Memo to Self...

Wednesday, August 29, 2001

*yawn* Okay, this must be done before I go to sleep. This must be done before I nap. This must be done, this must be done. (See my commitment? Yay rah yay for me!)

Oh, I should add that I had Language, Power, and Gender last night, and there's going to be a research project where I get to tape record people. O_O In other words, I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to that. Went over the syllabus and talked about an article and some of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which by now has been crammed into my brain a many-tude of times. I also met with Sylvia Plath (Lauren) and she gave me Good Omens back...and some Black n' Milds. These smell GOOD, though they aren't very yummy.

BE FOREWARNED: The following Spanish entry is going to be LONG. This is because we're covering the preterite, one of Spanish's past tenses, and it has a lot of irregular verbs. The last post about Spanish is nothing in comparison.
Spanish: I almost didn't go. I just made my bus--had to run up the hill, waving my arms--and then when I got off I felt like I was going to break into little pieces. However, I be strong, so I made it to class. And then la Se~ora was late--she had to find her way around two accidents and a parking place. (Parking is very difficult to be had at IUPUI, though Bloomie is apparently worse.) Anyway, she made it into class, but didn't have time to make copies, so we just worked out of the book.
And now...The Preterite

The regular conjugation is as follows, for all three verb endings:
-ar: e, aste, o, amos, asteis, aron (e/o con acento)
-er/ir: i, iste, io, emos/imos, isteis, ieron (i/io con acento)

The Irregulars have nine sections ^^; as follows:
a. Caer, creer, leer, oir, huir, incluir, construir, and atribuir
Verbs whose conjugations of the third person would've resulted in three vowels strung togther, such as "caer" becoming "caio."
The second vowel is changed to a "y" in both third person singular and plural. ex: cayo, cayeron; huyo, huyeron. There is an accent on the o.
b.Poder, poner, saber, caber, haber, tener, andar, querer, hacer, and venir
These are verbs that were irregular before, and heck, why change that for this clunky tense? They're all grouped here because they have an irregular conjugation, a scrambling of two regular conjugations. It goes: e, iste, o, imos, isteis, ieron. There are absolutely NO accents. On top of this, though, most of these verbs have some sort of spelling change:
Poder=pude
Poner=puse
Saber/Caber=supe/cupe
Haber=hubo
Tener/Estar/Andar=tuvo, estuvo, and anduvo
Querer=quiso
Hacer=hice
Venir=vino
Isn't this whole mess LOVELY?
c. Verbs ending in -decir/-ducir plus traer
These verbs all have a "j" in all of their forms, and decir has a stem change, from "deje" to "dijo." This one sort of makes sense, especially in decir's case. They retain the same conjugation structure as group b, but they drop the "i" in the Uds. form.
d-e: ir, ser, and dar:
These three I'm gonna stick together, because these are the oddballs out. Ser and ir have the same preterite conjugation (which looks NOTHING like the two verbs) and dar one day decided it was gonna have the er/ir conjugation MINUS accents. Ir, ser, and dar are not verbs you want to invite to the family party.
ir/ser: fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron
dar: di, diste, dio, dimos, disteis, dieron.
f. verbs ending in -ir
These verbs have a cambio radical--a stem change--in the third person singular and plural if they had a stem change in the present. I think. These are verbs like sentir, pedir, preferir, morir, and dormir, rather than vivir. There's only one vowel change, not two like the indicative has. The rest of the forms are regular.
e-->i: pido, prefirieron
o-->u: murio, durmieron
g. verbs with the ~
That up there stands for the n with tilde, and this is a little thing I've never heard of before. When a verb such as re~ir (to fight) or te~ir (to dye) conjugates, the third person in pret drops the "i" of the conjugations. Thus you have ri~o instead of ri~io.
-car, -gar, and -zar verbs:
These verbs take a stem change in the yo form in order to keep their pronunciation. "c" becomes "qu" (sacar=saque), "g" becomes "gu" (jugar=jugue) and "z" becomes "c" (empezar=empece). All of them retain their normal accents.
Averiguar
Another thing I ain't never seen before. The yo form of this verb calls for two dots over the u, which are called "dieresis." This, again, keeps the sound of the verb. Thus, "averigue" with two dots over the "u."

WHEW! I be bushed, and have homework, and am hoping this candle does not burn down my little house.

Jya!