Grammatical Structures of English and Spanish Essay

Grammatical Structures of English and Spanish - Essay Example According to Stockwell and Bowen (2005, 77), the basic structure of the Spanish sentence is the same with English sentences. For example, just like in English, the word order of the Spanish sentence has generally followed the Subject-Verb-Object order. Generally, many experts concur this may be attributed to the fact that both Spanish and English language grammar structures are usually based on the tense. However, it is worth noticing that Spanish allows for more grammatical structure flexibility and this can be explained by the placement of the word â€Å"no† (not) at the end of the sentence to put more emphasis on it. This flexibility usually results in non standard syntax when Spanish is directly translated into English . Another visible grammatical feature of the above Spanish sentence with respect to structural similarities and differences with English language is the use of the relative pronouns. Spanish language has a wide range of pronouns that are often used differently as compared to the English pronouns. Some of the common Spanish relative pronouns that are commonly used in everyday Spanish include la que(singular feminine), los que(plural masculine) and las que(plural feminine). For example, the Spanish relative pronoun â€Å"que† has been used twice in the above sentence to refer to both a person and an object. ... â€Å"that the boy† and â€Å"que se escapo†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. â€Å"who escaped† as used in the first part of the sentence have all been applied to refer to the boy(singular masculine). Generally, in most cases, the use of â€Å"que† in either objects or subject position in Spanish is often equivalent of the use of the English words such as â€Å"whom, who, that and which† in the contemporary English grammar as shown in the following examples: El hombre que es pobre†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦The man â€Å"who† is poor (Person, Subject) La senorita que conoci†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ The young lady â€Å"whom† I met (Person, Object) In English, relative clause usually follows the noun which it modifies. The choice of relative pronoun is normally affected by whether the clause is modifying human or non-human noun as well as the role of the relative pronoun in the rel ative clause2. For example, â€Å"who† is applied for a human antecedent while â€Å"that† is only used for a non human antecedent. However, a major difference in the use of relative pronouns in Spanish and English is that while relative pronoun is usually omitted in English, this is not the case in Spanish as shown below: La casa  que  compramos es nueva†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦The house â€Å"that† we bought is new. As seen in the English version, the relative pronoun â€Å"that† can easily be omitted without changing the meaning of the sentence. On the other hand, just like English, Spanish also has a number of definitive article articles (equivalent to â€Å"the†) as well as indefinite articles (equivalent to the English â€Å"a/an, some†). However, unlike English, the Spanish articles are normally categorized into feminine, masculine, adjective, singular or plural. Lastly, with regard, to verb Ser/estar, the word â€Å"se † in the