Mastering Spanish Grammar: Plurality, Usage, and Common Errors
Tantum Plurality
Tantum plurality: A whole series of lexical coinages tend to be immobilized in the plural, indeed vague, nature of plurality of things or expressive reasons, without having to oppose a singular form: good news, annals, weddings… Related to them are nouns that refer to realities that have two or more parts or elements. Many of them have no singular form. These plurals behave in two ways: one unit and more. Example: pliers, shorts, handcuffs…
Tantum Singulari
Tantum Singulari: These are names for unique entities; therefore, they do not accept a plural form in its strict meaning. This happens with words like the names of virtues, qualities… such as hope, charity, ideological currents… so does the east, west, health… When these words are used in the plural, they take a concrete material sense (living faiths, five geographies) or a sense similar to the plural of class (the rebirth of Europe), or in some cases, the plural is not significant (has given up hope).
Proper Language Usage
Proper language: Select the right word for the actual and appropriate meaning.
Solecism
Solecism: It consists of a misuse of language with a syntactic incorrectness or incurring a semantic error. Examples:
- Using the accusative where the dative is required: “I saw them” and immediately “I knew them.” One would have to use “I saw them” and immediately “I knew them.”
- Reversing the order of two consecutive pronouns: “I forgot you,” instead of “you forgot me” or “I forgot.”
- Using a preposition other than that which is required, or adding or omitting it when it’s needed: “Juan deals visit their flattering,” one should say “Juan deals with their visit,” because the verb in this case requires the preposition.
News from the RAE Spelling Rules (1999)
News spellings RAE 1999: The latest spelling edition is from 1999 and brings news. The main one concerns the verb forms with enclitic pronouns (i.e., postponed: abrírsela, seeing it…) that are accentuated by the general rules, but until then, the accent of the verb form was preserved: by Keys, pedíle. Now: Keys, pedile. Another change is the accentuation of words as a script, I ran, rolled, cyan… to become empowered, as diphthongs or as articulate as only hiatos. The adverbial tilde may carry a risk of ambiguity when .
Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts
Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubt: The Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubt is intended to serve as an effective tool for anyone interested in improving their knowledge and mastery of the Spanish language. It answers the most common questions posed by the use of Spanish in each of the planes or levels that can be distinguished in the analysis of linguistic elements: the phonograph, because it solves ontological type questions (on pronunciation) and orthographic (on spelling, accentuation and punctuation), morphological, and providing guidance on the most common hesitations that occur at the level of nominal morphology (plural, feminine and derived forms) and the verbal morphology (shape of the conjugation); the syntactic, clarifying doubts and system construction, consistency, form and use of idioms, etc., and the lexicosemantic, for in it are examined and corrected numerous improprieties lexical, while providing guidance on the use of neologisms and foreign words.
Homophones and Homonyms
Homophones: Words that are very similar in their pronunciation and spelling but different in meaning. Examples: effect and affect, catch and sewing, absorb and absolve. Homonyms: Words with identical spelling but different meanings. Example: Sailing for lighting and a sail.
Gerund Usage
Gerund: It is a conjugation of the verb that shows action but is not defined by time, mode, number, or person. This type of verb form expresses no prior personal or simultaneous action, never later. In Spanish, the verb is in the gerund when it has the suffix -ando, -iendo or -yendo and is often preceded by a conjugation of the verb to be. The specific compound gerund verb form with the simple participle verb, preceded by the verb be in gerund. To use it, you need to put before a verb copulativo. Examples:
- It is totally incorrect and, therefore, reject the use of the gerund when it indicates a connection to be delayed after the action specified by the main verb. I went to the gym eating sandwiches. (“I went to the gym while eating a sandwich.” Substitution is allowed, so that the gerund is correct.)
- * It takes knowing assistant cook. (The correct form in this case would be “that sepacocinar.”)
- Nor is it correct that accompanies the gerund function names or incidental additions: * I ran into two men punched. (What would be correct “to be punched.”)
– * I gave a euro to a poor beggar. (The correct thing would be “a poor pedíalimosna.”)