Talk:Portuguese grammar

message: Ok, I do not think that this page goes into very good detail about prepositions. It pretty much only lists some common ones, and how to contract them. It doesn't give any placement rules. The use of prepositions is very difficult in this language, and there are a lot of rules that should be listed, or even better, an entire article for them. I don't understand half the stuff myself, but am planning to translate :pt:oração coordenada, which may be able to add to the page a bit. Charlesblack 17:31, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: On the use of prepositions

message: I just did a major cleanup and reorganization of this article, and brough into it some excess detail that was removed from Portuguese language. Hopefully the result is an improvement, and nothing important was lost.  I must put Wikipedia aside for a while now. Please check this article and fix what you think is necessary.  Thanks, and all the best, Jorge Stolfi 09:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: General cleanup

message: Jorge, did you have a reason to delete the paragraphs on diminutives? Velho 05:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Did I? I don't remember doing it, must have been an accident. Jorge Stolfi 23:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diminutives 

message: Spending five paragraphs on this is a waste of space. Many languages around the world have grammatical gender. This is not the right place to explain what that means. FilipeS 14:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Gender determination

message: "Unlike English and some other Romance languages, the written form of the Portuguese articles is the same, independently of the next word. < !--WHAT ABOUT PHONETICALLY?-- >"
There is no phonetic change in the articles, either. Caveat: since many articles end in a vowel, their last vowel may be elided, or merge with the next vowel, if the following word begins with another vowel. But this happens to all words that end in a vowel. FilipeS 14:30, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Reply to question about articles

message: It appears to me that one of the most striking features of Brazilian Portuguese syntax compared to other European Languages is the possibility of null objects. Compare for example:
:French: Tu as vu ton père ? Non, je ne l'ai pas vu.
:Spanish: Has visto a tu padre ? No, no lo he visto.
:German:  Hast du deinen Vater gesehen ? Nein, ich habe ihn nicht gesehen.
:English:  Have you seen your father ? No, I haven't seen him.
:Brazilian Portuguese: Você viu o seu pai ? Não, não (null object) vi. 
Note also:
:English: Where did you buy the book ? I bought it at Barnes and Nobles.
:Brazilian Portuguese:  Onde você comprou o livro ? (Null subject) Comprei (null object) na Livraria Cultura.
I wonder if those null objects also occur in spoken European Portuguese. If the answer is yes, I believe that information should be included in the Portuguese grammar article as it is linguistically relevant. Otherwise, I believe null objects should be at least mentioned in the Brazilian Portuguese article.Mbruno 14:14, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Null objects in Brazilian Portuguese ? 

message: I have deleted the following:
:":Este avião vai para Espanha (European Portuguese)
:Este avião vai para a Espanha (Brazilian Portuguese)
:"This plane goes to Spain".
However:
:Esta proposta veio da Espanha (European Portuguese)
:"This proposal came from Spain", where Espanha stands for the state as a political active entity, and not for the geographical region."
This is false. I have heard "vai para a Espanha" and "veio de Espanha" in Portugal. FilipeS 15:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Use of article with Espanha

message: I have reverted all of them. Some were just plain wrong (see article history). Others, while not wrong, "corrected" examples from Brazilian Portuguese into examples in European Portuguese, which seems a questionable action. FilipeS 22:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what you mean by that. That someone has decided this article is about Brazilian and spoken European portuguese? Who? That Brazilian and spoken European portuguese are always incorrect? Why should that be?... FilipeS 17:17, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes made by user 81.84.189.6 Reverted

message: "In this case, o que and por que are to be replaced by their stressed counterparts o quê and porquê."
Isn't por que replaced by por quê at the end of sentences? From what I remember, porquê is a noun that means reason, like in "A gravidade é o porquê da queda das maçãs.". --TigerTjäder 21:22, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi. This is actually a messy subject, I'm afraid. First of all, there are differences between the European and the Brazilian spellings (and pronunciation differences as well, I've been told). Secondly, I know for a fact that even in Portugal not all "authorities" agree on when porque and porquê should be written as one, and when they should be written as two words, por que and por quê. FilipeS 22:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text: In Brazil, only porquê exists, and it's a noun. In all other cases, either porque or por que are used -- but Brazilians often pronounce them as we would pronounce porquê/por quê! FilipeS 14:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm Brazilian, and what we use here is this: por que is used in questions when not at the end, por quê in questions at the end, porque in answers and porquê as a noun meaning reason. Examples: "Por que você foi lá?" "Você quer isso? Por quê?" "Porque seria útil para mim." "Eu gosto de saber o porquê das coisas." --TigerTjäder 02:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh, thanks for the correction! :-) FilipeS 11:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Porquê or Por quê 

message: I deleted "For example, the Italian prepositions di ("of") and da ("from") map to the same word in Portuguese, de.", since da often means "by" (Portuguese: por) and hence is a wrong example. Velho 03:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italian "di" and "da" 

message: Velho, I think the following is too strong:
:They may, however, appear when transcribing colloquial speech, for example in comic books. In the latter case, the grave accent is often omitted in Brazil, and it is also often mistakenly replaced with an acute accent elsewhere.
I know that these contractions should be spelled with the grave accent, but let's be honest: even in Portugal, you read pró and prá more often than not. And I don't know if the official spelling is the same as ours in Brazil -- remember that we still have different orthographies! FilipeS 11:48, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly, but it is wrong outside Brazil. The article should give notice of the difference, but not ignore it. I suppose the article is okay as it is, but I don't oppose to any change, as long as no information is lost. Velho 17:55, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

text: It is more correct to state that it is a mistake in some places and it is not a mistake (but the rule) in the other places. What wrong can you see in this solution? Velho 19:59, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

text: The contractions in the last row are common in speech, though not used in formal writing. However, they may appear when transcribing colloquial speech, for example in comic books. The grave accent in these four contractions is not used in Brazil, and in Portugal it is often replaced with an acute accent in practice (though this is non-standard). FilipeS 20:09, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

text: .....and in Portugal it is often replaced with an acute accent in practice, though this acute accent is non-standard).
Velho 23:11, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Sounds a little repetitive, to be honest ("acute accent... acute accent"). But reword it a little, and it should be fine. FilipeS 13:09, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: On the spelling of "prò", "prà", etc.

message: I'm not very sure about this link. I start reading its diphthongs article and immediately found two mistakes: fastio as having an ascending diphthong in io and muito as having an oral diphthong in ui. That's not good. Velho 02:04, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, they do have some mistakes, but some of their pages are useful. For examples, the conjugation tables, the tables of pronouns, and the tables of determiners. Do you think a more specific link would be better? FilipeS 11:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Descriptive grammar of Portuguese at Orbis Latinus 

message: I took the liberty to enrich the diminutives/augmentatives' section with other common endings. --LeRobert 20:56, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you! :-) FilipeS 22:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diminutives and augmentatives 

message: I'm not sure if we should link to an article in the Portuguese Wikipedia. In the English Wikipedia, it is probably better to link to an English article. Perhaps we should make a comprehensive chart of the Portuguese prepositions in contracted form, but with description in English. learnportuguese (talk) 01:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: article links

message: The two main points to be made in this section are (1) that the verb in a clause can be accompanied by three possible nominal elements, and (2) that the usual order of elements is SVO(C).  Unusual orders like "A casa construiu o pedreiro" are (should be) beyond the scope of an encyclopedia article; that's "expert" information, perhaps appropriate to a treatise instead.  And I can't accept the "A" of "A Maria" as an "accusative preposition" in the presence of "o Paulo", where they both look like cases of "Article with personal names". Kotabatubara (talk) 19:39, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Subject, object, and complement

message: Although it is already mentioned in the infinitive section that various uses of it in Portuguese would be translated to the gerund "-ing" form in English, but both the infinitive section and the gerund section fail to mention the distinct feature of European Portuguese where the infinitive preceded by "a"  is preferentially used in place of the gerund form for the present participle. I think this deserves mention in either (or quite possibly both, via a section link) the infinitive and gerund sections. I'm fairly new to editing, so I'm not certain of the proper formatting, but I think we should have something to the effect of the following (probably, in my opinion, in the infinitive section at the end of the first paragraph):
:European Portuguese also has the distinct feature of preferentially using the infinitive preceded by the preposition "a" in place of the gerund as the typical method of describing continuing action:
::Estou indo. 
::: "I am going." (Brazilian Portuguese)
::Estou a ir.
:::"I am going" (European Portuguese) 
::Estavam dormindo.
:::"They were sleeping." (Brazilian Portuguese)
::Estavam a dormir.
:::"They were sleeping." (European Portuguese)
:The gerund ""-ndo"" forms are still correct in European Portuguese, but relatively uncommon (although its adverb uses and the other participle forms are not). On the other hand, the ""a""+infinitive is virtually nonexistent in Brazil, and considered an improper use in Brazilian Portuguese.
And by the same token, I feel like a simple sentence under the gerund section to the effect of "In European Portuguese, the gerund is often replaced by the infinitive when used to express continuing action." could be added to the first paragraph of gerund and participle section, with the word "infinitive" being a link back to the infinitive section. I think this deserves mention for two key reasons: One, as a European speaker, it was the way I was raised talking, the way most of my friends and family speak, and an issue of discussion and clarification often necessary when speaking with Brazilian family and friends. Two, it is unique from the other listed forms of the infinitive standing for the equivalent of a gerund in english (e.g. cantar é bom ("singing is good"), trabalhe sem parar ("work without pausing")), in that it has no more literal translation that makes sense. Where as  "cantar é bom" could be translated more literally as the sensible though slightly archaic "to sing is good", and " Trabalhe sem parar" is perhaps not only more literally but more accurately translated as "work without pause" or "work nonstop", there is no translation of "Estou a ir" or a similar phrase where sense can be made of the phrase without knowing that it is taking the place of the gerund. This just seems like a highly typical issue which fails to have any mention in the article, but is important not only for non-speakers learning the language, but speakers trying to understand each other. Époção (talk) 20:14, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gerund vs. a + infinitive 

message: The section "Noun", in its second line, refers to an "accusative preposition". I presume this refers to something like the Spanish "personal a". I understand that Portuguese does not use a personal a except in the phrase "louvar a Deus". (1) Is this an accurate statement? (2) If so, is this single exception worth mentioning in an article about Portuguese grammar? (3) If an "accusative preposition" is mentioned at all, shouldn't it be qualified by (a) a note about the extreme limitation on its use and (b) its identity, namely "a"?
Similarly, the description of "a" in the section on prepositions mentions its use as an "accusative preposition". Is there really such a thing in everyday spoken or written Brazilian or European Portuguese? Kotabatubara (talk) 16:12, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Accusative preposition"? 

message: Maybe not. I'm seeing word-for-word correspondences (and some duplicated grammar errors!) between this article and a book published in 2010, but this article already had them in 2009. So it seems the plagiarism was committed by the book authors, not by Wiki. They are Anna Feldman and Jirka Hana, A Resource-Light Approach to Morpho-Syntactic Tagging (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), accessible in Google Books. Paragraphs on p. 178 look like ours under "Gender determination".  Is this of concern to us Wikipedians? Kotabatubara (talk) 02:35, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Copyright problem?

message: It never says in the article how the plural of nouns and adjectives is formed in Portuguese. That seems to me quite important.Merijn2 (talk) 16:40, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plural? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: One thing leads to another. I saw the reference to phrasal verbs, located under "Prepositions", but saw "embora" and "fora" as adverbs, not prepositions. This led me to look for a section on adverbs. Finding none, I borrowed (I confess) from Spanish grammar. Once my section on adverbs was established, I noticed "adverbs of place" also under a wrong heading, so I moved that passage also into the adverb section. Kotabatubara (talk) 17:34, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: New section, Adverbs

message: Cheese 77.101.109.85 (talk) 14:31, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chees