... lo que tenía ordenado

[Quaeso]

Subía despacio y el corazón le latía terriblemente: sabía que estaba haciendo algo prohibido y, sin embargo, no era capaz de bajar y cumplir con lo que tenía ordenado. -Marcelino, ch.2

He was ascending slowly and his heart pulsed him terribly: He was knowing that he was doing something prohibited; however, he was not able to descend and finish with that which had been ordered. -Yo

Thank you, that's helpful. I found what I think is a good searchable online edition for Marcelino, Pan, y Vino. I know that había ordendo would be active (and wouldn't fit here), but what is the difference in sense between the passive forms: tenía ordenado, estaba ordenado, había sido ordenado and era ordenado?

[aleCcowaN]

...and yet, he was not able to go down and carry out the orders he was given

[Quaeso]

Thank you, what about the difference between the passive forms?

[aleCcowaN]

"tener + participio" is a verbal periphrasis and there's no passive voice there to be found.

[Quaeso]

I thought that 'tenía ordenado' was a pluperfect passive verb; however that is of course incorrect, as it was pointed out. Thank you for your patience. I think now it is in fact an active verbal periphrasis similar to but not identical to haber+past participle. Here is a good article I found on it, which I should have read instead of asking AI. So given that it is active, then could the verse:

no era capaz de bajar y cumplir con lo que tenía ordenado. -Marcelino, ch.2

... be translated: He was not able to descend and complete that which he had planned (i.e. his chores which he had arranged to do for himself)?

[Rusty]

aleCcowaN answered this question above, in post #2.

[Quaeso]

Yes, thank you.

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

...and yet, he was not able to go down and carry out the orders he was given

But I was confused by his answer because a) he uses the verb dar instead of ordenar, and in the passive form. And b) since the verb tenía ordenado is active, it's literally something Marcelino planned or organized, not the others. So I think that alecCowaN's answer could serve as a paraphrase, because it's essentially correct (probably); but it creates confusion when trying to understand the grammar. A literal translation is what I would like to arrive at.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

I get why you say "passive form", but in grammar there is only one passive voice, which is "ser" + past participle. So, this is why Alec said there is no passive voice there.

In this case, "tener" is used as an auxiliary verb, similarly to how we use the verb "haber" + past participle.
- Te tengo dicho que no hables con ese señor. Te he dicho que no hables con ese señor.
I have told you not to speak with that man.
- Mi maestro tiene leídos muchísimos libros. Mi maestro ha leído muchísimos libros.
My teacher has read so many books.
- Si supieras todas las mentiras que tengo oídas. Si supieras todas las mentiras que he oído.
If you only knew how many lies I have heard.
- A los niños les tenemos prohibida la televisión. A los niños les hemos prohibido la televisión.
We have banned the children from watching TV.

The difference in structure is that when you use "tener", the past participle must agree in gender and number with the thing it refers to, while "haber" has a past participle that doesn't change.
And the little nuance in these examples, is that the sentences with "tener" have some sort of idea of accumulation: My orders that you don't talk to that person are valid all the time, not only when I said it; the children can't ever watch TV, and such prohibition is always present in our minds.

So, in Marcelino's example:
- No era capaz de bajar y cumplir con lo que tenía ordenado.
This construction is more similar to an impersonal sentence than a passive voice. You don't express the person who gave him an order.
With "haber" you could say:
- No era capaz de bajar y cumplir con lo que se le había ordenado.
"Se" makes an impersonal sentence here.

When we translate sentences, we can't always use the same structures from Spanish to English. Alec translated with the best structure into English, when such impersonal sentence had to become a passive voice in English.

[Quaeso]

Interesting, thank you, and I love the examples again. I hope that you all don't mind my slow learning style (it takes me awhile to pick up new things). One thing about your post that I didn't know is that the participle in the tener construction conforms to the object, but in the haber construction, the participle stays in the masculine singular.

But I think there must be something here that I'm not grasping, so I would like to continue talking about this; but if it gets too difficult or if we can't find solutions, then I would like to just save it for later and move on, once again please pardon my sluggishness. But here's what I'm stuck with:

- No era capaz de bajar y cumplir con lo que tenía ordenado.
This construction is more similar to an impersonal sentence than a passive voice.

This doesn't compute for me because I don't think it is either passive or impersonal voice. In your examples all of the tener+participles are in the active. And so if tenía ordenado were indeed in the passive or impersonal, I would expect that a reflexive or passive pronoun (se) would be required. And so I think that tenía ordenado must be active. And therefore, it seems that Marcelino must be the subject, because I don't see what else it could be given the context.

You don't express the person who gave him an order.

I don't understand why that isn't possible. I mean it seems that one could either express the agent, or not, depending upon how literal you wanted the translation to be.

[aleCcowaN]

The verbal periphrasis "tener + participio" points to a finished action which result persists in the time frame of the speech, being the final result the matter and not the action itself. That's why the participle's number and gender concordance follow the object and not the subeject. The original event loses its significance, an the result is emphasized, or reinforced, or there's some insistence upon it.

Marcelino was given orders, no matter who gave them or when, and those commands remained unfulfilled at the time of the speech. Moreover, Marcelino's attitude suggests they're at risk of them never being carried out. That tension is communicated precisely and succintly by this verbal perphasis.

That said, there's a potential for confussion with other uses of tener as auxiliary or main verb. For instance

Tengo previsto terminar todas las tareas esta noche.

or

El libro tenía coloreadas todas las estampas.

are not examples of this periphrasis (first case: participle coordinated with subject/second case: not a real participle but an adjective)

Back to Marcelino... I don't know of any English version of this verbal structure, but I do know that what English lacks in grammar power is smartly compensated with a more precise choice of vocabulary and style. That's why

""and yet, he was not able to go down and carry out the orders he was given"

with this being chosen to compensate the fact that the orders giving person is implied in the sentence. Did I succeed? Dunno, but I stopped expecting English to behave as Spanish a long time ago. The same should apply when you swap the languages.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Keep on asking questions as you need. We all are here to help each other.

To what has been said, I'll add that you are right to say that the sentence "...como lo tenía ordenado", is neither a passive voice or an impersonal sentence. I only said it was more similar to an impersonal sentence than to a passive voice, because it is not stated who gave those orders. It is clearly possible to state who gave those orders, but the author chose a sentence where that is not explicitly said, and the translation must respect that.

The structure is formally known as a "verbal periphrasis".
When the verb tener is used with a past participle like this, the verb tener changes its normal meaning to become an auxiliary verb and the sentence gives the idea that, in this case, the orders, are present in the mind of the speaker all the time.

Some examples of the same usage, but when it's explicit who gave the orders:
- El niño salió del salón, como el maestro se lo tenía ordenado.
The boy left the classroom as the teacher had ordered him to.
- Mamá, lavamos los platos como nos lo tenías ordenado.
Mom, we washed the dishes as you had ordered us to do.
- Los soldados llegan todos los días a las seis, como el capitán se lo tiene ordenado.
The soldiers arrive every day at six, as the captain has ordered them to do.

This is a rather confusing subject. Ask as many questions you need, at the pace you need.

[Quaeso]

Thank you, those posts are helpful. I see this not only as an opportunity to learn the grammar itself; but also to get to know you better from your responses. And so I would like to eventually address various points from both of your posts; but to avoid too much complexity, I'll mention one topic at a time. And I do want to stay within the rules, so let me know if I should ever start a new thread:

Tengo previsto terminar todas las tareas esta noche.

Just to make sure that I have the right idea here, I'll venture a translation: "I have predicted that I [will] finish all of the tasks this night." I don't understand why this isn't the verbal periphrasis, although it is certainly different from the other examples because it takes terminar, an infinitive, as its apparent object. I take that it uses the infinitive instead of a substantive clause (que...) because the subject of the substantive clause (yo) would be the same as the governing verb, which is perhaps tengo or tengo previsto. But it seems that regular, simple verbs also take substantive clauses like this, so that's why I still think it's a verbal periphrasis as opposed to something else.

El libro tenía coloreadas todas las estampas.

"The book had all of [its] prints colored." Yes, for this I agree that it's not verbal periphrasis, but a simple verb (tenía), with its direct object estampas modified by the adjectival participle coloreadas. Maybe the word sequence here creates the illusion that it's the periphrasis at first glance.

[aleCcowaN]

Tener previsto shares with all verbal periphrasis the fact of being a unit of meaning, but it's a one-off. It translates into to plan to, to have plans for, to schedule, to have scheduled, to expect, to anticipate, to have something in place, to have something set aside, to foresee and to provide for, all depending on the circumstances.

I anticipate I'll have all the tasks finished this night

or simply

I'll be having all the tasks finished in the course of the night

Tengo previsto, tengo pensado or te tengo dicho are not instances of the same verbal periphrasis but different "phrasal verbs" (or the closer to them you may find in Spanish)

Tengo pensado cambiar de empleo este año (I plan to look for a new job this year)
Te tengo dicho que no recojas todos los hongos silvestres que encuentras (I warned you not to forage every wild mushroom you came across)

[Quaeso]

Ok, thank you, I'll consider that. Here's the next thing mentioned that I would like to talk about:

"and yet, he was not able to go down and carry out the orders he was given" with this being chosen to compensate the fact that the orders giving person is implied in the sentence. Did I succeed? Dunno, but I stopped expecting English to behave as Spanish a long time ago.

I don't want to be too critical of your translation there because I think that you offered a good one. But I would say that at least in the Biblical realm, they tend to classify the translations (from an original language into the vernacular) as falling into a spectrum between two separate camps: The Literal translations (which tend to give richer information into the original vocabulary, syntax, and grammar), and the Paraphrase (not connected in any way to verbal periphrasis by the way, but which is more intelligible to the average reader who isn't studying the original texts or languages, and which tends to take greater liberties, using the familiar vernacular idioms, etc., instead of the original ones). So depending on the intended audience, a translator could strive for either type of translation. What I think is that English can actually replicate quite well the original language in a Literal translation, but I think it is a difficult thing to do even for a native speaker, and the result is often wordy, with many prepositions and auxiliary verbs which must be used to replicate all the inflections which the English lacks. But as you say we have a large vocabulary to draw from.
So I still want to comment further on the text from Marcelino, but I wanted to give you a chance to respond to that first.

[poli]

You are getting to a very complex realm here, because sometimes literal translations don't match the original meaning. A famous example of this is, "Where are the snows of yesteryear". A direct translation would be (I think) , what has become of last year's snow. In the old French, this comes across as poetic. In English, it needs some help.

[Quaeso]

You are getting to a very complex realm here

If so, I apologize. And I've been asked to drop the subject and move on. But thank you all for your responses, and for what we were able to cover.