Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns

[jamrosch]

Hi Guys,

I have a question about Direct (DO - me,te,lo,la,nos,os,los,las,) and Indirect Object Pronouns (IO -me,te,le,nos,os,les,se). I understand them quite well by reading grammar and sentences but just when I think I have worked them out in my head I read a spanish sentence and it doesn't make sense based on the grammar I have learned. I can work it out but no the exact meaning.

For example I have been reading a fairytale in spanish called el rey rana and there a few sentences that I thought don't fit into my understanding of grammar.

First question is regarding this sentence (bolded part):
Ocurrió una vez que la pelota, en lugar de caer en la manita que la niña tenía levantada, hízolo en el suelo y, rodando, fue a parar dentro del agua.

Why is it that in the word hízolo; lo is attached to hizo when I learned in grammar it can only be attached to an infinitive like puedo hacerlo not puede hizolo

Second question is regarding another sentence (bolded parts):
"¡Ah!, ¿eres tú, viejo chapoteador?" dijo, "pues lloro por mi pelota de oro, que se me cayó en la fuente." - "Cálmate y no llores más," replicó la rana, "yo puedo arreglarlo. Pero, ¿qué me darás si te devuelvo tu juguete?"

The part where it says: que se me cayo en la fuente is talking about the ball falling into the fountain but why is me there also if I translate it based on what I learned from grammar se is the indirect object and me is the direct object shouldn't the meaning be the ball dropped (cayo) me (me) in the fountain (se). Or is cayo a reflexive verb or is there another grammr rule I a missing or not understaning. I also thought maybe the order of the words should be me se cayo. Could someone break it down and explain the grammar rules to me please I have been trying to work out this concept for a long time.

Also a non related question about the word chapoteador I couldn't find it in the spanish dictionary. It only came up with the word chapotear so I thought chapoteador means one that makes a splashing noise. Is this right and what should one do if they can't find a spanish word in the dictionary.

Thanks a lot for your help

James

[Rusty]

In the case where the object pronoun is suffixed to a conjugated verb, that is merely a carryover from former times. You'll see it used in older writings and in poetry. Once in a while you'll even hear it used in speech, but suffixing an object pronoun to a conjugated verb is mostly out of style nowadays.

The 'se me cayó' construction is an example of 'accidental se' usage.
Instead of saying 'I dropped', the literal equivalent in Spanish is 'it dropped itself on me'. That 'on me' part can be translated a couple of different ways, but the whole idea is that it wasn't your fault. Something dropped and you were there to witness it (it happened "on your watch").
If you search for terms like 'accidental se' or 'no fault se', you'll get a good amount of hits where you can get more information.
The construction is 'se' + indirect object pronoun + third-person verb + subject.

The '-dor' or '-dora' ending means what you described. To find the meanings of these types of words, you'll almost always have to break the word down into the root component and look that up in the dictionary. Just like you'll hardly ever find all the conjugations of verbs in the dictionary, you have to know how to get back to the lexeme listed there.

[jamrosch]

Thanks a lot Rusty This explanation is very helpful, a have seen this accidental se construction a few times.

[Rusty]

Glad it was helpful.
You'll run into other uses for 'se' besides being an object pronoun and being used to construct the 'no fault' usage, just so you know. You can find these by searching for 'pasiva refleja' and 'impersonal se'.