Noun (1st. part)

Nouns are used to refer to people, animals, things or ideas.

In Spanish, there is a special variation: augmentative nouns and diminutive nouns.

The augmentative nouns express an idea of an increase. Examples:
Noun: hombre (man)
Augmentative:  hombrón, hombrazo, hombrote ("big man").
Noun: mujer (woman)
Augmentative:  mujerona, mujerota ("big woman").

The diminutive nouns express an idea of a decrease. Examples:
Noun: hombre (man)
Diminutive:  hombrecito ("little man").
Noun: mujer (woman)
Diminutive:  mujercita ("little woman").

The grammatical categories (variations of the word class) of the noun are the Gender and Number.

About gender, in Spanish, some nouns are masculine and others are feminine. There is no a given rule to determine the gender of a given noun, but there are some ways that will be covered later.
The number can be singular and plural.

Parts of speech (word classes)

In Spanish, all words are classified in nine classes or parts of speech. 

1. Noun
2. Adjective
3. Article
4. Pronoun
5. Verb
6. Adverb
7. Preposition
8. Conjunction
9. Exclamation.


The word classes from 1. to 5. have Grammatical Categories, that is  a number of possible values (sometimes called exponents, or grammemes), which are normally mutually exclusive within a given word class. Examples: tense (present, past, etc.); gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter); number (singular, plural), etc.
The word classes from 6. to 9. have no such grammatical categories.

All of these word classes will be explained in next posts of this blog.

Welcome to Spanish Grammar

Grammar is a must in any language. Since Spanish grammar is not easy, it's necessary to have a full understanding of the principles of this great language. All rules, all parts of speech (word classes), conjugations, and much more.