Neuter verbs in Spanish...
Hi,
I am a beginner Spanish speaker, and I don't know a lot about Spanish grammar (yet). Are there any neuter verbs in Spanish, and how are they used? Do they come up in conversation a lot, or are common verbs mostly masculine and/or feminine?
Thanks!
6 Answers
A lot of professional grammarians have never come across the term neuter verb. I've checked, out of curiosity, among over 20 academic grammars (for those who are already as good as a native in Spanish), and none of them even mention the term. Izanoni1 must be reading very technical stuff to be familiar with things like that (or maybe they are more common in English than I thought).
Jejeje...That made me laugh. I think perhaps a better adjective to use might have been "antiquated" rather than "technical." As I said, the idea is somewhat esoteric and in many cases perhaps a bit outdated, but you can still find this terminology in some current literature.
Perhaps I should have explained the historical basis of such terminology a bit better. Let me start with the idea of active versus passive. I am sure that you are probably familiar with the idea of active and passive voice in both Spanish and English. For those who are not, consider the following two simple sentences:
1). I ate an apple ? Comí una manzana
2). An apple was eaten (by me) ? Una manzana fue comida (por mí)
The verb in the first sentence is sometimes referred to as being in the active voice. This comes from the idea that the subject of the sentence (the agent) is acting upon some object (in this case an apple/manzana). It is quite simple to convert this type of "active" sentence into a "passive" construct as shown in the second sentence above. This transition is enacted by converting the object of the active verb into the subject of the passive verb. The passive verb then describes the subject of the passive sentence as acted upon rather than as the agent.
Because it is possible to make this transition between active and passive voices by shifting the position of the object of the verb, the type of verb in the active sentence is easily recognizable and is often referred to as a transitive verb (verb that transitions or passes the action onto an object).
On the other hand, there is another type of verb construct which does not carry an object at all:
3). I ate quickly ? Comí deprisa
Because the verb in this sentence does not carry an object it cannot make the "transition" as described above and is often referred to as "intransitive."
So far, then, we have three distinct categories of verbs: 1). Active or Transitive, 2). Passive and 3). Intransitive.
Historically, however, this third category was sometimes divided into two distinct categories of verbs: Active-intransitive and Neuter. Active-intransitive verbs were said to be those which express an action that has no effect on anything but itself; while, a neuter verb was said to be attributive and to express neither an action nor a passion but instead a state of being. For example:
4a). There was an apple.
4b). I stood
This left four distinct categories as follows
I). Active-transitive
II). Active-intransitive
III). Passive
IV). Neuter
Consequently, there were many who argued that there was little justification for many of the (artificial?) distinctions that were being made between verbs active-intransitives and verbs neuter and as a result, the term neuter became less and less common over time.
The terminology itself originally stems (I believe) from attempts to describe various grammars (Spanish, English, French, Italian, etc) in terms of Latin grammar (as was once common). If you look to grammars written near the turn of the century I would think that you should not be hard pressed to find such terminology. In my own opinion the use of the term neuter verb is probably a bit antiquated; however, I have personally come across this terminology in more recently written texts, and apparently some linguists still find this distinction useful. I have especially found many instances of this terminology when reading about various Native American languages (which obviously bear their own distinct heritage from Latin, yet sure enough, the grammar of these languages is still often couched in terms originating in the study of the Latin grammar system). If you look to the RAE (verbo neutro), you should be able to find that this terminology is not foreign to Spanish either; however, it seems that such terminology has fallen somewhat out of use in favor of the term "verbo intransitivo." In any event, if you are looking for more current instances of the use of such terminology, you need look no further than SpanishDict's (Velazquez) own online dictionary which categorizes some verbs in this manner: sentar, llevar, dar, estar, be, etc.
Again, I do not necessarily endorse such terminology as I find its use very limited (except maybe in the case of categorization of such attributive/copular verbs as ser, estar and parecer). In practice, I personally tend to favor the idea of three categories: active-transitive, intransitive and passive. In any event I hope that this explained the distinction a bit better.
It might help to realize that the term neuter, when referring to verbs, has nothing to do with the idea of "gender." The idea of masculine, feminine and neuter when applied to grammatical concepts has to do with the way in which nouns and pronouns (as well as accompanying modifiers) are grouped and inflected or changed in form so as to control certain syntactic relationships.
The concept of "neuter verbs" exists in many (if not all languages) including Spanish and English, but at this point, I wouldn't worry too much about what the term "neuter verb" means as this idea is a somewhat esoteric subject. Just to satisfy any curiosity you might have, however, some grammarians find it useful to group verbs into three divisions: active, passive and neuter.
Verb Active expresses an action, and necessarily implies an agent and an object acted upon; i.e. the verb denotes an action that passes from the agent to some object such as in: Jim ate an apple or Jim loves Janet (where Jim is the agent and apple and Janet are the objects of the action respectively).
Verb Passive expresses passion or a suffering or the receiving of an action, and implies an object acted upon, and an agent by which it is acted upon; i.e. the verb expresses, not an action but a passion (in this sense passion is defined as the condition of being acted upon, especially by outside influences) whether pleasing or painful as in: *Jim is loved by me or Jim was beaten by me (Where Jim is the object acted upon and me is the agent by which it is acted upon).
Verb Neuter expresses neither action nor passion, but being or a state of being; i.e. the verb expresses an attribute that consists neither in action or passions. The verb is conjugated in a single mode and there is no actual event; instead, the verb simply describes a position (i.e. stand, sit, lie down, etc.) as in: "Jim sleeps", "Jim sits" or "Jim stood"
If you are interested in researching this further, there are plenty of resources available on the web or at a good bookstore. In any event, I doubt that a lack of knowledge on this subject should hinder your studies of Spanish.
Just as an aside, you will need to learn the concept of neuter articles and neuter pronouns, but this idea is unrelated to the idea of neuter verbs
Wow. I've been studying Spanish since 1973 and I've never heard the term used. It's a concept way too deep for beginners or even advanced native speakers unless they really, really like studying grammar. I'd recommend not worrying about it.
Spanish does have masculine and feminine genders for nouns (no neuters), but that's a much easier concept.
Welcome.
I don't know what a neuter verb is, as verb conjugations don't really have much to do with gender, and verbs do not have genders, but there are neuter demonstratives, esto and eso, and lo, the neuter definite article. They are used when you're not talking about a specific noun. For example, an About.com article gives three examples of when to use them:
- No olvides esto. "Don't forget this."
- No creo eso. "I don't believe that."
- ¿Qué es aquello? "What is that over there?"
- ¿Te gustó eso? "Did you like that?"
- No me gusta esto. "I don't like this."
Update: Sorry, I spoke too soon. 
Apparently there are neuter verbs. They're just not important unless you're a super-grammarian. 
A lot of professional grammarians have never come across the term neuter verb. I've checked, out of curiosity, among over 20 academic grammars (for those who are already as good as a native in Spanish), and none of them even mention the term. Izanoni1 must be reading very technical stuff to be familiar with things like that (or maybe they are more common in English than I thought).
Thanks all for your answers! Wow, now I know WAY more about Spanish grammar, and neuter/ active-passive verbs in Spanish. I have taken latin for about 1 1/2 years, so I'm trying to find connections between the two languages.
It's really great to have a community of Spanish speakers all talking with each other. I am completely new to this forum, so it was a nice surprise when people answered this so quickly, and with really informative answers. Thanks!
