Spanish Literature and Linguistics Glossary
Literary Terms
Narrative
A story of real or fictitious events, usually with a description and composite dialogue. Its basic elements are characters, actions, space, and time.
Description
A linguistic representation of landscapes, objects, or processes, real or imagined.
Exposition
An explanation of a topic, following the presentation scheme: development-conclusion.
Argumentation
In the argumentative mode, reasons are submitted to demonstrate an affirmation, subject, or thesis statement-development-conclusion.
Cantigas de amigo
A young person expresses feelings of love for their mother, friends, and sisters, emphasizing the importance of nature and the use of parallelism.
Jorge Manrique
Known for his verses on the death of his father, an elegiac poem on the death of Don Rodrigo Manrique. The structure consists of forty stanzas with a general theme of three lives and even death (ubi sunt?) and epicedes, exalting the father figure. Themes include death, life, and fame. The meter is quebrado, standing manriqueñas tails.
Mester of clergy
Works from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; oral diffusion by jugglers and sermons; narrative with moral intent and didactic purpose; rib via.
Gonzalo de Berceo
The first Castilian poet whose name is known, with Marian hagiographic and doctrinal works. His notable work, Miracles of Our Lady, exalts the Virgin as the savior of souls, with twenty allegorical introductions and miracles of Maria’s merciful actions with her devotees.
La Celestina
Fernando de Rojas’s work, in sixteen (Comedy of Calisto and Melibea) and twenty acts (Tragicomedy). The genre is drama or novel in dialogue, within the context of humanistic comedy meant to be read, not represented. Dramatic speech includes monologues and dialogues. Themes include parody of courtly love, magic, madness, love, sex, and love rebuke. Characters include the matchmaker, Callisto and Melibea, Sempronius and Parmeno, Elicia and Areúsa, Pleberio, and tradespeople. The purpose and interpretation are ambiguous, with a possible moralizing intention or a disillusioned and pessimistic vision.
Garcilaso Vega
His poetry includes forty sonnets, three Eclogues, five songs, two elegies, and an epistle. The main topics are love, nature (locus amoenus), carpe diem, and mythology. His poetic evolution ranges from early lyrical poems influenced by cancionero and Ausiàs March to full assimilation of the Petrarchan style and the influence of classical literature. His style is characterized by simplicity, naturalness, and the importance of metaphors associated with nature.
San Juan de la Cruz
His poetic works include minor art poems and three major poems: Dark Night of the Soul, Spiritual Canticle, and Living Flame of Love. These three longer poems, written in lira form, reflect the mystical experience, the union of the soul with God, using symbolic language based on human language. Dark Night and Spiritual Canticle share the same pattern of argument: the beloved (soul) goes in search of her beloved (God), and the spiritual marriage takes place and is consummated. Living Flame of Love celebrates the mystical union. His prose includes mystical treatises discussing the longer poems, Ascent of Mount Carmel, Dark Night, Spiritual Canticle, and Living Flame of Love.
Linguistic Terms
Phonetics
The linguistic discipline dealing with linguistic sounds from the perspective of their physical characteristics.
Fonologia
The linguistic discipline that studies the mental or abstract aspects of language sounds.
Subject
A constituent of a sentence whose core agrees with the verb in person and number.
SN (Noun Phrase)
Consisting of a noun (N), pronoun, or substantive and its complements.
Predicd (Predicate)
Consisting of a verbal nucleus that can be accompanied by different types of complements.
Periphrasis
A syntactic unit made up of two or more verbs that act as the core of the predicate.
CD (Direct Object)
A syntactic function that embodies the theme or patient of the action and designates the object.
CRegimen (Regimen Complement)
Designates the object on which the pre-verbal action rests and is preceded by a preposition required by the verb.
CI (Indirect Object)
The corresponding syntactic function.
CAG (Agent Complement)
A non-core complement that appears only in passive voice sentences.
Attrib (Attribute)
Modifies both the verb and noun with which it agrees in gender and number.
CPred (Predicate Complement)
Similar to the attribute but with possible variations.
CC (Circumstantial Complement)
A heterogeneous class of complements that occupy peripheral positions of the verb phrase.
Sentence Types
- Declarative: The speaker reports a fact, affirmed or denied.
- Interrogative: The speaker asks a question.
- Imperative: The speaker aims to be heard with orders and pleas.
- Exclamatory: Shows the subjectivity of the speaker.
- Dubitative: The speaker expresses doubt, an echo, or a possibility.
- Optative: The speaker expresses a wish.
Verb Types
- Attributive: Include an attribute.
- Predicative: Do not include an attribute.
- Transitive: Are built with a direct object (CD).
- Intransitive: Do not have a direct object (CD).
- Active: Present the agent as the subject of the verbal action.
- Passive: Have an individual patient and an overall agent complement (C Ag).
- Non-pronominal: Do not include an atonic pronoun.
- Pronominal: Include an atonic pronoun.
Coordinating Conjunctions
- Copulative: Express sum or addition.
- Adversative: Indicate annoyance between sentences.
- Distributive: Express alternative copulative coordination.
- Disjunctive: