Nouns and Adjectives

Introduction

In informal contexts a noun (or substantive) is defined as a word which refers to one or more individuals or things, for example, persons or substances. This definition works for every language because it is stated in semantic terms, taking only the meaning of the word into account. It is also deficient, however, because it does not cover abstract nouns such as "happiness" or "justice" which do not refer to physical entities. To include these as well we shall use the following definition: A noun is a word which can be assigned a number and a gender.

Note that the second definition is stated in terms of grammar and is therefore language-specific. Given that we are only concerned with Spanish and English, this is of no practical relevance, however, because there is a one-to-one correspondence between Spanish and English nouns. That is, English nouns translate to Spanish nouns and vice versa.

The number of a noun is either singular or plural, and usually both forms are possible (e.g., "apple" vs. "apples"). Counterexamples include "glasses" (gafas) which has no singular form, and "silence" (silencio) which has no plural form.

The possible genders are masculine, feminine and neuter, and each noun can usually be assigned only one of them. A notable exception are the nouns which refer to creatures such as humans or animals. For these nouns the gender coincides with the sex of the creature, either masculine or feminine.

Nouns

Most Spanish nouns (sustantivos) are either feminine or masculine even if they refer to objects with no intrinsic gender. Such words are usually neuter in English, so the gender of a noun may differ from the gender of its translation. To make matters worse, if a noun has no characteristic ending and does not refer to a person or an animal either, there is no way to determine the gender by means of syntax or semantics, one simply has to memorize it.

In some cases the gender can be inferred from the spelling. For example, nouns which end in ción/sión or dad/tad are always feminine. Examples: colección, versión, novedad, amistad. Words which end in a are usually feminine while masculine words often end in o or r. There are many exceptions, however:

• mano and foto are feminine although they end in o.
• A number of sustantivos are masculine although they end in a. For example, día, problema, idioma and sofá are all masculine.
• For some sustantivos which refer to a person (e.g., amante, canciller, fiscal) either gender is possible and the correct gender depends on the sex of the person described. Other nouns of this kind exist in two variants. For example, "client" translates to either cliente (masculine) or clienta (feminine).
• For a few nouns either gender is correct although they do not refer to a person. These include mar and azúcar.
• Feminine nouns which start with stressed a such as alma, agua, águila and also hada get the masculine definite article in the singular case: el alma, el agua etc. For the indefinite article, both the masculine and feminine forms are possible: un/una hada/alma etc. However, the usual rules apply in the plural case. Thus, it's las almas and unas almas.

The table below contains further endings which are indicative of either gender, but for which there are exceptions.

For nouns ending in a vowel the plural is constructed by appending an s. Examples:

If the noun ends in a consonant, the plural is formed by appending es:

If the noun ends in z, the plural is formed by replacing z with c and appending es. For example, the plural of pez is peces.

Most nouns which end in n or s and whose stress is on the last syllable lose their accent in the plural form. For example, avión becomes aviones. The accent on the o would be redundant in the plural case because the pronunciation rule puts the stress there anyway. The following nouns behave in the same way: limón, imán, entremés. However, países, the plural of país, is spelt with accent.

A noun is said to be countable if it can be assigned a number. Examples of countable nouns are "apple" and "house" while "water" and "money" are uncountable because tres aguas and un dinero are as nonsensical as the English translations "three waters" and "one money". English countable nouns can occur together with the determiners "few" and "many" while uncountable nouns are often quantified with "little" and "much".

Countable nouns always admit the plural form, which must be used to ask for the number of individuals:

Similar questions about an uncountable noun require the singular form:

For animals and plants the plural form may denote a set of subspecies. This works for countable and uncountable nouns:

Although most uncountable Spanish nouns do not admit the plural form, some of them do. The second example above is one such exception. Another function of the plural form of an uncountable noun is to express a metaphorical, figurative or symbolic circumstance. Examples:

Articles and Adjectives

An article is a word which co-occurs with a noun to refer to a member of a group. A definite article refers to a particular member while an indefinite article refers to any member. The English definite and indefinite articles "the" and "a" carry less grammatical information than their Spanish counterparts, the artículos definidos/indefinidos, because the latter also convey the number and gender of the accompanying noun.

If we disregard the neuter gender for the moment, there are four possibilities for the number/gender of a noun: masculine singular, masculine plural, feminine singular and feminine plural. Consequently, the Spanish language needs four definite and four indefinite articles to let articles match their companying noun with respect to gender and number. The following table lists them all.

The four definite articles of the first table above all translate to "the". Example:

The two singular articles of the second table above both translate to "a" and their plural forms to "some". Example:

Although Spanish nouns are either feminine or masculine, there is the neuter article lo. Strictly speaking, this is not an article because it does not co-occur with a noun. Rather, it turns an adjective into a noun, similar to the English construction "the" + adjective. Examples:

Another class of words which always accompany a noun consists of the adjectives. By definition, an adjective is a word which provides additional information about its noun such as size, age, color. Examples: "big", "old", "red".

English adjectives usually precede the accompanying noun, but Spanish adjectives (adjetivos) may also follow it. Another difference is that adjetivos always match their noun with respect to gender and number much like the artículos do. This results in the four characteristic endings a, as, o and os of an adjetivo. In the following example the four forms redond(a|as|o|os) all translate to the same English word "round" because English neither encodes number nor gender in adjectives.

To address a group of persons (or animals) which contains both male and female individuals, it is customary to use the masculine forms of the article, adjective and noun:

The feminine forms are only employed if the group contains no male individual. This linguistic gender inequality is being revised in favour of gender neutral terms such as el personal médico (rather than los médicos) or the explicit los y las estudiantes. The "masculine-only" convention is still the accepted norm, though.

Morphological Forms

A morphological form modifies a word to express smaller or greater intensity, or to put a certain association on it. We shall discuss three Spanish morphological forms:

Diminutivo

Conveys smallness, endearment or unimportance.

Aumentativo

Expresses greater intensity in size or other aspects. This is the opposite of the diminutivo.

Despectivo

Puts the word in a negative context.

While the diminutivo and the aumentativo also exist in English (diminutive and augmentative), the despectivo has no English counterpart.

Spanish morphological forms are produced differently than those in English. For example, the English language employs prefixes like "over" or "super" as in "overlord" or "supermarket" to express greater intensity and the "ling" suffix as in "duckling" to express smallness. In contrast, the Spanish language always uses suffixes to convey this change of meaning. Another difference is that the Spanish morphological forms can also be applied to adjectives, which is not possible in English. Thus, these constructs can not be translated literally. The translation often requires the use of a different or an additional word.

Regardless of the Spanish morphological form and regardless of whether it is applied to a noun or an adjective, the suffix of a Spanish morphological form always has to match the noun in gender and number.

It should be noted that Spanish morphological forms are highly contextual and often depend on the Spanish dialect. Moreover, additional forms not covered here are prevalent in certain regions. Therefore the examples of this section should be taken with a grain of salt. The objective is to illustrate the concept rather than provide a comprehensive list of words with unambiguous meaning.

Diminutive

There are several different endings for the diminutivo, and it depends on the region how the diminutivo can be formed. For example, in Latin American Spanish there are common suffixes which are not used in Spain. In what follows we shall discuss only the most common suffixes which are generally understood in all Spanish speaking countries. The logic behind other suffixes is very similar.

ito

This suffix and its variations (ita, itos, itas) are most common. If the word ends in a or o this vowel is omitted. Examples of nouns:

Note the z → c change in the last example. In general, this happens when the stem ends in z.

In the following examples of adjectives we only list the masculine singular declension of the diminutivo. The other three declensions are constructed by adjusting the ending according to gender and number.

If the stem ends with c, the ending becomes quit(o|a|os|as) because c followed by i is pronounced differently. For example, the diminutivo of chico is chiquito.

For words ending in a vowel or in r, n or e, an additional c is inserted so that the diminutivo ending is cit(o|a|os|as). Examples of nouns:

Examples of adjectives:

If the stem has only one syllable, the ending is ecit(o|a|os|as). Examples:

The diminutive of a masculine noun is always masculine too. If a masculine noun ends in a, the diminutive is also formed with the female ending. Examples:

illo and cillo

These endings can be used as an alternative to the ito form described above. Examples:

Similar to the ito case, nouns and adjectives whose stem ends with c or z need an adjustment. For example, the diminutivos of chico and pieza are chiquillo and piececilla.

Some diminutivos have become so common that they are now considered independent words with their own meaning. Examples:

• perilla is a pear-shaped door knocker while a little pear is usually called perita.
• bolsillo refers to a pocket of a piece of clothes rather than a small bag.
• ventanilla is a counter window.

Augmentative

Augmentatives generally enlarge things or make them more intensive. Like the diminutive, the augmentative puts the word in a different context. While the diminutive conveys smallness or cuteness, the augmentative expresses a pejorative, slanderous or disrespectful connotation. Augmentatives are subjective in that the meaning and the intensity may depend on context, intonation and culture. Another difference between the two morphological forms is that the aumentativo of a Spanish noun can be masculine even if the original noun is feminine.

There are several possible endings for the aumentativo and the above remarks regarding meaning and gender apply to all of them. We shall only look at the three most common endings.

ón and óna

Augmentatives ending in ón are masculine, even if the original form is feminine. Examples of nouns:

Notes:

• Masculine aumentativos are written with accent while feminine ones get no accent.
• In the last few examples the gender of the augmentative has changed.

Sometimes the stem of the word changes as well. For example, la puerta becomes el portón ("gate").

azo

Examples:

The azo suffix can also express a blow with the object identified by the noun that is modified with the suffix. For example el manazo can mean "paw" (augmentative) or "blow by a hand". This example also shows that the azo suffix may turn female into male nouns.

Another interesting example is derecho → derechazo, because here the suffix turns the adjective "right" into a noun, with the meaning "hit with the right hand (or leg)".

ote and ota

Example:

Often, more than one suffix is possible for a given noun. For example, in addition to the above amigazo, amigote is common as well.

Like for the diminutivo there exist nouns whose diminutivo form has become an independent word. For example camarote is a cabin (for example in a ship).

Despectivo

Like the diminutivo and the aumentativo the despectivo it is constructed by appending a suitable ending to a noun or an adjective. Many possible endings exist, including acho, asco, eto, uelo and ucho. In general, only a single suffix is common for each noun or adjective, although there are exceptions. Examples:

Solutions

Exercise 1

Form the plural of the following nouns: arroz, mujer, árbol, contabilidad, jabalí, japonés, luz, melocotón.

Exercise 2

Exercise 3

Form an diminutivo of the indicated word to fill in the blanks.

Exercise 4

Form an aumentativo of the indicated word to fill in the blanks.