Understanding Spanish Grammar: Parts of Speech
Spanish Grammar: Key Components
Interjection
An interjection often expresses emotion or surprise. Examples include: wham bam sounds bang, ehh antecion call hi, moods ah ay bah.
Adverb
An adverb modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb. It often refers to related circumstances.
- Place: there
- Time: now, después, then
- Manner: well, good, bad
- Amount: far, short, less, but
- Affirmation: if, also, of course
- Negation: not, tampoco
- Question: perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
- Interrogative: where, when, as
Preposition
A preposition shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence. Examples include: a, before, under, with, against, from, in, between, toward, until, to, for, according, no, over, behind, over and through.
Conjunction
A conjunction shows the relationship between two similar elements. They can be coordinating or subordinating.
- Examples: have come, that, save sing and loves to dance.
- Copulative: ye not that
- Disjunctive: ou bien
- Adversative: but but
- Distributive: ya … and well .. well
- Explanatory: ie this is
Noun
A noun can change in gender and number. It designates both immaterial and material beings. Nouns are divided into common and proper, abstract and concrete.
Gender
Nouns can be masculine or feminine, often indicated by their endings.
Verb
A verb expresses an action performed by a person, animal, or thing. It can form a sentence by itself (e.g., corred) and serves as the predicate of a sentence.
Determinant
A determinant specifies a noun and provides specific information about it.
- Article: the, a, one
- Possessive: my, your, his
- Demonstrative: this, that, these
- Numerals: ordinal (1st, 2nd), cardinal (1, 2, 3)
- Indefinite: some, few, many
- Interrogative and Exclamatory: who, like, how, what
Adjective
An adjective specifies and complements the meaning of a noun, indicating qualities, traits, or properties.
Pronoun
A pronoun represents or points to a person or object already known.
- Personal: I, you, he, she
- Demonstrative: this, that, those
- Possessive: mine, yours, theirs
- Indefinite: something, someone, anyone
- Numerals: ordinal numerals
- Interrogative and Exclamatory: what, who, which, as
- Relative: who, whom, how, what
Spelling Rules
Some spelling rules include:
- ‘b’ is always written after ‘m’
- ‘n’ is written before ‘v’
- ‘v’ is written after ‘d’ and ‘b’
- Words starting with ‘bu’, ‘bur’, ‘bus’ are written with ‘b’
- If they start with ‘di’ are written with ‘v’
- Words ending in ‘ity’, ‘bunda’, ‘bundo’ are written with ‘b’
- ‘ava’, ‘avo’, ‘avem’, ‘eva’, ‘eve’, ‘evo’, ‘iva’, ‘ivo’ are written with ‘v’
- ‘b’ is written in words ending in ‘bute’ and ‘bir’
Narrative
A narrative is a written or oral text, in verse or prose, that relates real or imaginary events, featuring characters and a specific time.
Elements of a Narrative
- Structure: theme, narrator, point of view, characters, space, time, dialogues, and monologues.
- External Structure: formal distribution decided by the author.
- Internal Structure: organization of the narrative events.
- Approach: presentation of characters in a specific space and place.
- Knot: development of the problem.
- Denouement: solution of the problem.
- Narrator: the most important element, tells the events.
- External Narrator: uses the 3rd person.
- Internal Narrator: participates in the story.
- Characters: main and secondary.
- Space: outside or open, indoor or enclosed.
- Time: external or historical, internal duration of the narrative.
- Monologue: 1st person predominates to express emotions.