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Reflexive verbs can have a variety of uses and meanings, which often escape consistent classification. Some language-common identified uses are outlined below. [4] For example, Davies et al. [2] identify 12 uses for Spanish reflexive constructions, while Vinogradov [5] divides Russian reflexive verbs into as many as 16 groups.
Spanish verbs describing motion tend to emphasize direction instead of manner of motion. According to the pertinent classification, this makes Spanish a verb-framed language. This contrasts with English, where verbs tend to emphasize manner, and the direction of motion is left to helper particles, prepositions, or adverbs.
These verbs require the use of the reflexive pronoun, appropriate to the subject. Some transitive verbs can take on a reflexive meaning, such as lavar (to wash) and lavarse (to wash oneself). Other verbs have reflexive forms which do not take on a reflexive meaning, such as ir (to go) and irse (to go away).
Even more recently, Lewandowski has focused on one function in the use of se with reflexive verbs, the completive, wherein with specific verbs the clitic denotes a completion of an action. [15] Lewandowski has proposed an interconnected functionality for the Spanish reflexive pronoun, representing this concept via a cluster map indicating ...
Reciprocal pronominal clitics are commonly found in the Romance languages. These are seen in French and Spanish as se and Italian si. In finite clauses, they are preverbal in French, Italian, and Spanish. In nonfinite clauses and infinitive constructions, the clitic follows the verb in Spanish and Italian, but not in French.
For other irregular verbs and their common patterns, see the article on Spanish irregular verbs. The tables include only the "simple" tenses (that is, those formed with a single word), and not the "compound" tenses (those formed with an auxiliary verb plus a non-finite form of the main verb), such as the progressive, perfect, and passive voice.
In the Romance languages, many anticausative verbs are formed through a pseudo-reflexive construction, using a clitic pronoun (which is identical to the non-emphatic reflexive pronoun) applied on a transitive verb. For example (in Spanish, using the clitic se): El vidrio se quebró. ' The glass shattered. ' (Infinitive: quebrar + se)
A verb that does not follow all of the standard conjugation patterns of the language is said to be an irregular verb. The system of all conjugated variants of a particular verb or class of verbs is called a verb paradigm; this may be presented in the form of a conjugation table.