Past participles in Spanish as a noun in English
I have come across a few past participles where I would expect an infinitive, in names like
pastillas de encendido Annoyingly, I can't remember any others, but I have heard several. Is there a definitive list? |
Maybe there is one.
I don't know. Oxford gives many examples, Para un mejor acabado, aplica dos manos de pintura. https://es.oxforddictionaries.com/tr...nglish/acabado https://es.oxforddictionaries.com/tr...dido?locale=en But the translation would be a noun, (like "ignition) not really an infinitive. Am I missing something? :thinking: At any rate, I hope I give some lead. :) Good to "see" you around! ¡Buen finde! |
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I just wondered whether there is some kind of rule which explains why a past participle is used which appears to be totally illogical. I think I'm right in saying that Ancient Greek would have either a future infinitive or a future participle, both of which convey an intention that something will happen. This is logical, and it bothers me when it is not. |
What's the "logical" problem here?
a la salida, abone lo consumido estamos orgullosos de lo logrado cuando se vaya, deje el tablero en posición de apagado el automóvil tiene encendido electrónico quién me quita lo bailado ésta es la lista de todo lo gastado eso délo por sabido no hay que vivir en el pasado lo engañaron porque es un confiado |
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My problem seems to be with expressions describing an object which has a specific purpose, and there seems to be no general rule as to how this is constructed in Spanish. Where English has two nouns, combined, hyphenated or separate, where one noun serves as an adjective, Spanish has: líquido limpiador papel para borrador pie de apoyo soporte para apoyar tijeras de poder aguja de tejer tabla para cortar pastillas de encendido Can you see why I'm confused? There is a variety of ways - why de + infinitive sometimes, para + infinitive other times, de + what looks like a past participle but is a noun? Is there any explanation as to why a noun generated from a verb sometimes takes the form of a past participle? :) |
I don't know if there is a professional linguistic explanation for that --I haven't found it, but the use of what verb form is used in these cases corresponds to what they were related to from the start.
Your examples point out rightly that these nouns are related to an activity, but I think the case of "pastilla de encendido" is different, because the idea of "encendido" (similar to Alec's examples) already existed before those "pastillas" were sold, so I guess that is why their name is associated to the past participle instead of the action of turning the car on. They could have been called "pastillas de encender" or "pastillas encendedoras", but I think they wouldn't have been immediately associated with the parts of a car involved in the process of "encendido". :) |
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There are many ways a verb becomes a noun, or part of a noun, sometimes trough an adjectival form: a) detergente (emoliente, suavizante, astringente) b) encendido c) limpiaparabrisas (guardabarros, rompeportones, trotacalles) Reflecting on how it "feels" to me In group a, analogue to -ing forms in English, it seems to need the present participle to depict "the one which does this": "the one that cleans", "the one that softens", etc. In group c, some sort of "live action show" is set, and third person singular present tense works like "a lively infinitive" In group b, there's a need to show the noun as a result of a completed action, because it is indeed (el destilado, el tejido, el raspado) or, similar to group a, "the action of doing something". To be clear, in group a, the one that performs the action; in group b-plus, the performing of the action itself. So, in a spark ignition internal combustion engine, the action could either "ignición" -the act of setting something in flames- or "encendido". I think there's a short list of nouns that come this way: encendido, apagado, abigarrado, and it looks to me they are used when what they do or look has transcended the way they came to be what they are. But still thinking... |
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