The Everything Spanish Grammar Book: All The Rules You Need To Master Espanol (Everything®) (18 page)
Authors: Julie Gutin
| verb group | past participle ending | examples |
| –ar verbs | –ado | hablado (spoken) |
| –er verbs | –ido | perdido (lost) |
| –ir verbs | –ido | vivido (lived) |
The same verbs that are irregular as present participles (–er and –ir verbs with a stem ending in a vowel) are also irregular as past participles. This time, they gain an accent mark over the end-stem vowel:
| caer | caído | fallen |
| creer | creído | believed |
| leer | leído | read |
| oír | oído | listened |
| traer | traído | brought |
Other examples of irregular past participles are:
| abrir | abierto | opened |
| cubrir | cubierto | covered |
| decir | dicho | said |
| escribir | escrito | written |
| hacer | hecho | done |
| ir | ido | gone |
| morir | muerto | died |
| poner | puesto | put |
| romper | roto | broken |
| ser | sido | been |
| ver | visto | seen |
| volver | vuelto | returned |
ALERT
Passive voice is rarely used in good writing because you lose the clarity of who performed the action of the verb, but sometimes that’s intentional. For example, saying “the vase is broken” is a nicer way of saying that Janet broke the vase.
Whereas the past participle only has one form when it’s used in compound tenses, in the passive voice it must agree with the subject of the sentence (that is, the object of the action) in gender and number. Compare:
El asunto es arreglado por el presidente de la companía.
The matter is settled by the company’s president.
La cuestión es resuelta por el presidente de la companía.
The question is resolved by the company’s president.
Los asuntos son arreglados por el presidente de la companía.
The matters are settled by the company’s president.
Las cuestiones son resueltas por el presidente de la companía.
The questions are resolved by the company’s president.
Practice Makes Perfect
Fill in
saber
or
conocer,
as appropriate:
1.
Caterina
______________
la historia de los Estados Unidos.
2.
Ellos
______________
a todos en la escuela.
3.
Nosotros no
______________
qué hacer.
4.
¿
______________
(tú) lo que está pasando afuera?
5.
No
______________
a ese chico.
Translate into Spanish:
1. She is reading (right now).
______________________________________
2. There is a box on the table.
______________________________________
3. They are walking (right now).
______________________________________
4. (They) speak French in France.
______________________________________
5. How is the weather?
______________________________________
To check your answers, refer to the answer key in Appendix D.
C
HAPTER
10
Object of the Verb
CHAPTER 5 INCLUDED AN OVERVIEW of object and reflexive pronouns: what they are and their English translation. In this chapter, you’ll begin learning how pronouns are used together with Spanish verbs.
Object pronouns work a bit differently in Spanish, and many students get confused by all those small words that seem to be sprinkled around a Spanish sentence in abundance. So let’s get things straight once and for all. A verb may come with a direct object and/or indirect object, or it may be reflexive and require a reflexive object. Verbs that may use or require one or more of these objects are covered in this chapter.
What Is an Object?
The basic structure of a simple sentence is subject + verb + object. Both the subject and object may be nouns, pronouns, or noun phrases. The difference between the subject and object is that the subject is who or what performs the action, whereas the object is the receiver of the action, whether directly or indirectly.
Prepositional Objects
One common group of objects is prepositional phrases, made up of a preposition, noun (or pronoun), and possibly articles and/or adjectives. Here are a few examples:
Ella suele bailar en la calle.
She usually dances in the street.
Trabajamos desde las siete de la mañana hasta las cuatro de la
tarde.
We work from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon.
In these sentences,
bailar en la calle, desde las siete de la
mañana,
and
hasta las cuatro de la tarde
are prepositional objects. Simply speaking, they are objects of the verb
suele bailar
and
trabajamos
and happen to include a preposition.
Direct and Indirect Objects
Other objects are not mitigated by the preposition. These are direct and indirect objects. What’s the difference between the two? The direct object takes on the action of the verb directly; the indirect object is the person or thing for whom the action is performed. That is, direct object answers the question “whom or what?” whereas the indirect object answers the question “to/for whom or what?” Compare the following two examples:
Limpio la casa.
I clean the house.
Los ayudo a mis padres a limpiar la casa.
I help my parents clean the house.
In the first example,
la casa
is the direct object of the verb
limpio:
¿Limpio qué? Limpio la casa.
I clean what? I clean the house.
In the second example,
la casa
is still the direct object; the indirect object of the verb phrase
ayudo a limpiar
is
a mis
padres,
reinforced by the pronoun
los
(more on this later). Here’s how you can check if you’re right:
¿Ayudo a limpiar la casa a quién? Los ayudo limpiar la casa a
mis padres.
Whom do I help clean the house? I help my parents clean the house.
Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
Verbs that require the presence of a direct object are known as transitive verbs. Some verbs can never appear without a direct object: The phrase
yo miro
(I watch) can’t form a complete sentence, because it’s necessary to specify the direct object—whom or what I watch. Verbs that need a direct object are called transitive because they form a transition between the subject and the object of the sentence.
FACT
In Spanish, a verb that takes on an indirect object without having a direct object is also considered intransitive. Some verbs may function transitively
or
intransitively, while others always stay in one category.
If a verb functions without a direct object, it is called an intransitive verb:
yo camino
doesn’t require a direct object. In fact, it can’t. If you want to add more information about the verb, you’ll have to add a prepositional phrase:
Yo camino por la orilla del río.
I walk along the banks of the river.
Direct Objects
The direct object is direct because it receives the action “directly”— that is, it follows the verb and is not mediated by a preposition. The direct object may be a part of a phrase, but the rest of the phrase simply modifies the direct object. Here are a few examples of direct objects in a basic Spanish sentence:
Ellos miran la television los domingos.
They watch television on Sundays.
Ellas toman café en el patio.
They are drinking coffee on the patio.
The direct objects here are
la television
and
café:
Television receives the action of being watched, and coffee receives the action of being drunk. As you may remember, direct objects may be represented by direct object pronouns:
Direct Object Pronouns
| singular | plural |
| me (me) | nos (us) |
| te (you, informal) | os (you, informal in Spain) |
| lo, la (you, formal) | los, las (you) |
| lo, la (him, her, it) | los, las (them) |
Ellos la miran los domingos.
They watch it on Sundays.
Ellas lo toman en el patio.
They are drinking it on the patio.
As you can see from these examples, when the direct object is a pronoun, it moves up to precede the verb.
ALERT
In Spanish, as a general rule, any direct object that represents a person must be introduced with a personal
a.
Compare the two following:
Miro la televisión.
(I watch television.)
Miro a
Pablo y Juanita.
(I watch Pablo and Juanita.)
If you’ve got a compound verb, the direct object pronoun will come before the conjugated form of
haber:
Ya lo he aprendido.
I have learned it already.
Indirect Objects
The indirect object represents the person (or, less often, object) to whom or for whom the action of the verb is performed. Some indirect objects appear alongside direct objects, while others appear on their own:
