Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Contrastive Linguistics Spanish - English Handout5
Contrastive Linguistics Spanish - English Handout5
Direct object: the NP that receives the verbal action. If this is so,
what about the following sentences:
Of these, only the third property is reliable, but entirely circular. The
other two work fairly well in English but not so in Spanish, where
word order is relatively free:
fullest
attention
to
John/the
puppy/the
Apart from this problem, Spanish indirect objects are quite frequently
ambiguous:
(15b) They Hill finish it (on) the last Monday of the month.
c) With the time of the day:
(16a) Son las 12.00.
(17b) Im at school.
(18b) He is in the prison (paying a
Neither language uses the definite article in the following cases: estar
en clase/to be in class, estar en casa/to be at home and ir a misa/go
to mass.
e) Before the name of a country or continent if its somehow modified:
(19a) La Europa clsica.
(19b) Classical Europe.
f) With classified nouns in indirect address. A classified noun is that
one that bears a title or is somehow modified; and indirect address
means that the noun is being spoken about rather than being directly
spoken to:
(20a) Dnde est el Sr. Gmez?
(20b) Where is Mr.
Gmez?
Nevertheless, the omission of the definite article is also compulsory
in Spanish when addressing someone directly; that is, in vocatives.
(21a) Dr. Martn, qu quiere? (21b) Dr. Martin, what do you want?
g) When talking about parts of the city. Streets, avenues, squares, etc.:
(22a) Vivo en la calle Puerto. (22b) I live in Puerto Street.
When parts of the body or items of clothing are referred to, Spanish
uses the singular form since Spanish focuses on the individuality;
English, in turn, focuses on the collectivity and, hence, uses the noun
in the plural number:
(26a) Se quitaron el sombrero.
(26b) They took off their
hats.
(27) *Bajaron las cabezas.
(28) *They bowed their head.
THE INDEFINITE ARTICLE:
Form: Spanish has four different forms (uno/una/unos/unas) that
agree in gender and noun with the noun they introduce into discourse;
English, in turn, has two allomorphs of its definite singular indefinite
article: a, used before beginning with a consonant, and an, used
before words beginning with a vowel. The English plural indefinite
article, some, in no way resembles the singular form an is frequently
omitted:
(29a) I have a book.
QUANTIFIERS:
Althogh both languages employ the count/non-count classificatory
system, all nouns are not classified the same in each language.
Furniture, for instance, is a mass term in English, and its counterpart
mueble(s) is a count noun in Spanish.
Partitive systems for English and Spanish count nouns:
Small degree: a few/few; unos cuantos/pocos;
Medium degree: some; algunos/unos;
They always have four different forms marked for gender and
number: espaol/-a/-es/-as; dulzn/-a/es/-as; Labrador/-a/-es/-as.
In English the adjective precedes the noun it modifies almost
without exception:
(1) The first man arrived in a black car.
(2) We live in a small house next to the American River.
Some exception to this rule are French borrowings belonging to the
semantic field of law like, for example, court martial, attorney
general and notary public.
There are cases, however, in which the adjective in English can be
movable and can appear either in its usual position or after the noun.
Postpositive adjectives give a new sense to the noun they are
following since they are not describing the noun, but limiting its
quality. The great majority of postpositive adjectives belong to the
class of past participles:
(3a) The visible stars. (We refer to the whole group of stars)
(3b) The stars visible. (The number of stars is here restricted; we are
only referring to the group of stars that are visible, and not to all of
them).
Spanish adjectives, however, can either precede (limiting
adjectives) or follow (descriptive adjectives) the noun they modify
according to the classification they have.
Limiting adjectives in Spanish relate the noun to its environment,
describes its order in a succession or state its relative amount or
quantity. They include the articles, the short unstressed forms of the
possessive determiners, the demonstratives, numerals, adjectives of
quantity and indefinites:
(37) No veo lo til del mtodo. I dont see the usefulness of the
method.
c) lo + PP headed by of: definite article/demonstrative + general noun
(business(stuff) + about PP:
(38) Lo de Pedro no me importa. I dont care about that staff about
Meter.
(39) Lo de tu hijo me preocupa. The business about your son
worries me.
d) lo + relative pronoun: what + clause
(40) Me dijo lo que necesitaba He told me what he needed.
10
11
The true reflexive pronoun is that one that refers back to the clausal
subject. Both, in English and Spanish, refrlexive sentences sharphly
contrast with non-reflexive sentences:
(27a) El se acuesta
(24b)
He
explained
the
The two languages correspond quite well here, but not so well when
selecting vocabulary items to express ideas that are clearly reflexive
in both languages:
(27b) He goes to bed. *He beds himself.
12
13