ANNNNNNND
english grammar lessons are BACK!!!
hoy, ¡empezamos a analizar adjetivos! ¡¿Qué puede ser más divertido que eso?!
Primero lo primero, ¿Qué es un ADJECTIVE????
A content wortd that is meaningful in the same way as Nouns, Verbs, Adverbs and some Prepositions.
In general, you may find adjectives as Pre-Modifiers (Placed before de Noun, modifying it) or, in a very few cases, as POST-MODIFIERS.
Syntactically, we can analyze an adjective from the DISTRIBUTION point of view. That means that an Adjective may appear in three different positions:
ATRIBUTIVE, POST-POSITIVE OR PREDICATIVE.
An Adjective used attributively refers to properties:
It Narrows down the scope of the Noun.
Ejemplo:
Si alguien dice: "An employee", no se sabe si el employee es bueno, malo, etc.
Pero si se dice: "A GOOD employee" , la idea expresada es una específica. No es "cualquier empleado".
It's not ANY employee es, a GOOD one. The reference may be Indefinite ("A") but NOT GENERIC.
It's not ANY employee es, a GOOD one. The reference may be Indefinite ("A") but NOT GENERIC.
It is not ANY EMPLOYEE but A GOOD one. In opposition to A BAD ONE.
So, No quiero cualquier empleado. Quiero uno BUENO. A GOOD one.
Whenever you choose and adjective, you are comparing, contrasting. You are sorting out, you are classifying.
In this position, this ATTRIBUTIVE position, you are...
NARROWING DOWN THE SCOPE OF THE NOUN. This position singles out one property of the noun.
Esta posición siempre va antes del sustantivo.
Puede haber incluso dos adjetivos antes: "A good elegant secretary".
The more you add, the more you are narrowing it down.
The more you add, the more you are narrowing it down.
-Now, If you say that an adjective appears in a
PREDICATIVE
position, the adjective is going to CHARACTERIZE the NOUN.
-It gives characteristics about the noun.
In general, adjective used predicatively, are used with DUMMY VERBS (EJ: El verbo TO BE, semed, become, grow. Todos los INCOHATIVE VERBS, los que expresan un proceso (get, turn, grow):
"He is TALL" (El adjetivo caracteriza al sustantivo, en este caso a la persona"HE")
"He seems TIRED" (We are not narrowing down. It's not "the tired runner" but "he SEEMS TIRED", so the Adjective is just caracterizing.)
TL;DR: Los adjetivos usados en la posición PREDICATIVE, vienen después del sustantivo y del DUMMY VERB. Dan características del NOUN. "She is smart"
Ahora bien, como se dijo en un principio, sólo en muy pocos casos los ADJETIVOS Pos-modifican a los sustantivos (o sea, que aparecen justo después que el sustantivo, SIN EL DUMMY VERB. JUSTO DESPUÉS!). Esta posición se llama:
POSTPOSITIVE
Es el ejemplo de estos pocos casos:
-You may have remnants of OLD ENGLISH, collocations, units that originated in old english and that are still used nowadays.:
Old titles, legal terminology
Attorney General.
Poet Laurate.
Knight Errant.
Court Martial.
-Latin words (since Old Eglish was very similar to spanish . It was influenced by Roman Languages)
-Other cases have originated from a RELATIVE CLAUSE (a no desesperar, lo explicaré en otro post!). Como puede ser el caso de...
Attorney General: The attorney that was general.
-An Adjetive in comparative degree after the noun; in Compounds, in Reduced Relative Clauses.
e.g.: "Rachel should try to find someone better"
"Let's find somewhere cheaper"
"There's nowhere better than home"
¿Quedó claro? Es medio complicado, capaz. O capaz no lo expliqué bien. Es de esos temas que quedan mejor instalados un vez se practican hasta que duelan los ojos.
Y ahora, si me disculpan, me voy a hacer lo que hago todos los días...
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