Unit 17: Additional grammatical structures
17.3 Placement of Object Pronouns in Old Spanish
One occasionally sees in literature and in old or formal writing an object pronoun attached to, rather than preceding, a main conjugated verb in a sentence:
| Al verme, volvióse pálido | Upon seeing me, he turned pale. |
| Pidióme el jarro de agua y díselo… | He asked me for the jug of water and I gave it to him… (Lazarillo de Tormes, Anonymous, 1554) |
| Y el mozo díjole que según él cuitaba, decían verdad. | And the boy said that according to what he thought, they were speaking the truth. (Don Juan Manuel, El Conde Lucanor, 1282-1348) |
The above would normally be expressed as:
| Al verme, se volvió pálido. |
| Me pidió el jarro de agua y se lo di… |
| Y el mozo le dijo… |
