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The Spanish copulas are ser and estar.The latter developed as follows: stare → *estare → estar. The copula ser developed from two Latin verbs. Thus its inflectional paradigm is a combination: most of it derives from svm (to be) but the present subjunctive appears to come from sedeo (to sit) via the Old Spanish verb seer.
The complexity of Spanish grammar is found primarily in verbs. Inflected forms of a Spanish verb contain a lexical root, a theme vowel, and inflection; for example, the verb cantar ("to sing") becomes cantamos [b] ("we sing") in its first-person plural, present indicative form. [10]
Occitan: èsser (depending on the dialect they can use other forms such as èstre, estar and èster) Èster vielha. (to be old, in Aranese Occitan) Aragonese: estar Estar viella (to be old) Catalan, just as in Spanish: ser and estar: Ser vella (to be old. In this case ser and estar can't be used indistinctly without altering the meaning)
The cognates in the table below share meanings in English and Spanish, but have different pronunciation. Some words entered Middle English and Early Modern Spanish indirectly and at different times. For example, a Latinate word might enter English by way of Old French, but enter Spanish directly from Latin. Such differences can introduce ...
Similarly, the participle agrees with the subject when it is used with ser to form the "true" passive voice (e.g. La carta fue escrita ayer 'The letter was written [got written] yesterday.'), and also when it is used with estar to form a "passive of result", or stative passive (as in La carta ya está escrita 'The letter is already written.').
Spanish generally uses adjectives in a similar way to English and most other Indo-European languages. However, there are three key differences between English and Spanish adjectives. In Spanish, adjectives usually go after the noun they modify. The exception is when the writer/speaker is being slightly emphatic, or even poetic, about a ...
The infinitive is generally the form found in dictionaries. It corresponds to the English "base-form" or "dictionary form" and is usually indicated in English by "to _____" ("to sing," "to write," etc.). The ending of the infinitive is the basis of the names given in English to the three classes of Spanish verbs:
The dictionary form always has the vowel, not the diphthong, because, in the infinitive form, the stress is on the ending, not the stem. Exceptionally, the -u- of j u gar (u-ue -gar, -jugar) and the -i- of adqu i rir and inqu i rir (i-ie) also are subject to diphthongization ( juega , etc.; adquiere , etc.).