Llevar + past participle: agreement with object?

Question

**Llevar** can be used with a past participle as a phrasal verb and the construct vaguely translates into something like *to have been*: > **Lleva cerrado esa tienda desde 1990.** *That store has been closed since 1990.* While researching more on this verb, I came across the following construct on a Spanish grammar website: > **Llevo ganados nueve premios.** *I have, so far, won nine awards.* In the above example, my question is, why must **ganar** agree with **premios** in number and gender? **Ganado** is not qualifying **premio** in any way, is it? Similarly, I came across the following in a WordReference forum: > **Llevo juzgados unos 13 homicidios.** Again, I fail to see why **juzgar** should inflect with **homicidios** in this example. Can anyone please explain?

Answer 1

Great question!

In Spanish, when you say something like:

Llevo ganados nueve premios.

(I have won nine awards so far.)

The word ganados is a past participle used like an adjective — not part of a compound tense like He ganado

Since it's acting like an adjective, it must agree with the noun (the object) it's describing:

nueve premios = plural, masculine

nine prizes = plural, masculine

So you must say: ganados

"Llevo juzgados 13 homicidios"

= I carry judged 13 homicides

→ Juzgados is describing the homicides (like an adjective: "judged homicides").

The past participles ganados and juzgados are acting like adjectives, not like part of a compound tense (such as he ganado).

That’s why they must agree in gender and number with the direct object (premios, homicidios).

That's why you say:

1. Llevo ganados nueve premios ✅

1. and not:
2. ❌ Llevo ganado nueve premios

Answer 2

Tricky subject, but you are using the past-participle as an adjective, in these latter two cases. The participle behaves as an adjective as it does in fact modify or qualify those nouns: premio and homicidios.

Your first sentence is actually incorrect. I would say “Esa tienda está cerrada desde...” or “esa tienda ha estado cerrada desde...”. You could also say “esa tienda lleva 5 años cerrada”. It has to be rearranged since the store has no agency, I’d say.

Hope this helps,

Francisco.