Literary Elements, Grammar, and Humanist Thought
Narrative Structure and Linguistic Elements
Narrative Structure Basics
The story generally adheres to the basic narrative structure: introduction, development, and resolution. Its ideas are condensed and aimed at expressive synthesis.
Perspectives
- Protagonist: First person singular, telling their own stories.
- Witness: First person singular, telling stories as an observer.
- Omniscient: Third person, explaining relevant actions from an external perspective.
- Observer: Third person, simply recounting actions objectively, as if mirroring them.
Dialogue
When the narrator recounts the story, exposing actions that develop from their personal version, they often utilize indirect style.
Abbreviations and Symbols
Abbreviations represent a word by one or some of its letters and can take various forms:
- Suspension: When the final letters of a word are omitted.
- Apheresis: When the initial letters of a word are omitted.
- Contraction: When some letters inside the word are omitted.
- Acronym: The result of shortening names of more than one word by combining complete syllables from their components.
A Symbol is an official and internationally recognized sign that represents a word, a phrase, or a value.
Linguistic and Grammatical Concepts
Key elements in language include:
- Endpoint
- Stress
- Uppercase
- Lowercase
- Number
- Gender
- Apostrophe
- Grammatical Category
- Spaces
- Pronunciation
- Observations and Separation
Humanism and Bernat Metge
Understanding Humanism
Humanism is a human-centered way of thinking and comportment that emerged in the late fourteenth century and continued through the fifteenth century. It brought about a series of changes in customs, institutions, and the general way of conceiving the world.
Bernat Metge (c. 1340–1413)
Born in Barcelona between 1340 and 1346, Bernat Metge was instrumental in introducing humanistic ideas into Catalonia. In 1396, King John I died suddenly under unclear circumstances, which led to Metge’s imprisonment. He was released a few months later. Bernat Metge died in Barcelona in 1413.
His Work: Lo Somni (The Dream)
While imprisoned, Metge wrote Lo Somni (The Dream), which was released and became his most valued humanistic work. Lo Somni consists of four books:
- The first is devoted to showing his skepticism about the immortality of the soul.
- The second asks questions about the causes of the King’s sudden death.
- The third is a satire against women.
- The fourth is a praise of women.
Verbs and Conjugation
Verb Types
- Regular Verbs: These verbs maintain the same lexeme (root) in every tense and present the same endings as the rest of their verb conjugation model.
- Irregular Verbs: These verbs present variations in their lexeme or do not conjugate like the model verb for each corresponding conjugation.
Verb Conjugations
- First Conjugation: Verbs ending in -ar in the infinitive.
- Second Conjugation: Verbs ending in -er or -re in the infinitive.
- Third Conjugation: Verbs ending in -ir in the infinitive.
Periphrasis
Periphrasis refers to a group of two or more verbal forms that express a single idea. One verb is conjugated, and the other, in the infinitive, gerund, or participle, conveys the main meaning.
Categories of Verbs
- Copulative: Verbs like”to b” and”to seem”
- Predicative:
- Transitive: Require a direct object.
- Intransitive: Do not require a direct object.
- Reflexive: The action reflects back on the subject.
- Pronominal: Verbs combined with weak pronouns.
- Defective: Verbs that do not conjugate in all tenses.
Verb Tenses and Moods
Indicative Mood
- Past Imperfect
- Past Simple
- Conditional
- Perfect
- Periphrastic Pluperfect
- Periphrastic Past
- Future Tense
- Conditional Tense
Subjunctive Mood
- Present
- Imperfect
- Past Periphrastic
- Past Perfect
- Previous Periphrastic