Translating Pronominal Causative Constructions: Se faire vs. hacerse/fazer-se + Inf

Abstract

This paper presents a corpus-based study of pronominal causative constructions in a French-Spanish-Portuguese perspective. The combination of monolingual and multilingual corpus searches will help determine, at an initial phase, the conditions that underlie the functioning of se faire/hacerse/fazer-se in each language and, subsequently, the linguistic obstacles that hinder the literal translation of se faire into Spanish and Portuguese. Finally, a categorisation of the different translations of se faire will be offered. With this kind of study we aim to demonstrate the relevance of corpora as solid foundations for the creation of resources and methods for translation teaching and the training of translators.

Full text

P r o c e d i a - S o c i a l a n d B e h a v i o r a l S c i e n c e s 9 5 ( 2 0 1 3 ) 3 4 4 – 3 5 3
1877-0428 © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of CILC2013.
doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.656
ScienceDirect
5th International Conference on Corpus Linguistics (CILC2013)
Translating Pronominal Causative Constructions: se faire vs.
hacerse/fazer-se + Inf
Sílvia Araújo
*
, Ana Correia, Cristina Real
Universidade do Minho,Campus de Gualtar
ILCH, Braga, 4715-057, Portugal
Abstract
This paper presents a corpus-based study of pronominal causative constructions in a French-Spanish-Portuguese perspective. The
combination of monolingual and multilingual corpus searches will help determine, at an initial phase, the conditions that underlie
the functioning of se faire/hacerse/fazer-se in each language and, subsequently, the linguistic obstacles that hinder the literal
translation of se faire into Spanish and Portuguese. Finally, a categorisation of the different translations of se faire will be
offered. With this kind of study we aim to demonstrate the relevance of corpora as solid foundations for the creation of resources
and methods for translation teaching and the training of translators.
© 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of CILC2013.
Keywords: corpora; diathesis; translation; agentivity
1. Se faire: theoretical framework
As mentioned by Blanche-Benveniste (2007), author of examples 1 and 2 below, the effects of activity or
passivity achieved through the use of se faire have nothing to do with the syntax of faire, but rather depend entirely
on the surrounding lexis and on the sociocultural context. It is, indeed, based on our knowledge of the world that we
perceive as active sentence (1)
(=voluntary act among the youth) and
as passive sentence (2)
ait attribuer un carton jaune dès les pemières minutes. Any analysis of se faire must
, 2009). As an attempt to systematise the different values se
faire can take on in context, Kokutani (2005) puts forth the following typology:
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +351 253 601 641; fax.: +351 253 601 669.
E-mail address: saraujo@ilch.uminho.pt
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
© 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of CILC2013.

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Sílvia Araújo et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 95 ( 2013 ) 344 – 353
Table 1. Se faire + Inf degree of agentivity of the subject (Kokutani, 2005)
Human subject
Dynamic
(3) me faire vomir.
Factitive-beneficiary
(4) Je me ferai représenter à la réunion par mon secrétaire.
Causative-unpleasant
(5) Jean pour faute grave.
Passive-fatalistic
(6) -Chantal se fait aborder par un mendiant.
Inanimate subject
Spontaneous
(7) Les éclairs et le tonnerre se sont fait voir et entendre en différents temps.
Se faire is not sensitive to the [+ /- intentionality] parameter: this is what allows for it to be used in contexts
whose basic value oscillates between the active pole (dynamic and factitive beneficiary role) and the passive pole
(passive-fatalistic). The causative-unpleasant value and the spontaneous value are, as we see it, placed on an
intermediate area of the continuum because the subject referent (animated for the first and inanimate for the latter) is
somehow at the origin (though unintentionally) of the situation. With se faire, the subject is no longer fully an agent
(Rivière, 2005; Novakova, 2009; Araújo, 2010) and it would appear that, depending on the context, we are before a
se faire and the
passive diathesis (see Desclés & Guentchéva, 1993; Kupferman, 1995; Labelle, 2002). Similarly to the canonic ser-
passive, the pronominalisation of se faire allows for the promotion of the patient argument. Thus, it is unsurprising
that, with se faire
her, with the subject
being
-
Benveniste, 2007:164). In fact it seems difficult to understand the semantics of an example such as (6) based on the
original meaning of se faire. Indeed, Marie-Chantal cannot be held as responsible for the process which affects her
because this process is entirely unforeseen to her. In order to demonstrate that this type of example entails a tenuous
implication of the subject in the process, Kokutani (2005) proposes the passive-fatalistic label. This value of se faire
differs from that illustrated in example (5) where the subject suffers the consequences of a process that he/she
triggered unintentionally due to his/her behaviour.
2. The problem: lack of full equivalence between se faire and harcerse/fazer-se
Linguists such as Blanche-Benveniste (1984), Kupferman (1995) and Labelle (2002), among others, are known to
include se faire in the realm of constructions commonly associated wit
. Let us consider the
following examples:
(8) Il a su se faire entendre.
(9) Le froid se fait sentir.
(10) Il
une maison.
(11) Il
son ordinateur portable.
(12) Il
par un camion.
(13) il
du lycée.
From the examples above it becomes clear that the Spanish and Portuguese translations of se faire cannot always
rely exclusively on the equivalent causative predicates, even though they do exist in Spanish (hacerse) and in
Portuguese (fazer-se). Literal translation could be used in Spanish for the first three examples but not for the latter
three. In Portuguese it would be unacceptable to translate se faire literally in examples (10)-(13) due to syntactic and
semantic incompatibility. In order to translate sentences in which se faire collocates with verbs that promote indirect
objects to subject, as well as sentences in which se faire is linked to patient-detrimental processes, translators must
deploy alternative strategies, e.g. using causative constructions such as hacer (con que)/fazer (com) que/, mandar +
Inf, dejarse/ deixar-se + Inf or passive constructions with ser + PP. This might entail a reduction of the verb
valency, which could be mitigated by adding supplementary markers to the sentence.

346 Sílvia Araújo et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 95 ( 2013 ) 344 – 353
3. Goals and methodology
The lack of a bidirectional correspondence between se faire and hacerse/fazer-se has led us to establish the
following goals:
to recognise the most favourable contexts to the emergence of these markers;
to identify the linguistic obstacles that prevent se faire from being literally translated into Portuguese and
Spanish.
For this purpose, we will consider the Europarl corpus (available at
http://opus.lingfil.uu.se/bin/opuscqp.pl?corpus=Europarl3), which features the three languages under study, among
several others. Corpus analysis will be divided into two steps, which correspond to a comparable and parallel
approach, respectively:
1) we will begin by analysing the corpus in monolingual mode, i.e. we will perform an individual search for each
language separately without alignment of the results. This will allow us to better understand the mechanism behind
the pronominal causative predicates mentioned for the three languages.
2) subsequently we will carry out a simultaneous multilingual search across the three languages, which will give
us the aligned results for se faire/hacerse/fazer-se with French as a source language due to its more varied use of the
pronominal causative construction. This will help pinpoint the linguistic restrictions that preclude literal translation
of se faire into Spanish and Portuguese.
In addition to the Europarl corpus, we will also use the monolingual corpora Corpus de Referencia del Español
Actual (CREA - http://corpus.rae.es/creanet.html) and CETEMPúblico (http://www.linguateca.pt/cetempublico/) as
sources of evidence originally produced in Spanish and Portuguese, respectively, to corroborate our conclusions
concerning the use of hacerse and fazer-se.
4. Analysis of the corpora: se faire vs. hacerse /fazer-se
In the present section we will attempt to describe the areas of syntactic and semantic convergence between se
faire/hacerse/fazer-se on the basis of a monolingual query. Below we present a comparative table that illustrates
these intersection zones.
4.1. Areas of convergence
Table 2 sums up the productivity of the ten verbs that most often collocate with se faire/hacerse/fazer-se in the
Europarl corpus:
Table 2. List of the ten verbs most often selected by se faire/hacerse/fazer-se in the Europarl corpus
844 occurences of se faire
265 occurrences of hacerse
992 occurrences of fazer-se
SE FAIRE
No. Occ.
HACERSE
No. Occ.
FAZER-SE
No. Occ.
(res)sentir
200
esperar
52
sentir
567
entendre
144
oír
38
ouvir
143
attendre
81
Sentir
37
acompanhar
77
soigner
24
notar
32
esperar
74
passer
22
pasar
27
representar
56
représenter
16
valer
21
notar
34
rembourser
12
respetar
14
passar
11

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Sílvia Araújo et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 95 ( 2013 ) 344 – 353
tuer
10
escuchar
11
respeitar
8
(ré)élire
9
pagar
8
valer
7
respecter
8
comprender
7
compreender
4
526 occurrences
62.3%
247 occurrences
93.2%
981 occurrences
98.8%
According to these quantitative data, there is a clear preference across the three languages for perception verbs
(se faire entendre/ hacerse oír/fazer-se ouvir/, se faire/hacerse/fazer-se sentir, etc.):
(14a) La situation illégale dans laquelle se trouvent les victimes les empêchent souvent de se faire entendre.
(14b) Las víctimas no están en condiciones de hacerse oír por su situación frecuentemente ilegal.
(14c) Na situação ilegal em que muitas vezes se encontram, as vítimas não têm possibilidade de se fazer ouvir.
In these examples the perception verbs entendre/oír/ouvir take on a markedly agentive dimension that points to a
factitive-beneficiary value of se faire. However, as mentioned by García-Miguel (2007) and Novakova (2009), this
type of verb is often found in more or less lexicalised phrases preceded by inanimate subjects:
(15a) Les conséquences de ces politiques se font sentir sur la vie des gens, surtout parmi les plus pauvres et les
plus exclus.
(15b) Las consecuencias de estas políticas se están haciendo sentir en la vida de las personas, especialmente de
las más empobrecidas y excluídas.
(16a) Les conséquences de ces évolutions se font sentir, tant pour les entreprises en tant que telles que pour leur
personnel.
(16b) As consequências destas evoluções fazem-se sentir, quer nas empresas como um todo, quer entre o
respectivo pessoal.
Another common feature shared by the three languages concerns the dynamic value marked by intransitive verbs
such as passer/pasar/passar, valer, notar:
(17a) Dans ces conditions, cette adhésion directe de la Communauté aurait pour tout mérite de la rapprocher un
peu plus de cet objectif auquel elle vise depuis longtemps: se faire passer pour un État.
(17b) En estas condiciones, esta adhesión directa de la Comunidad tendría por todo mérito aproximarla un poco
más al objetivo al cual tiende desde hace mucho tiempo: hacerse pasar por un Estado.
(17c) Nestas condições, a adesão directa da Comunidade teria o único mérito de aproximá-la um pouco mais do
objectivo a que há muito tempo aspira: fazer-se passar por um Estado.
This dynamic value of se faire may be associated with acts of extreme violence that the subject deliberately
brings upon him/herself (such as in this context of a terrorist attack):
(18
-suicide, des gens prêts à se faire sauter eux-mêmes, à semer la
destruction par des attentats terroristes.
(18b) Hemos tenido terroristas suicidas en nuestra ciudad, gente dispuesta a hacerse volar a sí misma, para
destruir mediante actos terroristas.
(18c) Tivemos bombistas suicidas à solta na nossa cidade, gente pronta a fazer-se ir pelos ares e a espalhar a
destruição com ataques terroristas.
Here it is possible to translate se faire with hacerse/fazer-se because we are dealing with a process which

348 Sílvia Araújo et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 95 ( 2013 ) 344 – 353
It is interesting to notice that, in Portuguese and Spanish, the ten verbs listed in the table account for nearly all
occurrences of hacerse/ fazer-se. In French, in addition to these ten verbs, se faire can be found in association with
119 other verbs (avoir, arrêter, berner, duper, etc.), many of which could not co-occur with hacerse/fazer-se for
semantic and syntactic reasons.
4.2. Areas of divergence
In order to determine the areas of semantic and syntactic divergence between these three Romance languages, we
performed a multilingual search using the same corpus. Based on the percentage of literal translation of se faire into
hacerse/fazer-se, we were able to calculate the degree of equivalence between the French, Spanish and Portuguese
forms:
Table 3. Degree of equivalence between se faire/hacerse/fazer-se in the Europarl corpus
se faire
hacerse
fazer-se
No. of occurrences
706
58
123
% of literal translation (fr/es-pt)
-
8.2%
17.4%
The comparison of the 706 occurrences of se faire against the respective translations shows that only 17.4% of
these occurrences are translated into fazer-se, and hacerse corresponds to se faire in merely 8.2% of all cases, which
attests to a reduced degree of equivalence between se faire/hacerse/fazer-se.
This table further reveals a steep difference between Portuguese and Spanish regarding the productivity level of
the pronominal causative predicates. Drawing back on the data of Table 2, we observed that whereas Portuguese
recurrently uses fazer-se + Inf to express the spontaneous value, Spanish favours dejar (see García-Miguel, 2007).
In the same corpus we found 94 occurrences of dejarse sentir vs. 37 of hacerse sentir and 567 of fazer-se sentir.
While this kind of multilingual search is necessary when dealing with three languages, there are other less time-
consuming alternatives for studies with two languages. Corpora such as Per-Fide (www.per-
fide.ilch.uminho.pt/query/) allow the user to perform a simultaneous term search in two different languages. This
search feature is particularly useful to determine the degree of equivalence between two terms in a fairly automatic
manner.
This lack of equivalence between French and the other two languages can be attributed to several factors. The
following are of note:
contrary to its Portuguese and Spanish counterparts, se faire naturally co-
-Hanssen, 1967; Gaatone, 1983) affecting the subject. These verbs often refer to some
kind of physical aggression, reviling, or psychological/interpersonal abuse:
(19) Pourtant, nous regardons, impuissants, des victimes - femmes, enfants, innocents - se faire massacrer.
(20) Il n'est jamais très agréable de se faire insulter dans la rue ou sur internet.
(21) Cette question est aussi un peu personnelle car beaucoup d'entre nous connaissent ceux qui sont en train de
se faire expulser ou l'ont déjà été, de ce pays.
As far as detrimental processes are concerned, the teleonomic dimension is automatically excluded. Nevertheless
it should be noted that, in an appropriate context, a process generally regarded as negative may in fact be desired by
the subject (see example (18a)).
Se faire also has a preference for bitransitive verbs belonging to different semantic groups (verbs of donation: se
faire servir, se faire accorder...; verbs of deprivation: se faire voler, se faire extraire... ; verbs of communication:
se faire répéter, se faire expliquer...; partitive dative: se faire casser un bras, se faire sauter la cervelle...; dative
of interest: se faire faire, se faire construire... ; verbal locutions:
, se faire taper sur les

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Sílvia Araújo et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 95 ( 2013 ) 344 – 353
doigts...). Portuguese does not permit this thematisation of the indirect object (IO), but the Spanish language does
not seem to rule out this possibility in teleonomic contexts.
(22a) Ce rapport est intitulé "implants mammaires", mais il est également possible de se faire placer des implants
au silicone dans d' autres parties du corps, où ils causent les mêmes dommages.
(22b) Este informe se titula «implantes mamarios», pero también es posible hacerse colocar implantes de
silicona en otras partes del cuerpo, y causan el mismo daño.
(22c) Este relatório é respeitante aos implantes mamários, como se diz no título, mas também é possível receber
implantes de silicone noutras partes do corpo, e provocam os mesmos efeitos nocivos.
This could be explained by the existence in Spanish of the dative personal pronoun se (e.g. él se
construyó una
casa), which cannot be found in Portuguese (*ele construiu-se uma casa).
4.3. Confirmation of data with monolingual corpora
As mentioned in section 3, we have also searched CETEMPúblico and CREA. The results corroborate the
syntactic and semantic preferences of hacerse and fazer-se identified from the Europarl corpus analysis:
Table 4. List of the ten verbs most often selected by hacerse/fazer-se in monolingual corpora
728 occurrences of fazer-se
CETEMPúblico
506 occurrences of hacerse
CREA
Verbs
No. Occ.
Verbs
No. Occ.
sentir
255
pasar
116
ouvir
109
notar
94
representar
79
oír
65
acompanhar
46
entender
51
passar (por)
41
perdonar
33
notar
33
respetar
31
entender
19
valer
21
substituir
16
querer
10
esperar
14
representar
10
(re)eleger
14
escuchar
9
626 occurrences
85.9%
440 occurrences
86.9%
These data confirm that hacerse and fazer-se predominantly select perception verbs with animate and inanimate
subjects. In Spanish the verb sentir does not belong to this list of the ten most frequent verbs, instead it co-occurs
with dejarse, as opposed to Portuguese where sentir is at the top of the list. The remaining verbs that account for the
occurrences of hacerse/fazer-se describe positive actions (aceptar/aceitar, querer/amar, pagar, etc.) desired by the
syntactic subject (i.e. factitive-beneficiary value). Unlike Portuguese, in Spanish hacerse may co-occur with verbs
that thematise the indirect object (perdonar, construir, examinar, traer, etc) in teleonomic contexts.
5. Translations of se faire + Inf
According to the corpora the translations of se faire are distributed among four contexts:

350 Sílvia Araújo et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 95 ( 2013 ) 344 – 353
i) promotion of the DO (direct object) and teleonomy (factitive-beneficiary);
ii) promotion of the DO with inanimate subject (spontaneous);
iii) promotion of the DO and antiteleonomy (causative-unpleasant or passive-fatalistic);
iv) promotion of the IO to the subject position.
As we mentioned above, literal translation can be used in contexts i) (see example (23a)) and ii) (see example
(24a)) for Spanish and Portuguese:
(23a) Et ce alors que la classe politique se démène jour après jour devant les caméras pour se faire respecter des
électeurs, mais aussi pour
(23b) Por ello la clase política se desvive día a día ante las cámaras para ganarse el respeto de los electores y
también para hacerse querer.
(23c) E isto quando a classe política se desunha, dia após dia, perante as câmaras de televisão, para se fazer
respeitar e amar pelos eleitores.
(24
se font attendre.
(24b) Los progresos y la esperanza de una mejora se hacen esperar.
(24c) Os progressos e a esperança de uma melhoria fazem-se esperar.
It is worth noticing, however, that literal translation is not always employed in such cases, even though its use
would be grammatically justified:
(25
se faire sentir rapidement si la Chine entend nous convaincre
de ne pas prendre la moindre des mesures que nous pourrions envisager.
(25b) [...] pero también creo que los efectos deben notarse pronto para evitar que tomemos las medidas que
estamos pensando adoptar.
(25c) [...] mas também acredito que os efeitos terão de ser sentidos rapidamente, para que possam suster alguma
medida que possamos estar a ponderar.
In (25b) the Spanish translator opts for a clitic passive (notarse
), whereas in (25c) the Portuguese translator
chooses a prototypical ser-passive (ser sentidos) to render that same spontaneous value of se faire.
Literal translation cannot be used in type-iii contexts because neither hacerse nor fazer-se have developed a non-
agentive value:
(26a) Mais il est déjà un peu moins facile de se soucier du sort de nos proches parents, par exemples des vieilles
personnes qui se font martyriser pour leurs petites économies, des transporteurs de fonds mal payés qui se font
flinguer par des gangsters sans scrupules, des enfants qui se font violer et assassiner.
(26b) Pero ya resulta algo más difícil preocuparse por la suerte de las víctimas. Pienso por ejemplo en los
ancianos torturados hasta la muerte para que entreguen sus ahorros, los transportistas de fondos y valores mal
pagados que son matados de un tiro por los gangsters y los niños violados y asesinados.
(26c) Já é um pouco mais difícil, contudo, preocuparmo-nos com o destino dos familiares, por exemplo, dos
idosos que são torturados até à morte pelas suas parcas economias, pelo destino de transportadores de valores mal
remunerados que, sem quaisquer escrúpulos, são abatidos por gangsters, pelo destino das crianças que são violadas
e assassinadas.
Hence it comes as no surprise that Spanish and Portuguese translators often rely on the passive diathesis to
convey the meaning of se faire. As a consequence of this transition into the canonical passive, the responsibility of
the subject of se faire in the process is often lost:

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(27a) Mais si elles décident de regagner leur pays, elles se font répudier.
(27b) No obstante, si estas mujeres volvieran a su país, serían repudiadas.
(27c) Mas se uma dessas mulheres regressasse ao seu país, seria rejeitada.
The questions remains why hacerse/fazer-se, which are incompatible with human subjects in non-intentional
contexts (see type iii), associate with inanimate subjects (see type ii). According to Veecock (2008: 14-15), we
attribute to certain natural phenomena such as the wind or an earthquake a kind of autonomy of action, which lends
to the spontaneous value of se faire a quasi-teleonomic dimension.
In Portuguese, literal translation cannot be used in type-iv contexts. Therefore the translator is forced to find
alternative solutions which, as much as possible, abide by the following criteria:
1) to maintain the thematic continuity of the text, keeping the syntactic subject in that same position;
2) to recover the role of the beneficiary marked in the source text by the pronoun se. This could be done
explicitly or implicitly by means of co-textual elements.
The translation of (28a), below, complies
beneficiary compensation mechanism achieved through the addition of the personal pronoun lhe to the completive
sentence in (28b):
(28a) Une ministre allemande qui se
fait voler sa Mercedes de fonction en Espagne pendant ses vacances, ça fait
désordre.
(28b) O facto de uma ministra alemã ter deixado que lhe
roubassem o Mercedes blindado de serviço, durante as
férias em Espanha, causou alvoroço.
In (29b), the relative pronoun a quem is used to preserve the indirect structure in an active construction:
(29
an et toute personne qui se fait voler son visa se retrouve prise dans un manège bureaucratique extrêmement
coûteux.
(29b) Os nossos estudantes nas universidades russas não recebem automaticamente um visto anual, e alguém a
quem tenham roubado o visto acaba às voltas num carrossel de burocracia anormalmente caro.
(30
se sont fait offrir aux frais du gouvernement turc un voyage
politico-touristique, juste avant le vote sur l'union douanière avec la Turquie.
(30
lhes oferecesse viagens político-turísticas,
precisamente antes da votação relativa à união aduaneira com a Turquia.
In (31b) the beneficiary is not explicitly marked but it is easily retrievable because, in using a semantically
symmetrical infinitive (se faire attribuer --> obter), the translator is left with an active construction in which the
beneficiary remains as the syntactic subject:
(31
se faire attribuer
(31
obter
It is also common for the Spanish translator to use such converse verbs in order to translate dative-derived
instances of se faire:
(32a) Ajoutons que la mendicité était punie par la loi et que les jeunes se
faisaient offrir par l'Etat un emploi et un
toit dès la fin de leurs études.
(32b) A esto hay que añadir que la mendicidad estaba castigada por las leyes o que los jóvenes recibían un
empleo y las llaves de un apartamento cuando finalizaban sus estudios.

352 Sílvia Araújo et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 95 ( 2013 ) 344 – 353
However, as we can see from these examples taken from CREA, hacerse, like se faire, can be found in
constructions where the dative is promoted to the position of syntactic subject:
(33) Tenemos un Gobierno que se hace perdonar su falta de disposición europea por una especie de docilidad
ante las peticiones de los otros.
(34) En contra de lo que cabía esperar, se limitó a anunciar su inminente llegada para hacerse examinar la rodilla
por un traumatólogo.
(35) "Ibargoyen" se hizo traer asimismo una libra de sal de cocina y un puñado de pasas grande.
(36) En el Palacio de la Cancillería, el cardenal Ottoboni se hizo construir un pequeño teatro para marionetas
.
6. Conclusions
The table below provides a visual summary of the conclusions reached:
Table 5. Areas of semantic and syntactic intersection between se faire/hacerse/fazer-se
French
Spanish
Portuguese
Factitive-beneficiary
OD
se faire+ inf
(représenter, comprendre)
hacerse + inf
(representar, escuchar)
fazer-se + inf
(representar, entender)
OI
se faire+ inf
(livrer, teindre OD)
hacerse + inf
(construir, extraer OD)
*fazer-se + inf
(entregar, pintar OD)
Causative-unpleasant / Passive-fatalistic
OD
se faire+ inf
(violer, renverser)
*hacerse + inf
(violar, amenazar)
*fazer-se + inf
(violar, atropelar)
OI
se faire+ inf
(voler, confisquer OD)
*hacerse + inf
(robar, confiscar OD)
*fazer-se + inf
(roubar, confiscar OD)
Spontaneous
OD
se faire+ inf
(entendre, sentir)
hacerse + inf
(oír, sentir)
fazer-se + inf
(ouvir, sentir)
The grey colour highlights the cases that allow for literal translation of se faire with hacerse/fazer-se, i.e. when
the subject acts as a voluntary instigator of the action provoked by him/herself and/or in the presence of inanimate
subjects. The remaining cases demonstrate the constraints of the Portuguese and Spanish languages. On the one
hand, in Spanish and Portuguese the use of hacerse/fazer-se with non-agentive meaning is inexistent. On the other
hand, fazer-se is incompatible with verbs that promote the indirect object to subject, whereas hacerse seems to
accept such verbs in teleonomic contexts, albeit much less often than French. These constraints force translators to
find alternative solutions, which can only be accurately systematised with recourse to corpus analysis.
To sum up, this corpus-based analysis has yielded evidence that the French pronominal causative construction se
faire + Inf is remarkably flexible in terms of syntax and semantics, as opposed to its Spanish and Portuguese
counterparts, i.e. hacerse and fazer-se. The combined use of multilingual and monolingual corpora proved a
sustained means of ensuring more reliable results. This complementarity speaks strongly to the relevance of corpus
analysis in contrastive studies.
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