Spanish Grammar Essentials: Links, Loanwords & Ad Language
Spanish Grammatical Links
Prepositions
Prepositions are linking elements used to subordinate one phrase to another, typically a nominal phrase, or an infinitive verb phrase introduced by a or de.
The prepositions commonly used are:
- a
- ante
- bajo
- con
- contra
- de
- desde
- en
- entre
- hacia
- hasta
- para
- por
- según
- sin
- sobre
- tras
Subordinating Conjunctions
Subordinating conjunctions are links used to subordinate one verb form to another verb.
Subordinating conjunctions introduce subordinate clauses.
The most used subordinating conjunction is que. Sometimes, this conjunction joins other words to form conjunctive locutions, such as: para que, ya que…
Relatives
Relatives are links that introduce a subordinate clause while also playing a grammatical role within it (e.g., subject, direct object…).
Antecedent
Relatives usually refer to a word that appeared earlier in the statement, which we call the antecedent.
Relative Pronouns/Adverbs
The relatives are: que, cual, quien, cuyo, donde, como, cuanto, and cuando.
Words of Foreign Origin in Spanish
Besides its own lexicon, languages often contain words borrowed from other languages. The process of incorporating words from other languages occurs continuously throughout history.
In Castilian Spanish, terms have been incorporated from Arabic, Germanic languages, Italian, French, etc. Currently, the most notable influence is from English. Many words we use frequently, like internet, come from English.
Loanwords and Foreignisms
According to their degree of adaptation to the phonetic and orthographic rules of the language into which they are integrated, words from other languages can be classified into two types:
Loanwords (Préstamos)
These are words of foreign origin that have joined Castilian Spanish, usually after undergoing modification in pronunciation and spelling (e.g., fútbol, escáner).
Foreignisms (Extranjerismos)
These are foreign words that have not been definitively incorporated into the language. They normally retain their original form (e.g., bungalow, boutique).
Advertising: Functions and Types
Advertising is an activity that aims to inform about products, services, and ideas in order to entice recipients and encourage them to consume.
Today, advertising has assumed various roles of economic and social importance: it finances the media, reports on products and services available in the market, and proposes social patterns and behavioral models. We can distinguish two types of advertising according to purpose:
- Commercial Advertising: Pursues economic goals, such as making consumer products and services known.
- Propaganda: Seeks to persuade regarding the validity of an ideology or the advisability of a particular behavior (e.g., quitting smoking, etc.).
Verbal Language in Advertising
Advertising language is used to attract the receiver’s attention, seduce them, and convince them to buy the product. These are its main features:
- Appeals to the receiver: Uses questions, the second person, or the imperative mood.
- Lexical innovation: Incorporates foreign words, acronyms, jargon, and neologisms.
- Brevity and syntactic conciseness: Deletes everything non-essential.
- Originality: Uses various rhetorical figures typical of literary language:
- Phonic Resources: Rhymes, puns, etc.
- Morphosyntactic Resources: Repetition of lexemes, words, or structures.
- Semantic Resources: Simile, metaphor, hyperbole, etc.