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Brazilian Portuguese Grammar
The purpose of this article is to give an introduction to the grammar (from Ancient Greek γραμματική) of the Portuguese language spoken in Brazil, known as Brazilian Portuguese (BP) language. The BP’s grammar is the study of the elements (phonemes, morphemes, clauses, words, phrases, sentences) and the processes (of formation, inflection, construction...) that form and characterise the natural language system of the BP.

The parts of speech in BP
The parts of speech are the classification of words according to their functions within a sentence. There are eight main parts of speech (also known as word classes) which are nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.

Most parts of speech can be divided into sub-classes. For instance, Nouns can be divided into proper nouns, common nouns, concrete nouns etc. Prepositions can be divided into prepositions of time, prepositions of place etc. Pronouns can be divided into personal, demonstrative, possessive, relative, interrogative, and indefinite. In this article, some parts of speech are being briefly presented in order to understand a little of the BP's grammar.

It is important to highlight that in BP the same word form can sometimes belong to more than one part of speech.

For example, the word "caminho".

a) "Eu caminho todos os dias na praia."  ->    (I walk every day on the beach.)

Here, the word "caminho" means "to walk" and is used as the verb.

b) "O caminho para casa do Pedro é..."  ->    (The way to the house of Pedro is...)

Here, the word "caminho" means "the way" and is used as a noun.

Nouns
The nouns in BP are separated into two grammatical categories or grammatical gender as in many related Indo-European languages. They could be either masculine or feminine. Most of the nouns denoting male are masculine whereas most of the nouns denoting female are feminine. Nouns could also include words related to objects, abstract concepts, phenomena, substances, among others. For example, the word “mesa” (table) is feminine and the word “livro” (book) is masculine.

These grammatical categories are very important to know in BP because pronouns, articles and adjectives are generally in accordance with the grammatical gender of the noun. For example, "a mesa limpa" (the clean table) or "o quarto limpo" (the clean room).

The nouns in BP are inflected by grammatical number and it can, therefore, appear in singular to indicate a quantity of one and in plural to indicate a quantity of more than one. The plural inflection usually is done through the suffix -s.

Example of Nouns

Articles
The article is a word that is used in conjunction with a noun. In BP, the article comes before the noun and indicates if the noun is being used in a definite or indefinite manner. They agree with the noun in gender (masculine and feminine) and number (singular and plural). Additionally, the syntactic functions of nouns are not represented by case or inflection, but by prepositions.

The definite articles are used in BP when a person wants to determine nouns precisely. The definite articles in BP are: o, a, os, as.

Examples:

(i)              o livro da Maria         ->     (the book of Maria)

(ii)             a máquina de lavar   ->     (the washing machine)

(iii)            os homens de preto  ->     (the men in black)

(iv)            as cores dos livros    ->     (the colors of the books) The indefinite articles are used in BP when a person does not need to specify a noun or when a person wants to determine the nouns in a vaguely manner. The indefinite articles in BP are: um, uma, uns, umas.

Examples:

(i)              um livro da biblioteca     ->     (a book from the library)

(ii)             uma máquina de lavar   ->      (a washing machine)

(iii)            uns quadros na parede  ->      (some pictures on the wall)

(iv)            umas linhas de trico       ->      (some lines of knitting)

Adjectives
The adjectives are words that express characteristics of the nouns and come usually after the noun. In BP, the adjectives always agree in gender and number with the nouns and comes after the noun. It means that if a noun is in the plural form (with the letter s), the adjective must also be in the plural form.

Examples:

(i)              o livro rosa da Maria                  ->     (the pink book of Maria)

(ii)             a máquina de lavar silenciosa   ->     (the silent washing machine)

(iii)            os homens velhos de preto       ->     (the old men in black)

(iv)            as cores claras dos livros          ->     (the light colors of the books)

Pronouns
The pronouns are a group of words that can replace, modify, resume or refer a variety of nouns or phrases derived from them, in the formation of sentences. In BP, as also in other languages, the pronouns are classified in different types which are (i) personal, (ii) possessive, (iii) demonstrative, (iv) interrogative, (v) relative and (vi) undefined. As an example:

Personal pronoun

The personal pronouns in BP can be classified into subject pronouns and object pronouns. The subject pronouns refer to the subject of a sentence e.g. in English: I, you, she, he, we, they) whereas the object pronoun can function either as the direct or indirect object.

Verbs
Verbs are group of words used by the speaker to expresses action, experience or state. In BP, the verb tenses vary according to the person (I, you, he, we, they, etc.), verb tense (present, past, future, etc.) and mood (indicative or subjunctive). To this is added the nominal form of the verbs such as gerund, infinitive or past participle. The verbs can also be classified into different types of verbs such as main, auxiliary, transitive or intransitive. Additionally, the pattern of different inflections in verbs is called conjugation.

Examples of some uses: