El accidente le privó de la vista.

Sentence Discussions Spanish
#1
English Translation

The accident robbed him of his sight.

If it robbed her of her sight, would one use la instead of le?

To be clear, I’m wondering if le is dative or accusative.

#2

I’m still wondering.

#3
English Translation

The accident robbed him of his sight.

Priver is a verb which takes the dative, hence le.

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#4
English Translation

The accident robbed him of his sight.

Sorry, I meant to type privar…

#5

Sight is the direct object, she is the indirect object that was deprived of it. That’s in keeping with the original sentence not matching the English translation in that the definite article, not the possessive adjective, is used before sight (la [not su] vs. “her”.) And of course I’m not suggesting that the translation should be changed (though not perfectly literal, it’s the best way to render it in natural English) just pointing out that these are two different structures.

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#6

I’d say ‘la privó de la vista’ if it was her.

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#7

Do a Google search “are there verbs which require the dative in Spanish.” You will find a list. Le privo…

#8

Yes, I was agreeing with you. I just used the term indirect object rather than dative because some forum readers might not know the latter term (I only barely remembered its meaning due to my 2 semesters of Latin.)

#9

I don’t doubt that would sound normal in Spain, but it sounds weird to my Mexican-trained ear. I think maybe Spaniards tend to use la for fem. indirect objects because leísmo has caused a certain conflation between le & masculinity.

ETA: I hate to cite AI, but Google’s Gemini gives the most in-depth treatment of the matter with privar being the verb in question:

<<In Spanish, the verb privar (to deprive) can take an indirect object to indicate the person or thing that is being deprived of something.

Understanding the concept

An indirect object in Spanish (and English) answers the question “to whom” or “for whom” an action is performed. When you use “privar” to say someone is deprived, the thing being taken away is the direct object, and the person experiencing the deprivation is the indirect object.

Examples

  • Privar a alguien de algo: To deprive someone of something.
    • Le privaron del permiso de conducir. (They deprived him of his driving license).
  • Privar a alguien de libertad: To deprive someone of their freedom.
    • Se vio privado de su libertad. (He was deprived of his freedom).

Key points

  • The person experiencing the deprivation is the indirect object in this construction.
  • The preposition “de” (of) often introduces the thing being taken away.
  • When the indirect object is already clear from the context, indirect object pronouns are used to refer to it. These pronouns include: me (me), te (you), le (him/her/formal you), nos (us), os (informal plural you - mainly Spain), and les (them/formal plural you).

In the example “Le privaron del permiso de conducir,” the pronoun “le” represents the person being deprived, and the direct object is “el permiso de conducir”.>>

#10

Yeah AI.

In a sentence like ‘le quitó la vista’, I’d use ‘le’ for either gender. But ‘le privó de la vista’ isn’t the same construction. Obviously ‘de la vista’ cannot be a direct object. That doesn’t tell you if ‘le’ is direct or indirect however.

I thought about a sentence where the object is not a person. La polución privó a la ciudad del turismo. Yes, I would use a here.

What can I say. We don’t analyze cases when we speak.

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