Four Dichotomies in Spanish: Adjective Position, Adjectival Clauses, Ser/Estar, and Preterite/Imperfect

Luis H. González

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000288933
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Teoría y práctica de la educación

Examining four dichotomies in Spanish, this book shows how to reduce the six to ten rules common in textbooks for each contrast to a single binary distinction. That distinction is a form of totality vs. part, easier to see in some of the dichotomies, but present in all of them.

Every chapter is example-driven, and many of those examples come from writing by students. Readers can test out for themselves the explanation at work in the examples provided. Then, those examples are explained step by step. In addition to examples from writing by college students, there are examples from RAE (Real Academia Española), from scholars, from writers, from Corpes XXI (RAE), from the Centro Virtual Cervantes, and from the Internet. Many of those examples are presented to the reader as exercises, and answers are provided.

This book was written for teachers of Spanish as a second language (L2) and for minors or majors of Spanish as an L2. It will also benefit teachers and learners of other L2s with some of these dichotomies.

1 Adjective position

Why having a ‘guapo novio’ does not raise any eyebrows, but having a ‘novio guapo’ might

Luis H. González

1.1. Introduction

This chapter shows that adjective position in Spanish, a distinction that is difficult for native speakers and even for scholars, is a lot easier to understand with the distinction of nonrestrictive and restrictive adjectival clauses, a concept that is part of the grammar of English and many other languages. Section 2 explains that nonrestrictiveness expresses totality whereas restrictiveness expresses partitivity, and it explains this distinction with examples that show the concept in a way easily understood by college students. The examples come from scholars, from writers, from textbooks, from students, and from the Internet. Scholars have discussed similar – and sometimes identical examples. Many examples are presented as exercises throughout the chapter – and the book – with answers provided. Section 3 shows why an adjective modifying a noun with a single referent (a noun or a noun phrase that refers to a unique person, entity, or thing in the world) will precede that noun or noun phrase. That is the reason why speakers of Spanish should refer to their boyfriend as their guapo novio (their boyfriend, who is handsome) and not to their novio guapo (their boyfriend, the one who is handsome). Section 4 shows that scholars themselves have not understood well enough the concept of (non)restrictiveness and have resorted to word twisting, or have invoked subjectivity, value judgment attitude, affectedness, emphasis, etc., to try to explain some examples. Not only are all of those explanations unnecessary; they might be confusing. Sections 5 and 6 explain with plenty of examples the position of two adjectives modifying one noun. Examples from writing by the late J. L. Borges show that a reviewer or editor with the understanding of (non)restrictiveness proposed in this chapter might have asked J. L. Borges to consider the changes proposed in the answers to the exercises. Section 7 shows that the principle of linear modification in Bolinger (1952), which was meant as a theory of word order for language in general, helps in explaining (non)restrictiveness even better than scholars have thought until now. It also helps in understanding the position of two or more adjectives modifying a noun. Section 8 shows a prediction of this analysis that an undergraduate student discovered while in college. Section 9 shows that a better understanding of (non)restrictiveness makes it unnecessary to posit categories of adjectives that native speakers might not be aware of. Section 10 explains why many adjectives that are used clearly nonrestrictively and should precede the noun are used after the noun as a result of the omission of que + ser or que + estar. The adjective (or past participle) stays in situ when que + copular verb is omitted. Section 11 shows that a few adjectives in Spanish function as adverbs (verdadero/a) or might be a different word (i.e. a different part of speech) when used in one position or the other (certain, simple, etc.). Section 12 shows that totality vs. partitivity is a better explanation for some of the adjectives with a “difference in meaning” when used before or after the noun. In any case, the number of those pairs of adjective + noun or noun + adjective is lower than that in common lists. Section 13 briefly discusses some implications for teaching. Section 14 offers some conclusions.

Note: Specialized or key terms are capitalized when introduced or when they are very relevant for the point at hand. They are explained or exemplified as needed.

1.2. A nonrestrictive adjective expresses totality; a restrictive one expresses partitivity

Let us begin with one example that shows the difference between guapo novio ‘a boyfriend, who is handsome’, with the adjective preceding the noun and novio guapo ‘a boyfriend that is handsome’, with the adjective following it.¹

1. (1) a.el guapo novio de mi hermana
   ‘my sister’s boyfriend, who is a handsome person’
2. b. el novio guapo de mi hermana
   ‘my sister’s boyfriend, the one who is handsome’

The difference is that in (1a), your sister has one boyfriend, and he is a handsome person. In (1b), your sister has at least two boyfriends, and only one of them is a handsome person. The phrase guapo novio in (1a) is nonrestrictive; the phrase novio guapo in (1b) is restrictive because it distinguishes from her boyfriends, the one who is handsome.

An adjective is NONRESTRICTIVE when the property that the adjective denotes (expresses) is a property of ALL of the nouns that the adjective precedes. An adjective is RESTRICTIVE when the property that the adjective denotes applies only to PART of the nouns that the adjective follows. Thus, a nonrestrictive adjective + noun (guapo novio) refers to the TOTALITY of the REFERENTS of the noun. A noun + restrictive adjective (novio guapo) refers to a PART of the referents of the noun. A witty definition of REFERENT in linguistics is that “a referent is what in the world a word refers to.” The object that the reader has in their hands is the referent for the word book, if this is a physical book, not an ebook. Consider (2a–f):

1. (2) a.The actress Penélope Cruz, who is beautiful, is from Spain.
   1. b. #The actress Penélope Cruz that is beautiful is from Spain.²
   2. c. The beautiful Penélope Cruz (=2a)
   3. d. *The Penélope Cruz beautiful (=2b)³
   4. e. La hermosa Penélope Cruz (=2a)
   5. f. *La Penélope Cruz hermosa (=2b)

The adjectival clause in (2a) – who is beautiful – is NONRESTRICTIVE. It tells the reader that Penélope Cruz has the property beautiful and, if omitted, the meaning of the sentence does not change. More importantly, having the property beautiful does not distinguish the Spanish actress Penélope Cruz from other Spanish actresses called Penélope Cruz. The adjectival clause in (2b) – that is beautiful – is RESTRICTIVE (if it were FELICITOUS). The information that is beautiful would in theory be needed to distinguish the actress Penélope Cruz that is beautiful from other Penélope Cruz-es that are actresses, and that are implied to be not beautiful. Let us define FELICITOUS:

“In other words,” ...