Modern Spanish Grammar: A Practical Guide

GLOSSARYxxLa casa que compramos es estupenda.The house we bought is very good.Articles (see 4)There are two kinds of article in Spanish: definite articles: el, la, los, las ‘the’; indefinitearticles: un, una ‘a’, ‘an’:El hotel no está lejos.The hotel is not far.¿Hay un restaurante por aquí?Is there a restaurant nearby?Auxiliary verbsThis is the name given to certain very common verbs which regularly combine withother verb forms. In Spanish, haber is the perfect auxiliary and combines with thepast participle to make the compound tenses (see 16.1.1.7); poder, deber, saber andquerer, which are followed by an infinitive, are the principal modal auxiliaries (see 21)corresponding to English ‘can’, ‘may’, ‘might’, ‘will’, ‘would’, etc.ClauseA clause is a sentence within a sentence, recognizable because it contains a verb of itsown. Main clauses do not depend on other elements within the sentence for theirmeaning. Subordinate clauses are dependent on another clause:No creo que venga.I don’t think he/she will come.Espero que aparezca.I hope it appears.In the previous sentences, No creo and Espero are the main clauses, while que vengaand que aparezca are subordinate clauses.Complement (see 26)A clause, infinitive or gerund which functions as the subject or object of a verb, oras the object of a preposition. Examples are:Me gusta bailar.I like to dance. (lit. ‘dancing pleases me’)(Bailar is the subject complement of gusta.)Estoy seguro de que no lo hará.I’m sure he/she won’t do it.(Que no lo hará is the object complement of de.)Siguió silbando.He/she carried on whistling.(Silbando is the object complement of siguió.)Conjunctions (see 27)Conjunctions join words or groups of words. They are words like y ‘and’, o ‘or’, pero‘but’, aunque ‘although’: