I would like to discuss your post. I would like you to provide some sort of evidence for what you claim about the word "si" being no one/a first person plural. You claim that this is regionalism in the Italian language. I am fluent in both Portuguese and Spanish, and I can tell you that it also exists in these languages.
E.g. Aquí no se puede fumar.
Não se pode fumar aquí.
You can't smoke here. (no smoking)
This is the reflexive third person pronoun. There is no way of saying that it isn't. Any Spanish or Portuguese grammar manual will tell you this. Just because it is an expression and is not in the literal sense of the reflexive being an action by the subject to the subject, does not change this part of speech. It continues to be referred to officially as the reflexive pronoun.
Of course, I will gladly discuss this.
I will list sources at the end of my comment, as to avoid confusion.
But first of all, it is absolutely true in Castillian "se" is reflexive, and as you say, it can also be used idiomatically with the function of impersonal.
It is different in italian though.
Secondly, we have to keep in mind these are mere classifications, more or less arbitrary in their nature, done in modern times to neatly simplify complex languages arose during more than a millennia, with nearly infinite variations both chronological and regional.
Only somewhat recently academically studied and categorised, so that the languages themselves became more uniform and relatively frozen as far as forms go.
While I am not fluent in the Italian language, I would like to propose the argument that you are wrong and that this part of speech "si" ("se" in Latin) continues to be officially referred to as the reflexive pronoun, though it is an idiomatic expression. As proof of this I submit the fact that:
In Italian grammar (and keep in mind what I said above about it), there is both a properly reflexive and an impersonal si (in addition to others).
Actually, as a general rule, more emphasis is placed upon the form of a pronoun more than its distinctive nature.
The reflexive form, in fact, retains a variant (
sé) much closer to the latin, and used virtually the same.
On the other hand, since I guess, medieval times, or even earlier, and as I said, most surely due to the Tuscan influence on modern italian (to the point, critics say, italian is a fraud built artificially off Tuscan), an impersonal "si" arose and become as frequent as the proper, reflexive pronoun.
If you read Dante's Comedia, you'd see just how frequently he already in the 1300s used "si" impersonally.
Curiously, and ironically, latin hypothetical particle "si" (as in: Si vis pacem para bellum) became "se" in italian.
1) Your statement of this language construct being a regional/archaic expression unique to Italian was completely incorrect based on my examples in the other Romance languages,
I did not say *that* was a regional/archaic expression, I said the explicit third person plural one was.
2) and the example from the Italian grammar site clearly labeling this word as a reflexive pronoun.
Actually it does not classify "si" as a an exclusively reflexive pronoun.
In fact, if you scroll down past the very first category "
Il "si" riflessivo"
you'd also read:
"
Il "si" impersonale"
"
Il "si" passivante"
"
Il "si" reciproco"
3)Not one of the examples given in the link you provided translate the word as a singular first person pronoun (I/me/myself). All and every one of the examples follow the same examples as those same uses of the word "se" in Portuguese and Spanish. (E.g. Si parla francese/French is spoken here/ Aquí se hable español.)
Right, but I said first person
plural.
And the link says, explicitly:
Il "si" impersonale
Il "si" impersonale ha due funzioni.
1) Può sostituire il "noi": which means:
Can substitute "we"Si parla francese (noi parliamo francese)-> literal:
We speak french
Si affittano camere (noi affittiamo camere)-> literal:
We rent rooms Rooms for rent
If you wish to argue your point, please provide links, quotes, or some other authoritave source other than your false affirmations of it being the first person singular.
Plural.. Obviously it cannot possibly be used for the first person singular!
Singular first person pronouns are:
Io(ego), Mi(mihi), Me(me) very basic Nominative, Dative and Accusative respectivelly.
In conclusion, if it were the first person singular, it would refer to the speaker and would retain meaning literally and not in the form of an idiomatic expression. In real life, languages frequently use idiomatic expressions that non-native speakers sometimes translate erroneously.
Again, plural.
But anyway, here's some links, in addition to the one I provided earlier:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatica_italiana (search for: "impersonal")
http://www.accademiadellacrusca.it/it/lingua-italiana/consulenza-linguistica/domande-risposte/usi-funzioni-pronome-clitico-sihttps://books.google.it/books?id=zVbIU9nPP_YC&pg=PA242&lpg=PA242&dq=pronome%2Bimpersonale&source=bl&ots=uqUBZewQRn&sig=onEVUN1I4jjX4BEjsypmKHGbkuk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwib88Te9bvKAhVDPRQKHTD5A-IQ6AEIdjAJ#v=onepage&q=pronome%2Bimpersonale&f=falseLet me clarify something: if your objection is only limited, or mainly so, as to the actual, academical/pedagogical classification of the pronoun, and not its form/use, then it's perfectly fine to say (albeit maybe improperly) that in general "si" is a reflexive pronoun.
It's only a matter of classification after all.
Surely, there's no need to argue about such a fine point. The actual grammatical scholarship is greatly more complex (there's more distinctions to be made), as these are mere simplified rules for the masses, and absent of complete consensus as to some things.
Hope this helps, looking forward to continuing the discussion,
Desmond.
Topic: Another grammar post (Read 1913 times)