Sentence Structure

Sentence Structure
 

What logic is used for sentence structure in Spanish. I find it hard to understand how sentences can begin with conjunctions like Y and sometimes no verb and sometimes contain a puzzling number of punctuation marks, as in this example.

Y en el Atlas satinado -de pie, medio cuerpo dentro del armario, escondida en su penumbra, oliendo la caoba y el almidón- podía ir respasando cautivadores países: las islas griegas a donde iba Jorge de Son Major, en su desaparecido Delfin, escapando, tal vez (¿por qué no como yo?), de los hombres y de las mujeres, del atroz mundo que tanto temía.

Why is Atlas capitalised?
When is a hyphen - used and when () ?

It's a tricky text. We would need more context or an explanation about this subject. In any case, it is possible to start a sentence in Spanish with "y" and also with prepositional syntagmas: Spanish word order is freer than English.

We use the "raya" (—), not the hyphen (-), as if they were a parenthesis. The "raya" is also our way of beginning dialogues.

A pleasure.

The structure can be hard to get the hang of, Stu. I used to have trouble thinking of, for example "I will tell her (something)" as Se le digo, which is really "It to her I (will) tell."

That's why I recommend people wanting to learn pay close attention to the way non-native speakers form sentences, since in the beginning they often import their own structures into English, unwittingly demonstrating them to us. Very interesting!

Thank you - appreciated


Thanks Glen,

Yes I know I should not try to mentally convert it to English, but you have to start with what you know and learn the differences. I had some issues with a sentence that translates something like "She damaged us the car" when there was nobody in the car at the time she damaged it.