, "should" expresses obligation (I know this is an oversimplification and I'm not looking at forms like "I should hope that...");
4. It too can only exist in the past as "should have."
Spanish:
1. deber+de: This phrase used to express supposition and not obligation, but it seems that distinction has collapsed in modern spoken language.
2. The rule for using deber in the preterite, conditional or imperfect is a little squishy (See a New Reference Grammar pp 328 et ff)
So here's the deal as I see it --
1. There are ambiguities and formal constraints in the expression of obligation and probability in both English and Spanish.
2. These ambiguities and constraints differ in the two languages.
3. I need to stop translating and get back to speaking and understanding! I need to find a few colloquial ways to express these concepts, practice saying them until I'm blue in the face, and stop overanalyzing!
.
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This is amazing. Thank you for this analysis. Can you be my classmate in Buenos Aires when I go down there?
Questions for you if you don't mind: "1. deber+de: This phrase used to express supposition and not obligation, but it seems that distinction has collapsed in modern spoken language." - could you expand a bit on this? The following paragraph will explain what I know of deber in terms of supposition and obligation.
Debes trabajar más - obligation in present tense
Debe (de) estar enamorado - supposition, present tense
I don't know the preterite, conditional, or imperfect though. Are you quoting A New Reference of Modern Spanish? I should get that book and read further if I am to understand those tenses.
Thank you.
thesmithtopher
Here is a little more form the section that Anna8 was quoting, the text in blue, from A New Reference of Modern Spanish fourth edition (and yes you should buy it)
21.3.2 Deber (de) to express probability or supposition
Deber de can only express probability or supposition, although deber alone is nowadays also used with this meaning:
Debiste (de) llegar tade ‘You must have arrived late’
….
The modern tendency is to use deber both for obligation and supposition (deber de) creates ambiguities. Use of deber de to translate ‘must’ would have clarifiedt the following examples:
Debió hacerlo Juan - “John ought of have done it” / John must have done it.
…
..
(i) Mexican Spanish constantly uses haber de to express suppositions
(ii) Like ‘got to’ in English tener que can also indicate a strong supposition, as in búscalo bien, tiene que estar ahí ‘ check thoroughly, it’s got to be there’
I'm with you Anna8. We just need to know a couple of different ways to express this and then we won't have to think about it anymore. If our instructors only knew just how much we miss them on the weekends! I still want to know what happened to Leo..
Dónde está Leo, ha desaparacido?
Kikuyu, so this is what, day 3 of Leo watch? (Está durmiendo, supongo, con la barriga llena de chorizo...)
Thesmithtopher, thanks for the nice words. I think Stevestrv is right -- you'd really like the book. He is quoting the part that I referred to when I talked about "deber de." Apparently, there used to be a clean distinction in meaning between "deber de" (supposition) and "deber" (obligation) and now that distinction is often ignored.
Sí, Leo estaba llena de carne, y había dormir todo del fin de la semana.
Creo que es un poco estraño, la doctora de mi esposa, a lo que dijo, "Necesita más de vitamina be doce (no p2), Coma más carne roja."
Pues, iré a mercado a comprar los ingredientes por el chorizo.
Por lo visto Leo se desaprecio mientras escribía un comentario en Pa´que sepas... - JP's Tip of the Day, and That Thingy.
Quizás Zanat and Mondravius lo secuestraran
leoguerrero says
2 days ago
You are so right Don Perigo!!! So sorry about that I think I got mixed up :S
In a crucifix it sais INRI, not RIP oooops. Sorry!
Anna 8, to say "you must have been an actor", in Spanish
¡él secuestraron media frase!
Sí Zanat y Mondravius beamaron( from beamar “to beam up” not found in any dictionary) a Leo mientras estaba escribiendo.
Hola anna8.
Yeah, this is something I noticed a while back too, that people would completely eliminate the verb haber and shorten the sentence. I've also seen it like you have in books.
Debiste haber sido tú. It should have been you.
Debiste ser tú. It should have been you.
Debió de haber sido. It must have been.
Debió de ser. It must have been.
Deberían de haber llegado, ¿no?. They should have arrived already, don't you think?
Deberían de llegar, ¿no?. They should have already arrived, don't you think?
Although I've never seen an explanation, I asked a Mexican woman who teaches Spanish about this, and she said that yeah, it's common and it's just the way people speak sometimes shortening things up, just like we do in English.
Sometimes I think about the stuff that we shorten up in English and I can't even imagine trying to learn it as a second language.
Leo must have been kidnapped.
How would this be expressed in everyday language?
Any of the following?
Ha debido de sequestrar.
Debe haber sido sequestrado.
Debió de sequestar.
Ha de haber sequestrado.
Kikuyu
I do not have my grammar book with me so I do not feel comfortable commenting on your phrases. But I would like to add a couple more possibilities, remembering that you can use the future tense to express probability in the present and the future perfect to express probability of past events which are important in the present.
My guesses
Habrán secuestrado a Leo – (they must have kidnapped Leo)
Or with the passive voice
Habrá sido secuestrado Leo – (Leo must have been kidnapped)
Spanishpod Team, podemos hablar más de este tema en el próximo episodio de Pa'que sepas?
Muchas Gracias de antemano!
Yo diría Leo debió de haber sido secuestrado.
We use de after deber when there is probability.
hypersport, gracias por la ayuda :) Bien, ninguno de mis conjeturas eran correctas:(
thanks for the help. Oh well, none of my guesses were correct.
Hola amigos,
Once again I will dip my oar into the sea of fruitless speculations hoping against hope to see the good ship JP in the distance, coming to our rescue...
I've noticed that often in Spanish, a sentence like "Leo was kidnapped" is expressed as something like:
Lo secuestraron a Leo. They kidnapped Leo. (Leo was kidnapped.)
This means "Leo was kidnapped" but it avoids a true passive construction which Spanish doesn't seem to favor. This is consistent with Stevestrv's suggestions above, but for the moment I want to set aside the future and future perfect of probability.
So can we say?
Lo debieron de haber secuestrado a Leo. They must have kidnapped Leo. (Leo must have been kidnapped.)
Y algo más-- En la lección de hoy, la del asalto armado VII, en la sección de la expansión, se dice:
Yo debería haber manejado. I should have driven.
Now if you listen carefully, you will hear Leo saying in the expansion exercise (and only there, not in the dialogue proper and not in the dialogue with audio bits):
Yo debería de haber manejado.
I've heard Leo do this before and I hear it on Mexican tv all the time -- Mexican Spanish likes "deber de" even when the sentence has nothing to do with supposition or probability.
Kikuyu, I actually think all of your sentences are good but you do need a few Leo's and lo's for clarification:
Ha debido de sequestrar a Leo.
Debe haber sido sequestrado Leo.
Debió de sequestar a Leo.
Ha de haber sequestrado Leo.
I also like Hypersport's version as well as Stevestrv's, as I said above.
*By the way, I think Leo is alive and well and hanging out in la cocina, rehearsing his quesadilla show.
De verdad, Anna8.
Leo, se obstruya las arterias del equipo para la práctica.
Anna8, gracias por las aclaraciones acerca Leo ;)
Cobre, gracias por enseñarme como se quita los comentarios.
Thanks for teaching me how to remove the posts.
de nada, amiga
Hi guys
I know that I am repeating my self but A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish secton 21.3.2 did says
‘Deber de can only express probability or supposition, although deber alone is nowadays also used with this meaning:
Debiste (de) llegar tade ‘You must have arrived late’
So I think the de is optional.
Anna8 In English we avoid the passive voice but I think its use is much more common in Spanish.
Hi guy
This is just for fun and it makes things evern more complicated but how about.
“Leo lo han debido (de) secuestar (ellos).”
See JP’s answer to one of my questions in Intermediate - Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar
stevestrv, thats a good one! Mira cuantas maneras hay para decir la misma cosa.
anna8,
a propósito, deberías haber sido escritora. eres muy poética:
"Once again I will dip my oar into the sea of fruitless speculations hoping against hope to see the good ship JP in the distance, coming to our rescue..."
Agredezco el talento que tienes para expresar estas cosas.
Gracias (tal vez :D) Kikuyu. ¿Te da gusto la "prosa de color morado" como la del concurso Bulwer-Lytton que celebra la ficción espantosa? jajaja Thanks (maybe :D) Kikuyu. Do you like purple prose like the stuff in the Bulwer-Lytton contest that honors horrendous fiction? ["prosa de color morado" isn't really Spanish. Sorry]
Mira nomás amigos, depués de esta conversación tan larga y vaganda -- ¡estoy empezando a entender deber! But hey check it out, after this long and wandering conversation -- I'm beginning to understand deber!
Si el curso ha sido tan difícil, Anna8, probablemente es porque tú ha estado arrastrar nosotros con te, al menos para parte de la senda.
No entiendo todo, pero poco a poco . . .
pulíame.