Sociolinguistics and Etymologies 160, Spanish: Cultural Influence of Religion Slowing the Regular Paradigm of Irregular Past Participles Spanish”
Michael D. Powers, Ph.D., USCCI
![Michael D. Powers, Ph.D., USCCI]()
Michael D. Powers, Ph.D., USCCI
US Certified Court Interpreter 1980 / Ph.D. Spanish Portuguese 1981 / 24 years university professor / Estimates: 12,000+ depositions, hearings, etc. / 850 trials / 3000 documents / Conference Interpreter 650 conferences
???????? Those of us that our Spanish teachers and professors have taught our students that the regular paradigm for formation of the past participle ends with “-ido” for regular verbs ending in “-er” or “-ir” such as “comido” (comer) and “vivido” (vivir), and “-ado” for regular past participles that end in “-ar” (hablar).
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????????? Irregular past participle are those that do not have the above endings. As with other irregular words in languages, those that are used most often are usually those that become irregular. Take the verb “be” in English. It has eight different forms, as can be seen in “am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been” whereas no other verb in English has more than five forms. It is no coincidence that the verb “be” is the most used verb in the English language.
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????????? Sixteen ?common irregular past participles in Spanish are: “hecho, dicho, satisfecho, deshecho, absuelto, roto, cubierto, muerto, descubierto, abierto, puesto, resuelto, devuelto, vuelto, visto, escrito”.
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????????? Upon analyzing the above list of irregular past participles, note that there is a regular paradigm of irregularity, if you will, within these so-called irregular past participles. Specifically, as long as the root is the same, it does not matter what prefix is attached, the same irregular paradigm continues. For example, the root verb “hacer” gives us “hecho” and thus when with a prefix, such as “deshacer”, the past participle continues with the same paradigm in its irregular form, “deshecho”.? Note this same phenomenon occurs with “vuelto” since we have “devuelto”.
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????????? However, we have three verbs in the Spanish language that do not have this regular paradigm of irregularity in spite of having the same roots: “maldecir, bendecir, corromper”, meaning “to damn, to bless, to corrupt” respectively.
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????????? Note the first two, “maldecir” and “bendecir” both have the same root as “decir”. And, there are other verbs in the Spanish language that also have “decir” as the root of the verb: “contradecir, predecir”. However, the first two mentioned above, “maldecir” and “bendecir” act differently than all these others when used in compound tenses, be it the present perfect, past perfect, conditional perfect, future perfect, etc. Compare the following:
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No sabíamos si los testigos habían dicho la verdad [We didn’t know if the witnesses had told the truth]
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El sacerdote había bendecido a las personas presentes en la misa [The priest had blessed the individuals attending mass]
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La alcadesa ha contradicho lo que el gobernadora había dicho [The mayor has contradicted what the governor had said]
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El médico de cabecera había predicho lo que le iba a pasar al paciente al no terminar su medicamento [The primary care physician had predicted what would happen to the patient upon not taking his or her medication]
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Los politicos abusivos habían maldecido a grupos étnicos para impresionar a sus fanáticos [Abusive politician had damned ethnic groups to imipress their fans]
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The other verb in the Spanish language that does not have the regular paradigm or irregularity with the past participle is “corromper”:
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La se?ora había roto las cartas antes de botarlas a la basura [The woman had ripped up the letters before throwing them out in the trash]
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Los politicos corruptos que llevaban a?os en el congreso habían corrompido a los recién llegados [The corrupt politicians that had spent years in congress had corrupted those? that had recently arrived]
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Now, I will ask you a question I was asked back between 1975 and 1977 while studying for my MA in Spanish at the University of Wisconsin at Madison by my mentor, Mr. Norman P. Sacks: “What do these three verbs, “bendecir, maldecir, corromper” that use the regular past participle in perfect tenses have in common vis-à-vis the other verbs?” Answer: They are used in a religious context. To bless, to damn, to corrupt.
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Sociolinguistically, we know that religion claims that its significant guide or book, be it the bible or something else, is the “word of God”. When this is the belief of a people, there is a strong tendency, even if unintentional, not to change anything. This is why the verb “ojalá” never changes. Since it means “maiy God will it”: Inherited?from?Old Spanish?oxalá, from?Arabic????????????????????(law ?ā?a allāhu,?“and may God will it”). Compare?Arabic????? ????? ??????(?in ?ā?a llāhu). I believe this is also why Latin was still be used in mass in the United States into the second half of the twentieth century.
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Nonetheless, it is important to note that this treatment does not take place when these same verbs are adjectives. As adjectives, we have “bendito, maldito, corrupto” instead of the past perfect forms of “bendecido, maldecido, corrompido”.
Sources
Norman P. Sacks, Univerity of Wisconsin at Madison Spanish Professor
Wikipedia