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Spanish, also referred to as Castilian to differentiate it from other languages spoken in Spain, is an Indo-European language of the Italic branch. [1] Belonging to the Romance family, it is a daughter language of Latin, evolving from its popular register that used to be spoken on the Iberian Peninsula. [2]
In English, the sentence "The boy is boring" uses a different adjective than "The boy is bored". In Spanish, the difference is made by the choice of ser or estar. El chico es aburrido uses ser to express a permanent trait ("The boy is boring"). El chico está aburrido uses estar to express a temporary state of mind ("The boy is bored").
The verbs ser (to be) and ir (to go) both exhibit irregularities in the present, imperfect and preterite forms (note that these two verbs have the same preterite fui). Together with ver (to see) and prever (to foresee), they are the only four verbs with irregular imperfect indicative.
Similarly, the participle agrees with the subject when it is used with ser to form the "true" passive voice (e.g. La carta fue escrita ayer 'The letter was written [got written] yesterday.'), and also when it is used with estar to form a "passive of result", or stative passive (as in La carta ya está escrita 'The letter is already written.').
After ser, however, the definite article is usually omitted: Este coche es mío = "This car is mine" Esta camisa es suya = "This shirt is his/hers/yours/theirs" To avoid ambiguity in the meaning of suyo, it may be replaced by de + the appropriate pronoun: Estos pantalones son más largos que los de él = "These pants are longer than his"
In the preterite tense, a number of irregular verbs in Portuguese change the stem vowel to indicate differences between first and third person singular: fiz 'I did' vs. fez 'he did', pude 'I could' vs. pôde 'he could', fui 'I was' vs. foi 'he was', tive 'I had' vs. teve 'he had', etc. Historically, these vowel differences are due to vowel ...
Copulas in the second class are existential, meaning that they express the existence of a phenomenon or a characteristic and suggests an evaluation by the speaker. The difference between essential and existential copulas is similar to that of the verbs ser and estar in the Spanish language.
An auxiliary verb (abbreviated aux) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a participle, which respectively provide the main semantic content of the clause. [1]