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The definite article in Spanish, corresponding to "the", is el. It inflects for gender and number as follows: Articles Definite Singular Plural Masculine el: los
A definite article is an article that marks a definite noun phrase. Definite articles, such as the English the , are used to refer to a particular member of a group. It may be something that the speaker has already mentioned, or it may be otherwise something uniquely specified.
When que is used as the object of a preposition, the definite article is added to it, and the resulting form (el que) inflects for number and gender, resulting in the forms el que, la que, los que, las que and the neuter lo que. Unlike in English, the preposition must go right before the relative pronoun "which" or "whom":
Some loanwords enter Spanish in their plural forms but are reanalyzed as singular nouns (e.g., the Italian plurals el confeti 'confetti', el espagueti 'spaghetti', and el ravioli 'ravioli'). These words then follow the typical morphological rules of Spanish, essentially double marking the plural (e.g., los confetis, los espaguetis, and los ...
Spanish is a pro-drop language with respect to subject pronouns, and, like many European languages, Spanish makes a T-V distinction in second person pronouns that has no equivalent in modern English. Object pronouns can be both clitic and non-clitic, with non-clitic forms carrying greater emphasis.
NEG se CL puede can. 1SG pisar walk el the césped grass No se puede pisar el césped NEG CL can.1SG walk the grass "You cannot walk on the grass." Zagona also notes that, generally, oblique phrases do not allow for a double clitic, yet some verbs of motion are formed with double clitics: María María se CL fue went.away- 3SG María se fue María CL went.away-3SG "Maria went away ...
Spanish uses the definite article with all geographical names when they appear with an adjective or modifying phrase, as in the following examples: la España medieval 'medieval Spain', el Puerto Rico prehispánico 'pre-Hispanic Puerto Rico', el Portugal de Salazar 'Portugal during Salazar's dictatorship', etc. Santiago es la capital de Chile.
These include the grammatical custom (inherited from Latin) of using a grammatically masculine plural for a group containing at least one male; the use of the masculine definite article for infinitives (e.g. el amar, not la amar); and the permissibility of using Spanish male pronouns for female referents but not vice versa (e.g. el que includes ...
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