Portuguese language: Encyclopedia II - Portuguese language - Grammar

Portuguese language - Grammar

Portuguese language - General

Portuguese makes a clear distinction between the different word classes, that include verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, articles, conjunctions and interjections. There are also some other determiners and particles. Portuguese is a SVO language.

Portuguese language - Verbs

Verbs are divided into three conjugations, which can be identified by looking at the infinitive ending, one of "-ar", "-er" and "-ir". There is also "-or", which is present in a small number of verbs, such as "pôr" (to put), but these verbs pertain to "-er" conjugation, due to the fact they had an "e" between "o" and "r". Most verbs end with "-ar", such as cantar (to sing). All verbs with the same ending follow the same pattern, save irregulars.

In Portuguese, verbs appear in distinct moods:

• Imperative, used to express wish, command or advice.
• Indicative, used in the main clauses of declarative sentences.
• Subjunctive (conjuntivo). Used to express the content of a wish, a possibility or, in subordinate clauses, something denied in the main clause.
• Conditional, which is described as a distinct mood in some grammars, mostly in Portugal, less frequently in Brazil.

Along with moods, there are non-finite verb forms:

• Infinitive
• Gerund
• Past participle (or passive participle)

There is no present or active participle in Portuguese, but many adjectives come from Latin present participles and carry more or less the same meaning. Some neologisms are created in the same pattern. Unlike English, these "present participles" are not identical in form with gerund.

One of the most distinctive traits of the Portuguese language is the occasional inflection for person of the infinitive verb. The sentence Está na hora de irmos embora. ("It is time that we leave.") contains an example of such: the verb to go ("ir") is in the infinitive, but the personal infinitive: it contains a personal ending (-mos) for the first person plural, in accordance to Portuguese verb conjugation. In fact, Portuguese grammar allows the infinitive to be inflected this way, and it is even obligatory to inflect it in certain constructions, as the one in the example. Some other times, a personal infinitive clause is interchangeable with a finite subordinate clause, the finite one being often more formal.

Portuguese subjunctive mood has almost as many tenses as the indicative, namely present, perfect, imperfect, pluperfect and future, not mentioning periphrastic structures. In regular verbs, subjunctive future, which is uncommon in Indo-European languages, is identical to personal infinitive, but not in irregular verbs. And its role is obviously very different.

Portuguese conditional mood is often described as a tense, namely the "future of the preterite". It has two forms, that can be rendered as the "future of the (perfect or imperfect) past" (for instance iria, would go) and the "future of the pluperfect" (for instance teria ido, would have gone). Periphrastic structures provide other tenses. Conditional is found more often in formal than in informal speech, where it is commonly replaced by the imperfect tense.

Another interesting feature of Portuguese verbs is the existence of two or three equivalent forms for some past tenses, either in the indicative or in the subjunctive, but something similar happens in French and Spanish perfect tenses. For instance, in the indicative pluperfect it is possible to use either the auxiliary verbs ter (from Latin tenere) and haver (from Latin habere) or a simple form. He had gone could be translated either as Ele tinha ido, Ele havia ido or Ele fora. The two latter options, however, are much less common in oral and informal languages. The simple form (fora) would be sometimes seen as archaic or literary.

Portuguese language - Nouns pronouns and adjectives

All Portuguese nouns have one of two genders: masculine or inclusive and feminine or exclusive. Most adjectives and pronouns, and all articles indicate the gender of the noun they reference. The feminine gender in adjectives is formed in a different way from that in nouns. Most adjectives ending in a consonant remain unchanged: homem superior (superior man), mulher superior (superior woman). This is also true for adjectives ending in "e": homem forte (strong man), mulher forte (strong woman). Except for this, the noun and the adjective must always be in agreement: homem alto (tall man), mulher alta (tall woman).

Portuguese language - Demonstratives

Portuguese demonstratives show a three-way distinction between proximal to speaker, proximal to hearer, and distal. For instance, aqui ("here"), aí ("there, close to you") and ali ("there, away from both of us"). Some demonstratives even seem to make a four-way distinction. Lá, sometimes said to be synonymous to ali, would more accurately be translated as "there, a long distance from both of us".

Another example:

In colloquial Brazilian Portuguese, esse is often used where in European Portuguese and formal Brazilan Portuguese este or even aquele would appear. This way we get a two-way distinction between proximal and distal (to both speaker and hearer) or even no distinction at all.

See also: Portuguese pronouns and Portuguese verb conjugation

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Grammar", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki