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Old March 13, 2017, 05:04 AM
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Perikles Perikles is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Tenerife
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Native Language: Inglés
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aleCcowaN View Post
Which is the difference between "pastillas de encendido", "posición de apagado" and "encendido electrónico" in a vehicle which burns "destilado de petróleo"? I don't see participles, and even less "the past". I only see nouns derived from verbs that somewhat are still in need of being understood within the context of actions, pretty much like it is done by using -ente or -ante (analogue to English -ing), like in "aguas surgentes".
Fine - there is no difference, and this was what I don't understand. They are all nouns which have the same form as the past participle of the verb from which they are derived. Is this correct?

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?
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