Catalan
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finestra window finestró shutter
sella saddle selletó (bicycle) saddle
llebre (f.) hare llebretó (m.) levret
llop wolf llobató wolf cub
etc.
In a few cases there is no difference in meaning between the root word and derivative: company/companyó ‘companion’, espia/espió ‘spy’, fura/furó ‘ferret’.
The suffix -ol/-ola makes basically diminutive versions of a limited number of root words, e.g., bandera ‘flag’, banderola ‘pennant’; bèstia ‘beast’, ‘animal’, bestiola ‘small creature’; estany ‘pond’, estanyol ‘small pond’; vent ‘wind’, ventijol ‘light wind’, or it can create a related word with a distinct meaning, e.g., fulla ‘leaf’, fullola ‘veneer’; fill(a) ‘son’, ‘daughter’, ‘child’, fillol(a) ‘godson’, ‘goddaughter’, ‘godchild’; llenç ‘canvas’, llençol ‘sheet’.
Formations with -oi/-oia and -eu/-eva are even fewer: nas ‘nose’, nassoi ‘cute little nose’; camí ‘track’, caminoi ‘country lane’, ‘footpath’; caseva ‘small house’, ‘hovel’; tassoneu ‘small glass’ (from tassó, mainly Balearic).
A diminutive may occasionally carry pejorative connotations: politiquets manefles ‘small-time, busybody politicians’, la cultureta ‘culture with a small ‘c’’. The suffix -etxo/-etxa is exclusively pejorative: un homenetxo ‘an odd little bloke’, un caminetxo ‘a narrow track that’s hard to follow’, una barquetxa ‘an inadequate little boat’.
2.3.2 AUGMENTATIVE SUFFIXES
The most productive augmentative suffix is -às/-assa:
peu foot peuàs
casa house casassa
vapor steam/vapour vaporàs
boira fog boirassa
mare mother marassa
home man homenàs
etc.
Gender change can occur, as in paper (m.) ‘paper’, paperassa (f.) ‘lot of paper with writing on’.
As remarked in 2.3.1, imagination and ingenuity are often called for in translation of these suffixally derived forms:
Era un gegantàs de gairebé dos metres d’alt.
He was a big strapping fellow (lit. a big giant) well over six feet tall.
Tenia una marassa que el mimava molt.
His mother spoilt him to death.
The following are examples of words with specialized meaning formed with -às/-assa:
cànem hemp canemàs canvas
barca boat barcassa barge/pontoon
Pi pine pinassa pine needles
cuiro leather cuirassa cuirass/carapace
gallina hen gallinassa hen droppings
mar sea maregassa heavy sea/swell
etc.
Whereas -às/-assa is generally appreciative (as in gegantàs, marassa above) the augmentative suffix -arro/-arra is distinctly (and rather crudely) pejorative: homenarro ‘ungainly big bloke’, peuarro ‘clumsy great foot’, veuarra ‘loud and raucous voice’, cotxarro ‘ponderous old jalopy’, hotelarro ‘rambling pile of a hotel’, etc. (Translations given are approximate and would vary according to context.)
2.3.3 SUFFIXES WITH MARKED EVALUATIVE FORCE
The most productive pejorative suffix is -ot/-ota:
cadira chair cadirota
peu foot peuot
xicot boy/youth xicotot
home man homenot
ocell bird ocellot
paper paper paperot
anglès Englishman anglesot
etc.
See the general comment, made in 2.3 above, on the force of -ot. The celebrated author Josep Pla created a series of biographical sketches of public figures he admired, entitled Homenots, where the depreciative connotations of the suffix are outweighed by positive ones of ‘larger than life’. The more usual, fully pejorative force is seen in examples like:
Haurem de sofrir la invasió dels alemanyots. (Nadal Batle)
The dreadful Germans will come and invade us.
No m’ho toquis pas amb aquestes manotes brutes!
Don’t go and touch it with those horribly dirty hands.
No sé què hi feia aquella donota.
I don’t know what that awful woman was doing there.
Gender change (f. to m.) occurs quite regularly as in, e.g., sabata ‘shoe’, sabatot; barraca ‘shack’, ‘hovel’, barracot; pila ‘pile’, ‘heap’, pilot; ala ‘wing’, alot, etc.
Specialization is seen in, e.g., paraula ‘word’, paraulota ‘swear word’; ungla ‘finger nail’, unglot ‘claw’, ‘talon’, pebre (m.) ‘pepper (spice)’, pebrot ‘capsicum’. Also to be noted in this context is the use of -ot to supply the masculine of certain nouns for which the feminine form generally denotes the species: merla ‘blackbird’, merlot; guatlla ‘quail’, guatllot; perdiu ‘partridge’, perdigot; abella ‘bee’, abellot; also bruixa ‘witch’, bruixot ‘wizard’ (see 1.1.3).
The suffix -ot had a diminutive sense in old Catalan, and this is reflected in the survival of a couple of diminutive names, Pere – Perot, Jaume – Jaumot, and also in ilia ‘island’ – illot ‘islet’.
The only other pejorative suffix, with application to a very limited number of items, is -all/-alla: espantall ‘scarecrow’, gentalla ‘unpleasant/undesirable people’, jovenalla ‘ignorant young people’.
3 ARTICLES
The use of definite and indefinite articles in Catalan is on the whole comparable with the use of the corresponding forms in English; we shall draw special attention to the most important differences. One general point worth making at the start is that a noun in a noun phrase which is the subject of a clause and precedes the verb nearly always has an article, definite or indefinite (if it has no other determiner):
Venien protestes de molts sectors (not *Protestes venien …).
Protests came from many sectors.
Les protestes venien de tots el sectors.
The protests came from many sectors.
There are two main differences of usage. The first is that in generic noun phrases Catalan uses the definite article not only with singular count nouns, but with singular mass nouns and plural nouns also (3.1.4.2), The second is that, rather more often than in English, a singular indefinite noun phrase may lack an article or determiner altogether (3.2.3).
Catalan also uses a ‘personal article’ before proper names of people (3.3). Nominalization via articles is discussed separately in Chapter 9, and in 9.2 we deal with the so-called neuter article el/lo.
3.1 DEFINITE ARTICLES
There are two series of definite article forms in Catalan: the standard article and the forms based on s (article salat, see 3.1.2 below). The standard article is the most commonly used (almost exclusively in written language).
3.1.1 MORPHOLOGY OF THE DEFINITE ARTICLE
Standard definite article
singular plural
before consonant before vowel or h-
masculine el l’ els
feminine la l’ les
Use of apostrophized l’, especially as a reduction of feminine singular la, requires special comment. When followed by a vowel the singular articles, both masculine and feminine, are reduced to l’: l’all ‘the garlic’ (m.), l’elefant ‘the elephant’ (m.), l’idiota ‘the idiot’ (m. or f.), l’ou ‘the egg’ (m.), Pull ‘the eye’ (m.), Pansia ‘the anxiety’ (f.), Pilla ‘the island’ (f.), l’olla ‘the pot’ (f.).
This also applies when the vowel is preceded by h (which is silent): l’home ‘the man’ (m.), l’hora ‘the hour’ (f.), l’herba ‘the grass’ (f.). The same form l’ is also used, as a special case, when the noun begins with s- followed by a consonant. This is only found in words borrowed from foreign languages: l’Stradivarius ‘the Stradivarius’, etc. (actually pronounced with an initial e-).
Exceptionally, in the standard written language, reduction of the feminine singular definite article la to l’ does not apply in the following cases:
(i) When the noun begins with an unstressed i or u (which may be preceded by h): la indústria ‘th
e industry’, la ullada ‘the glance’, la història ‘the story’, la humanitat ‘humanity’, etc. (cf. l’única possibilitat ‘the only possibility’, l’hidra de la revolució ‘the hydra of revolution’, etc. where initial i/u is stressed).
(ii) When the noun is the name of a letter: la ena ‘the N’, la erra ‘the R’, la efa ‘the F’.
(iii) When the noun begins with the negative prefix a- and its pronunciation without a pause could cause confusion with its opposite: la anormalitat ‘the abnormality’: compare la normalitat ‘the normality’; la asimetria ‘the asymmetry’: compare la simetria ‘the symmetry’, etc.
(iv) Before the three nouns ira ‘anger’, host ‘host’, una ‘one (o’clock)’: la ira, la host, la una. (The numeral adjective una ‘one’ behaves normally: L’una era blanca i l’altra negra ‘One of them was white and the other, black’, etc.)
Northwestern Catalan retains in the spoken language the older forms of the masculine article lo/los for el/els. Lo also appears in eastern dialects in a few fixed expressions: per lo senyal de la Santa Creu ‘by the sign of the Cross’, tot lo dia ‘all day’, tot lo món ‘the whole world’. It also appears in folk songs.
Contraction of the definite article with prepositions
The masculine article forms el and els placed after the prepositions a, de, and per and the word ca (= casa) are contracted with them:
definite article
preposition el els
a al als
de del dels
per pel pels
ca cal cals
Contraction does not occur when the article has been reduced to P:
al nen ‘to the boy’ but a l’home ‘to the man’
del camp ‘from the field’ but de l’hort ‘from the market garden’
pel mes ‘through the month’ but per l’any ‘through the year’
per al pare ‘for father’ but per a l’avi ‘for grandfather’
cal dentista ‘the dentist’s’ but ca l’adroguer ‘the grocer’s’
3.1.2 Article Salat
The article salat refers to a special set of forms of the definite article which are most commonly used in the Balearic Islands. Its use there is typical of the spoken language (and printed versions of folk tales and popular literature); it is not used in very formal speech.
singular plural
before consonant before vowel or h-
masculine es s’ es
feminine sa s’ ses
The singular articles are reduced to s’ when a noun beginning with a vowel or with h follows. The exceptions pointed out in 3.1.1 for la → l’ are applied to the article salat only when sa precedes the name of a vowel sa i ‘the i’, sa u ‘the u’.
In masculine noun phrases preceded by the preposition amb, special forms so and sos are used in Majorca, Ibiza, and Formentera: amb so martell ‘with the hammer’, amb sos amics ‘with the friends’.
In Majorca and Minorca es (plural) is pronounced like ets when a vowel follows; in this context ets used to be found in writing. Currently es is the recommended spelling, whatever the pronunciation.
Certain words in the Balearic dialects do not accept the use of the article salat. Although there is no simple rule governing this feature, it can be said that many of the words affected refer to objects or institutions which are unique or socially salient: el cel ‘the sky’ not *es cel, la mar ‘the sea’ not *sa mar, el rei ‘the king’, la reina ‘the queen’, el senyor (followed by a name) ‘Mr’, el doctor (followed by a name) ‘Dr’, el professor (followed by a name) ‘Professor’, el Palau ‘the Palace’, la Sala ‘the town hall’, la Cúria ‘the Curia’, el bisbe ‘the bishop’, el Papa ‘the Pope’, la Mare-de-Déu ‘the Virgin Mary’, el rosari ‘the rosary’, l’església ‘the church’, la Seu ‘the Cathedral’, el Bon Jesús ‘the Christ child’, el dimoni ‘the devil’, l’infern ‘Hell’, el purgatori ‘Purgatory’, la parròquia ‘the parish (church)’, els passos (floats representing scenes from the Passion of Christ carried in Holy Week processions), el sagrari ‘the tabernacle’, el cor ‘the choir’. When uniqueness is not foremost, the article salat appears: es papes que jo he conegut ‘the Popes I have known’, ses esglésies que ha visitat el Papa ‘the churches that the Pope has visited’. Many cases challenge the generalization made above: es sol ‘the sun’, sa lluna ‘the moon’, es Parlament ‘the (Balearic) Parliament’, es Govern ‘the (Balearic) Government’, es president ‘the (Balearic) president’, es àngels ‘the angels’, etc. Expressions of time require the standard article: les nou, les deu, les onze i vint, etc. The standard article is also obligatory in prayers (en nom del Pare … ‘in the name of the Father …’) and in many idioms: com anell al dit ‘like a glove’ (lit. ‘as ring to the finger’), l’any passat ‘last year’, l’any que ve ‘next year’, including those with la preceding an adjective, mentioned in 3.4.
Contraction of the article salat with prepositions
The masculine article form es placed after the prepositions a, de, and per and the word ca (= casa) contracts with it:
es (singular and plural)
a as
de des
per pes
ca cas
Vaig trobar mil pessetes as mig des carrer.
I found 1000 pesetas in the middle of the street.
Van tornar a cas ferrer pes camí més curt.
They went back to the blacksmith’s by the shortest route.
Contraction does not occur when the article has been reduced to s’.
3.1.3 SYNTAX OF THE DEFINITE ARTICLE
In a list of nouns, each preceded by its own article, repetition of the article can be avoided, but it must be borne in mind that, whereas the masculine article can include feminine nouns, the feminine article can only appear before feminine nouns. Thus, the article preceding a masculine noun placed first in the enumeration can affect the rest of the nouns, masculine or feminine:
les escoles i les guarderies = les escoles i guarderies
the schools and (the) day nurseries
els nens i les nenes dels col·legis i les escoles = els nens i nenes dels col·legis i escoles
the boys and (the) girls of the secondary and (the) primary schools
but not *les nenes i nens de les escoles i col·legis.
Pairs of animate nouns of different sex are given with the corresponding article for each noun: el pare i la mare ‘the father and mother’, l’avi i l’àvia ‘the grandfather and grandmother’ (cf. els pares ‘the parents’ and els avis ‘the grandparents’ which present the pairs as units; see Chapter 1), el porc i la truja ‘the boar and the sow’. Although articles may be omitted in lists of nouns considered to be synonymous or to be part of a single idea (els resultats i conclusions de l’experiència ‘the results and conclusions of the experiment’), the safest option is always to retain the article with each noun, as in Porta els plats i les copes ‘Bring the plates and (the) glasses’.
3.1.4 PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF THE DEFINITE ARTICLE
Despite the generalization with which this chapter opens, concerning the general parallels between article usage in English and Catalan, it is difficult to draw up hard and fast rules for the behaviour – use or omission – of definite articles in Catalan as generated through ‘native competence’. As often, the devil is in the detail. A couple of general observations may provide some foundation for working with the description provided in 3.1.4.1–5.
(i) With two exceptions the definite article is used in Catalan whenever it appears in English: ‘the magnitude of the tragedy’ → la magnitud de la tragèdia, ‘the beginning of the third act’ → el començament del tercer acte:
La feina més difícil ha estat explicar el problema al cap de departament.
The most difficult job has been explaining the problem to the head of department.
Exceptions, where the definite article is used in English but not in Catalan, are:
(a) Ordinal numbers with monarchs, popes, etc.: Carles III
(pronounced Carles tercer) ‘Charles the Third’, Joan XXIII (pronounced Joan vint-i-tres) ‘John the Twenty-third’, etc.
(b) Some set adverbial phrases which do not take the article in Catalan while the English counterpart usually does: carrer amunt/avall ‘up/ down the street’, a llarg/curt termini ‘in the long/short run’, a voluntat de ‘at the discretion of’, en ple estiu ‘at the height of the summer’, de plantilla ‘on the payroll’, en nom de ‘in the name of’, etc. (see 3.1.4.4iv(d-f)).
(ii) The most obvious contrast between Catalan and English concerns use of the article with nouns used generically (3.1.4.2), including its ‘unfamiliar’ (for English speakers) appearance before abstract nouns. For example, La carn és més cara que el peix ‘Meat is more expensive than fish’, la intel·ligència ‘intelligence’, la vida i la mort ‘life and death’.
3.1.4.1 Definite article with definite noun phrases
The main role of the definite article in Catalan, as in English, is to indicate that the listener or reader is expected to be able to identify uniquely, in their mental model of the current world of discourse, the referent of the noun phrase in question. By contrast, an indefinite noun phrase (3.2.3) is used in order to establish a new referent in the hearer’s mental model, or when no specific individual or group is intended.
The expectation that the reference of a noun phrase can be uniquely identified arises fundamentally from one of three reasons. First the referent may already have been mentioned previously:
El piset tenia tres peces diminutes … Una gàbia amb una cadernera i un quadre de cromos eren tot l’ornament del pis.
The little flat had three tiny rooms … A goldfinch in a cage and some colour prints in a frame were the only decoration of the flat.