Re: ser graduado vs estar graduado

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ser graduado vs estar graduado

by AnnMc

Feb 15, 2016

I realize this topic comes up each year about this time, but would someone refresh my brain on why "ser graduado" is used in place of estar? Seems to me that this is a limited event and should be estar, but I can actually see how BOTH might be used.

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Al On 2/16/16, AnnMc wrote: > On 2/15/16, limited event wrote: >> What do you mean by "limited event" as it relates to the use >> of estar? For me, estar is used to express state or condition. >> >> On 2/15/16, AnnMc wrote: >>> I realize this topic comes up each year about this time, but >>> would...See MoreOn 2/16/16, AnnMc wrote: > On 2/15/16, limited event wrote: >> What do you mean by "limited event" as it relates to the use >> of estar? For me, estar is used to express state or condition. >> >> On 2/15/16, AnnMc wrote: >>> I realize this topic comes up each year about this time, but >>> would someone refresh my brain on why "ser graduado" is used >>> in place of estar? Seems to me that this is a limited event >>> and should be estar, but I can actually see how BOTH might >>> be used. > > > Clarifying here: I believe that the act itself of "being > graduated" at that moment would need estar; whereas, ser would > be used when the person is in a permanent condition of being > graduated for life. Just my interpretation.

I guess I agree that that ser and estar are both options, but it doesn't come up so much in practice because the verbo pronominal is used.

In English until around 1950 or '60, the school was usually said to graduate the student. This is graduar in Spanish. Since then, the student is more often said to graduate (now this is almost always intransitive too, with the school relegated to a prepositional phrase in "from"). This is graduarse in Spanish. So you can say that fue graduado. Here ser just forms a passive construction with graduado as a past participle. But it is much more common to say that se graduó. After the student receives an honorable discharge or whatever, you might remark that "por fin está graduado," using estar as a copula and graduado as an adjective, but again "por fin se graduó" is more natural. (Standing in line to receive the sheepskin would be "está graduándose," of course.)

Since the participle graduado supplies an adjective, in the usual way the adjective can be used as a noun. Hence "es graduado" also occurs, since the article is optional here.

I suppose it's fairly common to have all of

ser + past-participle (passive voice) estar + part-participle-as-predicate-adjective ser + part-participle-as-predicate-nominative

available to provide different shades of meaning and style.

Lo que usualmente sí "está graduado" es un termómetro. With estar not because the graduations of the thermometer are impermanent but, *I guess*, because when you say that it is "graduado en grados centígrados," you are describing an inessential feature that might as easily have been otherwise. But both ser and estar do occur (without a clear and consistent difference in meaning that I can detect), and in this case graduado is normally an adjective in both cases.

Feb 16, 2016

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Daniel Hanson I agree with Al that it is more natural to use the reflexive verb <I>graduarse</I> in the preterite tense in this context.

(And if one had to use a linking verb, it would be <I>ser</I> because it is the passive voice--one is describing an action taking place, not the condition or status of something. Note that the ...See More

Feb 16, 2016

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tyler I'm not sure I understand the phrase in English. Billy is graduated from high school? Do people say that?

Feb 17, 2016

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Al On 2/17/16, tyler wrote: > I'm not sure I understand the phrase in English. Billy is > graduated from high school? Do people say that?

Not sure which phrase in which language is not understood. If the reference is to the Spanish passive construction "Memito fue graduado," say, then yes, that is 'Billy was graduated.' That ...See MoreOn 2/17/16, tyler wrote: > I'm not sure I understand the phrase in English. Billy is > graduated from high school? Do people say that?

Not sure which phrase in which language is not understood. If the reference is to the Spanish passive construction "Memito fue graduado," say, then yes, that is 'Billy was graduated.' That was standard English in the middle of the 20th century, and I still hear it occasionally living in the midwest today, though the by-clause might use from. There is little call for the present passive, so 'is graduated,' if it occurred at all, would be likely to have been interpreted with 'graduated' as an adjective.

Again, there are many ways to say this, and depending on what else you want to squeeze into the sentence, different forms may be used. I think the most common form is something in "graduarse," but the technically more vague "egresar" is also widely used. There are, as usual, regional variations. In Argentina especially, "se recibió de la secundaria" is standard for '[s]he graduated from secondary [school].' I suppose this evolved from "recibió su diploma" but I don't know.

(The following is actually relevant to the question, but I had no excuse to mention it before.) The RAE gives ([link removed]:

"Del lat. mediev. _graduare_ 'obtener un grado académico', der. del lat. _gradus_ 'grado^1'."

In other words, it implies that the original meaning coincided with the current sense in English, with the student doing the graduating (graduándose) rather than the school. The Oxford English dictionary entry for graduate, v., is noncommittal on the medieval Latin meaning, but the earliest instances cited (from 1588 on) all have the school doing the graduating. This usage is described as now rare except in the US; the earliest use in the currently common sense (student graduating) is cited from 1807.

BTW, the Oxford dictionary also claims that the use for a non-university degree is American (and for high school only). As a proud graduate of Geraldine Nursery School (my graduation address: complete recitation of "Jack Be Nimble"), I have a bone to pick with this.

Feb 17, 2016

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AnnMc Thank you all so very much for your responses. I now have much material of which to reference.

Sincerely

Apr 12, 2016

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