i-a

[Vitalore]

Reușita noastră i-a stresat pe politicieni.
Our success stressed the politicians.

I don't understand this sentence and what i-a is doing there. Apparently i- is ea in the dative form, but how and why? Is i- referring to reușită? "To the success" was stressed? Shouldn't there be a comma after nostră? I don't get it.

 

[jazyk]

I is the masculine plural personal pronoun (os in Portuguese). It's required in Romanian when there's a pe introducing the direct object.

Respect niște politicieni. I respect a few politicians.
Îi respect pe politicienii brazilieni I respect (the) Brazilian polticians.

Why a comma? Most languages forbid the use of a comma between a verb and its object.

 

[danielstan]

I totally disagree.

First a matter of orthography:
the dash ('-') sign in Romanian marks the pronounciation of 2 separate words as a single one, similar with the French '-' in examples like:

prends-le

French orthography uses the single quote (l'apostrophe) when 2 words are pronounced as one, but some sounds are missing due to the 'liason'.
Eample:

t'as vu (tu as vu)

Romanian orthography does not make the distinction between the 2 situations above, so it uses always the dash '-', even in examples when a sound is missing:
i-a stresat

Hint:
In order to 'discover' what sound is missing in the Romanian example above
we can rephrase that sentence at present tense:

Reușita noastră îi stresează pe politicieni.

where îi is an indirect complement in Dative case ("them").

So, the i-a part of the original phrase is a contracted form of 'îi a'.

A literal translation (which, of course, sounds weird in English) would be:

"Our success them has stressed the politicians."

 

[danielstan]

On a related topic I will give all declensions of the above sentence in present tense versus past tense:

Ea mă stresează pe mine. / Ea m-a stresat pe mine.
Ea te stresează pe tine. / Ea te-a stresat pe tine.
Ea îl stresează pe el. / Ea l-a stresat pe el.
Ea o stresează pe ea. / Ea a stresat-o pe ea. !!! (exception here)
Ea ne stresează pe noi. / Ea ne-a stresat pe noi.
Ea vă stresează pe voi. / Ea v-a stresat pe voi.
Ea îi stresează pe ei. / Ea i-a stresat pe ei.
Ea le stresează pe ele. / Ea le-a stresat pe ele.

 

[irinet]

Hi,

A little grammar correction, which is not important for the case: here, the pronoun 'îi' is a Direct Object, doubling or better, anticipating the noun 'politicieni', which is another Direct Object, both in the Accusative Case.
Reușita noastră i-a stresat. (Whom?) - them - 'i' = (who's 'them'?) = [pe politicieni - the politicians]

As for the Dative,
We do have ''îi' in the Dative as well. However, it's a pronoun in the singular form (either masculine or feminine) like, 1. Îi oferā flori de ziua ei. 2. Iar lui îi spune ceva acel lucru.(present tense)
3. I-a dat o veste.(past tense)

So, there's no ortographic difference for any of the above cases when we change the tense. Thus, the confusion, I believe , appears so often. However, we do have the singular # plural forms to pay attention to.

1.DO, sg: Reușita l-a stresat / a stresat-o.
The success stressed him/her. (doesn't matter whose success it is.)
2.IO, pl.: Le oferā flori. Le-a dat o veste.
They are given flowers. He/she gave them the news.

 

[Vitalore]

But I wanna know why write " Reușita noastră i-a stresat pe politicieni" instead of " Reușita noastră a stresat pe politicieni. ". What is the pronoun doing there?

 

[jazyk]

It's required in Romanian when there's a pe introducing the direct object.

 

[Vitalore]

I thought "pe" was there as complement of a stresa, as if "a stresa pe" was the entire verb, almost like a phrasal verb.

 

[jazyk]

No, it's not.

 

[Vitalore]

Alright, thanks everyone!

 

[danielstan]

But I wanna know why write " Reușita noastră i-a stresat pe politicieni" instead of " Reușita noastră a stresat pe politicieni. ". What is the pronoun doing there?

I know this reduplication of direct objects is strange as this phenomenon is not encountered (or rarely encountered) in other Romance languages.
Practically the îi from i-a and prieteni are identifying the same concept in this sentence: the direct object upon which the action has effect.

I read somewhere of a possible Slavic influence, but I don't remember well this part...

 

[danielstan]

I thought "pe" was there as complement of a stresa, as if "a stresa pe" was the entire verb, almost like a phrasal verb.

This 'pe' is a feature developed isolated in Romanian (Aromanian does not have it) and is similar to the Spanish 'a' in a sentence like:

Ion o vede pe Maria vs. Juan ve a Maria

There are many linguistic debates regarding the origin of this 'pe' (< lat. per) and no general consensus was reached.
In my opinion the 'necessity' of a preposition attached to the direct object derived from the fact that without it
a sentence would need to follow the pattern SVO (Subject Verb Object):

Ion vede Maria

In fact there are Romanian texts from XVI century with such kind of sentences.

With 'pe' the speaker has a greater freedom in chosing the words order in sentence:
Pe Maria o vede Ion.
Ion pe Maria o vede.