In addition, the personalais sometimes felt to be necessary to identify
unambiguously the object of a verb, even if it is not a person. This may be
found for example, in relative clauses to reinforce the link between verb and
object, and after verbs such as llamarwhich can have two following nouns:
Es enorme la distancia que separa al río del bosque.
The distance that separates the river from the wood is enormous.
Llamaban Banda Oriental a la zona que quedaba al este del
río Uruguay.
They called the land to the east of the River Uruguay the Banda
Oriental.
Aused to introduce an indirect object
In this use ais equivalent to English ‘to’:
Van a dar un premio al mejor estudiante.
They are going to give a prize to the best student.
Note: Possible confusion can be caused when a sentence contains both a specific
person as direct object and a personal indirect object, since both in theory should
be preceded by a. To avoid this, the personal ais usually omitted: Envió el jugador
al director ‘He sent the player to the director’.
Aindicating movement
Used after verbs of motion, this is generally equivalent to English ‘to’, but
may also translate ‘at’, ‘in’, ‘into’, and ‘onto’:
Llegamos a Lima hoy. We arrive in Lima today.
Los espectadores tiraron They spectators threw bottles
botellas al campo. on to the pitch.
Se sentaron a la mesa para They sat at the table to have
almorzar. lunch.
Tiraron las drogas al mar. They threw the drugs into the sea.
Note: Unlike French and Italian, staticposition or location ‘in’ or ‘at’ is translated
in Spanish by en, except with set phrases such as al lado de‘next to’ (see 21.1.8(c)
for others). Compare: Estaremos en la frontera mañana ‘We shall be at the frontier
tomorrow’, but Fuimos a verlo a Barcelona ‘We went to see him in Barcelona’ (i.e.
travelled ‘to Barcelona to see him’).
21.1.3
21.1.2
1111
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1011
1
12111
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
20111
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
30111
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
40
41111
A
217
