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Adjectives whose lemma does not end in -o, however, inflect differently. These adjectives almost always inflect only for number. -s is once again the plural marker, and if the lemma ends in a consonant, the adjective takes -es in the plural. Thus: caliente ("hot") → caliente, caliente, calientes, calientes
The Spanish and Portuguese termination -o usually denotes the masculine, and is normally changed to feminine by dropping the -o and adding -a. The plural forms are usually -os and -as respectively. Adjectives ending in -ish can be used as collective demonyms (e.g. "the English", "the Cornish").
Spanish generally uses adjectives in a similar way to English and most other Indo-European languages. However, there are three key differences between English and Spanish adjectives. In Spanish, adjectives usually go after the noun they modify. The exception is when the writer/speaker is being slightly emphatic, or even poetic, about a ...
Many grammars of Spanish suggest that nouns ending in -a are feminine, [14] [15] but there is no requirement that Spanish nouns ending in -a be feminine. [10] Thus, grammars that pose such a requirement also typically include a long list of exceptions, such as el alerta 'alert', el bocata 'sandwich', el caza 'fighter plane', and many others.
The suffix -issime may be used to express the absolute superlative degree. un aventura excellentissime 'a most excellent adventure' The adjectives bon 'good', mal 'bad', magne 'great', and parve 'small' have optional irregular forms for the comparative and superlative.
The ending -men was inspired by Provençal and spoken French (which does not pronounce the t in -ment) and chosen over -mente to avoid clashing with the noun ending -ment and other nouns in the language derived from the past tense in -t. [17] [18] Adjectives may be used as adverbs when the sense is clear: [1] [19]
There are differences in Dutch as compared to Afrikaans. One is that suffixes end with -je (e.g. beetje, a [little] bit, mandje, basket) as compared, i.e. in Afrikaans (e.g. bietjie, mandjie—same meanings respectively). This reflects the usage, i.e. in the dialects of the province of Holland that most of Dutch settlers came from.
When the final consonants in these endings are dropped, the result is -u for both; this became -o in Spanish. However, a word like Latin iste had the neuter istud; the former became este and the latter became esto in Spanish. Another sign that Spanish once had a grammatical neuter exists in words that derive from neuter plurals.