Parts of Speech in Spanish Grammar: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives & More

Posted on Oct 17, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

Parts of Speech in Spanish Grammar

Nouns

Nouns are words used to designate all people or entities: people, animals, and things, whether concrete, abstract, or imaginary.

Adjectives

Adjectives are words that modify nouns to identify or characterize them; they express characteristics or properties of the noun.

Types of Adjectives:

  1. Qualitative Adjectives: These adjectives add a qualitative attribute (e.g., good, nice, big, old, new, boring).
  2. Determinative Adjectives: These adjectives restrict or specify the noun they accompany.
  • Demonstrative: Mark the spatial or temporal distance between the speaker and the person or object spoken (e.g., this, that, these, those).
  • Possessive: Establish that a being or thing belongs to someone or something (e.g., mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs).
  • Indefinite: Accompany a noun to distinguish it from another and give it a sense of imprecision or inaccuracy (e.g., other, all, some, different, too, none, few).
  • Numerical: Add a precise meaning or order number to the noun (e.g., ten, fifty-eight, ninety).
  • Interrogative: Used in interrogative or exclamatory sentences, always precede the noun, and emphasize it (e.g., what, which, how many, whose).

Articles

Articles are words that precede a noun to identify it and agree with it in gender and number.

  • Definite Articles: el, la, lo, los, las
  • Indefinite Articles: un, una, unos, unas

Pronouns

Pronouns are words that replace a noun to avoid repetition. They are used to indicate things or people present at the time of communication or to refer to something mentioned previously.

  • Personal: Refer to the various grammatical persons involved in the dialogue (e.g., I, we, you, he, she, it, they, me, us, him, her, them).
  • Demonstrative: Show beings or objects without naming them, and therefore, their meaning is determined by the context. They agree in number and gender with their antecedent (e.g., This is the last chance I give you, Those remained stationary).
  • Possessive: Refer to beings, things, or ideas possessed by someone (e.g., Yours is good health, I want mine right now).
  • Relative: Refer to someone or something mentioned earlier in the speech that is already known to the participants (e.g., Those who were earlier made it all, What I said about the novel I felt quite right).
  • Interrogative: Designate beings or things whose identity is unknown. They are used instead of a noun in a question (e.g., What, who, which, how much, whose).
  • Indefinite: Designate beings or things whose identity or quantity is imprecise because it does not matter or is not appropriate. They are also used in place of a noun (e.g., Someone told me the truth about the facts, Give him something so he doesn’t cry, I don’t want to hurt anybody).

Verbs

Verbs are words that express actions, attitudes, changes, or movements of beings or things. They always refer to activities performed or experienced by people and situations or states in which they are found, the changes experienced by objects, and demonstrations of various phenomena of nature. Verbs have person, number, mood, tense, and voice.

Adverbs

Adverbs are invariable words that complement the meaning of a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or certain phrases.

  • Qualifying: This group includes all adverbs derived from adjectives (these adjectives agree in gender and number when they accompany a noun).
  • Specific: This is a class that includes a limited number of adverbs. In general, they perform a similar function to pronouns, as they can be said to be in place of a noun.

Types of Specific Adverbs:

  • Place: Indicate the location where the verbal action is performed (e.g., here, there, near, far, outside, inside, above, below, forward, backward, around, behind, where, wherever).
  • Time: Indicate when the action is performed (e.g., then, early, before, after, soon, late, now, today, tomorrow, yesterday, always, never, already, yet, when).
  • Manner: Refer to the way the action is performed (e.g., well, badly, like this). There are also several adverbial phrases such as: as usual, at random, face to face, in haste, without rhyme or reason.
  • Quantity: Indicate the amount of action taken, many of which are intensifying, and therefore it is very common to find them modifying adjectives or adverbs (e.g., too, more, much, little, less, quite, very, almost, nothing, as, well).
  • Doubt: Indicate the possibility, desire, or doubt about something (e.g., maybe, perhaps, possibly).
  • Affirmation: Used to assert or confirm the action of the verb (e.g., yes, certainly, also, indeed).
  • Negation: Used to negate the verb (e.g., no, not, neither).