Assignment 3.5:	Spanish Concord and Subject-Verb Agreement
NOT TO WRITE UP.  STUDY AND BE READY TO DISCUSS TUESDAY JANUARY 22

There are numerous varieties of Spanish, differing in phonology,
in syntax, and in morphology.  The data presented here are believed
to be representative of all Spanishes, which we will henceforth call
"Spanish".  (Though some of the vocabulary may be regional.)

I.  Nominal phrases

(1)   el gato negro		'the black cat'
(2)   el gato blanco		'the white cat'
(3)   la mano sucia		'the dirty hand'
(4)   un tema importante	'an important topic'
(5)   una vaca loca		'a crazy cow'
(6)   un toro enojado		'an irritated bull'
(7)   un gallo grande		'a big rooster'
(8)   una mano verde		'a green hand'
(9)   la ca'rcel grande		'the big prison'
(10)  una ca'rcel sucia		'a dirty prison'
(11)  un gato loco		'a crazy cat'
(12)  la gallina blanca		'the white chicken'
(13)  el mono sucio		'the dirty monkey'
(14)  una casa grande y cara	'a large and expensive house'
(15)  el cielo azul		'the blue sky'
(16)  la vaca azul		'the blue cow'
(17)  el turista loco		'the crazy tourist'
(18)  la carne buena		'the good meat'

Propose a syntactic structure, list the nouns, adjectives, and determiners,
and tell a story about gender that accounts for all the alternations that
you see.

Here are the plurals of the above phrases:

(19)   los gatos negros		'the black cats'
(20)   los gatos blancos	'the white cats'
(21)   las manos sucias		'the dirty hands'
(22)   unos temas importantes	'some important topics'
(23)   unas vacas locas		'some crazy cows'
(24)   unos toros enojados	'some irritated bulls'
(25)   unos gallos grandes	'some big roosters'
(26)   unas manos verdes	'some green hands'
(27)   las ca'rceles grandes	'the big prisons'
(28)   unas ca'rceles sucias	'some dirty prisons'
(29)   unos gatos locos		'some crazy cats'
(30)   las gallinas blancas	'the white chickens'
(31)   los monos sucios		'the dirty monkeys'
(32)   casas grandes y caras	'large and expensive houses'
(33)   los cielos azules	'the blue skies'
(34)   las vacas azules		'the blue cows'
(35)   los turistas locos	'the crazy tourists'
(36)   las carnes buenas	'the good meats'

Tell a story about the plural.  (Your story should contain explicit rules.
We're building a generative grammar here.  So tell me where [plural] is
in the deep structure, and how it gets there.  And everything else you need
to say.)

II. Some simple sentences

[NOTE: Spanish has several Modals, two of which are deber 'must' and poder
'can'; their tense and agreement forms are a little bit irregular.  Spanish
also has two verbs that correspond to English 'be': ser and estar.  Their
uses are different.  Estar can always be distinguished, because in all of its
forms it always starts with est-; ser is more variable.  Finally, Spanish has
an auxliary verb corresponding to English have1: its infinitive is haber.]

In the examples with multiple verbs, no other order of verbs is possible.
Assume that no ('not') cannot appear in any other place in these examples.

Aside from various forms that show tense and agreement, verbs in Spanish have
the following (mostly predictable) forms:

	gloss	infinitive	past participle	present participle

	be	ser		sido		siendo
	be	estar		estado		estando
	love	amar		amado		amando
	run	correr		corrido		corriendo
	have	tener		tenido		teniendo
	talk	hablar		hablado		hablando

There are basically three kinds of Verbs, plus a lot of irregular ones.
Here are three regular ones, conjugated in the present indicative:

	sg		pl		inf		gloss

1	hablo		hablamos	hablar		speak
2	hablas		habla'is
3	habla		hablan

1	como		comemos		comer		eat
2	comes		come'is
3	come		comen

1	resisto		resistimos	resistir	resist
2	resistes	resisti's
3	resiste		resisten

Do you want to speculate about the basic difference between these verbs?

Here are examples of the 'hablar' forms, with their pronouns:

1	yo hablo	nosotros/nosotras hablamos
2	tu' hablas	vosotros/vosotras habla'is
3	e'l/ella habla	ellos/ellas hablan
        MASC/FEM        MASC/FEM

Here are the sentences:

A.

(1)   La gallina loca tiene una cinta azul.
      "The crazy chicken has a blue ribbon."

(2)   Mis monos azules no comen carne.
      "My blue monkeys don't eat meat."

(3)   Las vacas locas corren en el llano extenso.
      "The crazy cows run in the broad plain."

(4)   La carne de las vacas locas no es buena para los nin~os.
      "The meat of the crazy cows is not good for children."

(5)  Mi vaca loca corre.	(5')  Mis vacas corren en el llano.
     "My crazy cow runs"	     "My cows run in the plain"

(6)  Tu vaca corrio'.		(6')  Nuestras vacas locas corrieron como diablos.
     "Your cow ran"		     "Our crazy cows ran like devils"

(7)  El coronel grita.		(7')  Muchos coroneles gritan.
     "The colonel yells"	     "Many colonels yell"

(8)  El coronel loco grito' en su cocina.
     "The crazy colonel yelled in his kitchen"

(9)  Ambos coroneles gritaron a los soldados.
     "Both colonels yelled at the soldiers"

(10)  Tus monos gordos comieron sus bananas.
     "Your fat monkeys ate their bananas"

(11)  Los monos comieron las bananas gigantes.
      "The monkeys ate the giant bananas"

(12)  La muchacha tiene una cara bastante bella.
      "The girl has a quite pretty face"

(13)  Las muchachas tienen rosas en las manos.
      "The girls have roses in the hands"

(14)  El mono gordo le dio el pla'tano muy caro a la muchacha bella.
      "The fat monkey gave the very expensive banana to the beautiful girl"

(15)  Los gallinazos horribles con alas amplias comieron el cuerpo del mono
      muerto.
      "The horrible buzzards with wide wings ate the body of the dead monkey"

(16)  El mono rompio' las ventanas.
      "The monkey broke the windows"

(17)  La muchacha habla de la paz.	(17')  La muchacha le habla al mono.
      "The girl speaks of peace"	      "The girl talks to the monkey"

(18)  La muchacha habla del tema	      [al = a el (a contraction)]
      "The girl talks about the subject"      [del = de el (ditto)      ]

Based on the above, what can you say at this point about Spanish, in particular about
subject-verb agreement?