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Why

Estou triste de sentir, e reflito-o à janela ao som da água que pinga e da chuva que cai

is it reflito-o and not reflito-lo?

What's a rule that's about verb + -o and verb + -lo called? I haven't even been able to find oen.

stafusa
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DankenN
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  • The pronoun, in this case o, can be either before or after the verb. When it is after, it joins with the verb, as "mato-o" and "amo-o". If the verb ends in -r, -s or -z, then lo is joined instead: "para matá-lo", "tu faze-lo" and "nós fazemo-lo". When the verb ends in a nasal vowel, then no is joined: "eles são-no" and "para fazerem-no". In Brazil, lo for verbs ending in -s and specially -z sounds weirds; I think the situation in Portugal is complicated. – Schilive Jul 09 '23 at 04:03
  • Also, the origin of the "rule" is that in the olden days, before even 1200's, people only used lo (la, los, las), so "amo-lo", "matar-lo", "gostam-lo". Some consonants betweens two vowels ceased to be pronounced, turning "amo-lo" into "amo-o". In the case of "matar-lo", as r and l are very similar, then l only was said; turning "matar-lo" into "matá-lo". With "gostam-lo", the l got nasaled, and as the greatest difference between l and n is that the second is nasal, l turned into n, turning gostam-lo into gostam-no. – Schilive Jul 09 '23 at 04:09
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    @Schilive Please turn your comments into an answer! – stafusa Jul 09 '23 at 10:15
  • @Schilive ...with "gostam-lo" --> why then not "gostam-no"? Or did you mean that it used to be L but then it'd become N and so is nowadays? – DankenN Jul 09 '23 at 14:09
  • @DankenN, yeah. It used to be that people said gostam-lo, but then it became gostam-no. This happened because the l got nasalized. – Schilive Jul 09 '23 at 16:14
  • @stafusa, I really thought this question had been answered somewhere. It seems like a very fundamental question for a Portuguese learner. But I find really difficult to find questions in the search bar, so I was hoping someone had it in their meaty database. – Schilive Jul 09 '23 at 16:16
  • Bom ponto, @Schilive. Talvez essa resposta seja relevante, mas penso que não completa, e sem seus comentários históricos, que são bem interessantes. – stafusa Jul 09 '23 at 19:12
  • @Schilive I think no, na, etc used to be used after nasal vowels, not only in the enclictic position. So "não no vi" instead of "não o vi" – Artefacto Jul 09 '23 at 23:18
  • @Schilive similarly, would it be correct to say: amo-lhe (a ela, a voce), amo-te (a ti) ? – DankenN Jul 10 '23 at 04:12
  • @Artefacto, yup. I think Camões wrote something like that in Os Lusíadas. That was also the case for -s/z + -o, as poi-la (link). And even as article, as in depois-lo (same link). – Schilive Jul 10 '23 at 04:36
  • @DankenN amar takes a direct object, so amo-a, amo-o. amo-lhe is only possible if lhe is non-argumental like amo-lhe o humor (=I love his/her humor). – Artefacto Jul 10 '23 at 09:48
  • @Artefacto what do you mean? Eu amo-te would be incorrect? How then would one say eu te amo using the postfix notation? – DankenN Jul 10 '23 at 14:27
  • @DankenN amo-te is correct, because te is both dative/accusative. But in the 3rd person we have o/a/os/as for the accusative case and lhe/lhes for the dative. – Artefacto Jul 10 '23 at 15:58

1 Answers1

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The rule is simple: the pronoun is -lo(s)/-la(s) if the verbal form ends with a consonant such as r, s, z. If the verb ends with a nasal sound, it will be -no(s)/-na(s). Elsewhere it will be -o(s)/-a(s).

It is that simple, it happens for historical reasons during the development of the language!

Ergative Man
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