Grammatical analysis of the construction "Se l'è mangiato il cane"?

Question

My/The dog ate it is a common joke response in English for what a student can give as an excuse when he didn't do his homework. I found the following phrase while looking for the equivalent in Italian:> Se l'è mangiato il cane.I would of thought a more direct translation would be:> l'ha mangiato il cane.Can anyone clarify what is going on grammatically and provide other examples of similar constructions?

Answer 1

Se l'e' mangiato il cane THE DOG HAS(E") EATEN IT(LO) ITSELF(SE)=verb is MANGIARSI=riflexive not MANGIARE

SE=SI=it becomes SE when is followed by a direct pronoun, in this case (l'=LO). SI/SE pronome riflessivo

Because in the sentence it is used a reflexive verb(MANGIARSI) the auxiliary is ESSERE=E'