Thursday, March 13, 2014

Suponer

I was familiar with ‘suponer(se)’ meaning ‘to assume’ or ‘to suppose,’ or used to express ‘supposed to’ in texts by Latin American authors, so I was stymied at first when I ran into a different usage from Spanish authors. This usage corresponds to meaning #3 in the DRAE (and perhaps metaphorical use of #5):
suponer.
(Del lat. supponĕre).
1. tr. Dar por sentado y existente algo.
2. tr. Fingir, dar existencia ideal a lo que realmente no la tiene.
3. tr. Traer consigo, importar. La nueva adquisición que ha hecho supone desmedidos gastos de conservación.
4. tr. Conjeturar, calcular algo a través de los indicios que se poseen.
5. intr. Tener representación o autoridad en una república o en una comunidad.
Here are some options for rendering these meanings of ‘suponer’ in English:
  • mean
  • represent
  • imply
  • involve
  • entail
  • present
  • result in
  • have
  • be

3 Comments:

At March 23, 2014 9:01 a.m., Anonymous EP said...

Wow, that's a tough one, and quite a list of possibilities. You could almost consider listing the words that don't belong there!

 
At March 23, 2014 12:33 p.m., Blogger Mago said...

:) Of course you can see that there’s a common element in all those meanings – and it’s not just any usage of “have” or “be” that fits into the set of appropriate equivalents, but the related ones..

 
At March 07, 2017 7:42 a.m., Anonymous Beltranslations said...

Very interesting! Thank you!

 

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