Spanish adjectives


Spanish adjectives are similar to those in most other Indo-European languages. They are generally postpositive, and they agree in both gender and number with the noun they modify.

Inflection and usage

Spanish adjectives can be broadly divided into two groups: those whose lemma ends in -o, and those whose lemma does not. The former generally inflect for both gender and number; the latter generally inflect just for number. Frío, for example, inflects for both gender and number. When it is used with a masculine singular noun, the masculine singular form frío is used. When it is used with a feminine singular noun, it becomes fría; -a is generally the feminine singular ending for adjectives that inflect for gender. When it is used with a masculine plural noun, it becomes fríos, and when it is used with a feminine plural noun, it becomes frías; -s is the plural marker for both the masculine and feminine with adjectives that inflect for gender. Thus:
Adjectives whose lemma does not end in -o, however, inflect differently. These adjectives almost always inflect only for number. -s is once again the plural marker, and if the lemma ends in a consonant, the adjective takes -es in the plural. Thus:
This division into two groups is a generalization, however. There are many examples, such as the adjective español itself, of adjectives whose lemmas do not end in -o but nevertheless take -a in the feminine singular as well as -as in the feminine plural and thus have four forms: in the case of español, española, españoles, españolas. There are also adjectives that do not inflect at all.
Spanish adjectives are very similar to nouns and are often interchangeable with them. Bare adjectives can be used with articles and thus function as nouns where English would require nominalization using the pronoun one. For example:
Masculine singular adjectives can also be used with the neuter article lo to signify "the thing, the part". Thus:
The only inflectionally irregular adjectives in Spanish are those that have irregular comparative forms, and only four do.
Spanish adjectives are generally postpositive, that is, they come after the noun they modify. Thus el libro largo, la casa grande, los hombres altos, etc. There are, however, a small number of adjectives, including all ordinal numerals as well as words such as otro and todo, that must be placed before the noun they modify. There are also a small number that can be placed both before and after the noun and that change meaning according to that positioning, and some adjectives, especially those that form something of a fixed phrase with the noun, alta montaña ), can be placed before or after the noun with little change in meaning.

Apocope

A small number of adjectives have apocopic forms: forms in which the final sound or two is dropped in certain environments. They are:
Base formApocopic formEnvironment
alguno algúnbefore masculine singular nouns
bueno buenbefore masculine singular nouns
ciento cienbefore nouns and, in composite numbers, before
numbers greater than or equal to mil
cualquiera
cualesquiera 		cualquier
cualesquier		before the noun
grande granbefore singular nouns
malo malbefore masculine singular nouns
ninguno ningúnbefore masculine singular nouns
primero primerbefore masculine singular nouns
tercero tercerbefore masculine singular nouns
uno unbefore masculine singular nouns; also used in place of una in
certain environments

Apocopic forms are used even when the word does not come immediately before the noun: algún fresco pan, el primer gran árbol, ningún otro hombre, etc. In the case of grande, which is the only apocopic adjective with regular comparative and superlative forms, the comparative and superlative apocopate in the same manner as the positive: la más gran casa but la casa más grande, el más gran coche de los dos but el coche más grande de los dos, etc. If a conjunction intervenes between the adjective and the noun, however, apocopic forms are not used: esta grande y bella casa, el primero o segundo día, etc.

Words that change meaning

Several adjectives change meaning depending on their position: either before or after the noun. They are:
Before nounWordAfter noun
formerantiguoancient
certain ciertocertain
darndichosolucky, happy
great, impressivegrande large
half-mediomiddle, average
samemismo itself
another, differentnuevobrand new
unfortunatepobrepoor
ownpropioproper
sheerpuropure
onlyúnicounique
former, long-standingviejoold, aged

Comparatives and superlatives

Comparatives are normally expressed with the adverbs más and menos followed by the adjective; the object of comparison is introduced with the particle que. For example, X es más grande que Y. Superlatives are also expressed with the adverbs más and menos, but this time with a definite article preceding the noun: la persona más interesante ; the object of comparison is introduced with the preposition de. The adjectives bueno, malo, joven, and viejo have irregular comparative forms: mejor, peor, menor, and mayor, respectively. Mejor and peor are placed before the nouns they modify: la mejor cosa,, el peor libro, etc.
Because the definite article is, along with más or menos, the superlative marker, the comparative is grammatically indistinguishable from the superlative when used with it; an additional qualifier phrase such as de los dos must therefore be used to indicate that the adjective is the comparative and not the superlative.

The superlative

Instead of putting muy, "very" before an adjective, one can use a special form called the superlative to intensify an idea. This consists of the suffix -ísimo. This form derives from the Latin superlative, but no longer means "the most...", which is expressed in the ways explained above. Nevertheless, the name is retained for historical reasons.
;Regular forms:
;Irregular forms:
;Forms that are irregular in high literary style but not normally:
;Forms no longer considered superlative
Applying -ísimo to nouns is not common, but there is the famous case of Generalísimo.
As in English and other languages influenced by it, a teenspeak superlative can be formed by the prefix super-, or sometimes hiper-, ultra-, re- or requete-. They can also be written as adverbs separate from the word.

The suffix -''dor'', -''dora''

Many terms suffixed in -dor, -dora are nouns formed by other nouns or verbs. Usually adjectives correspond to verb + dor/a derived from the three conjugations:
-ar verbs-er verbs-ir verbs
agotar → agotador acoger → acogedor contribuir → contribuidor
inspirar → inspirador merecer → merecedor corregir → corregidor
revelar → revelador poseer → poseedor medir → medidor

Examples:
An alternative form, -sitor, -sitora, corresponds to verbs ending in -poner:
-poner verbs
componer → compositor
exponer → expositor
oponer → opositor

Example:
Another alternative, -tor, -tora, corresponds to verbs ending in -ducir and -venir:
-ducir verbs-venir verbs
conducir → conductor contravenir → contraventor
introducir → introductor intervenir → interventor

Example: