According to the RAE, such proper nouns are often capitalized although it’s not obligatory (bolding mine):
4.31. Los títulos, cargos y nombres de dignidad, como rey, papa, duque, presidente, ministro, etc., que normalmente se escriben con minúscula (→ 6.9), pueden aparecer en determinados casos escritos con mayúscula. Así, es frecuente, aunque no obligatorio, que estas palabras se escriban con mayúscula cuando se emplean referidas a una persona concreta, sin mención expresa de su nombre propio: El Rey inaugurará la nueva biblioteca; El Papa visitará la India en su próximo viaje. Por otra parte, por razones de respeto, los títulos de los miembros de la familia reinante en España suelen escribirse con mayúscula, aunque vayan seguidos del nombre propio de la persona que los posee, al igual que los tratamientos de don y doña a ellos referidos: el Rey Don Juan Carlos, el Príncipe Felipe, la Infanta Doña Cristina. También es costumbre particular de las leyes, decretos y documentos oficiales, por razones de solemnidad, escribir con mayúsculas las palabras de este tipo: el Rey de España, el Jefe del Estado, el Presidente del Gobierno, el Secretario de Estado de Comercio. Por último, es muy frecuente que los cargos de cierta categoría se escriban con mayúscula en el encabezamiento de las cartas dirigidas a las personas que los ocupan.
jerez, when you provide a cite in Spanish, please translate it.
Titles, jobs and names of positions, such as king, pope, duke, president, minister, etc., are usually not capitalized, but may be capitalized in specific cases. It is common, but not compulsory, to capitalize these words when they are used to refer to a specific person without using that person’s firstname: The King will open the new library; The Pope will visit India in his next trip. On the other hand, and as a matter of respect, the titles of members of the family reigning in Spain* are normally capitalized, even when followed by the firstname of that person, as is the treatment of don or doña for them: el Rey Don Juan Carlos, el Príncipe Felipe, la Infanta Doña Cristina¬. It is also customary for laws, decrees and official government documents to capitalize these words to heighten pomp: the King of Spain, the Head of State, the President of the Government, the Secretary of State for Commerce. Finally, it is very common to capitalize positions of high import in the address of letters to the person in such positions.
IOW, while el Papa can be capitalized, both Colibri’s spelling and his information that these titles are normally not capitalized were perfectly correct - underline in the translation, mine.
Not quite the same as the “Spanish royal family” - they have to actually have someone who sits on the throne. During the Republics and Franco’s Dictatorship, we had a royal family but not a regnant one.
¬ Note that the Don/Doña between title and name is in itself rare outside of Royal House/Government press releases. I didn’t translate this bit because AFAIK there isn’t a good English equivalent, you guys don’t say something like “Princess Lady Jane” or “Princess Miss Jane”.
[QUOTE=jerez]
I think it’d be “el Papa” (capital “p”) since there’s only one (at a given time).
[/QUOTE]
Thanks. As Nava has pointed out, your own cite shows that your original post was incorrect. Your first post suggested that el papa would normally be capitalized; your cite shows that it would be capitalized only in particular circumstances, and not always ever then (as my newspaper link showed). If you’re going to “correct” someone, it’s good to make sure your correction is actually correct.
While not a native Spanish speaker, I’ve been involved in the production of a large number of bilingual English/Spanish books and exhibitions over the past 25 years. I am more than passingly familiar with the conventions of Spanish capitalization and punctuation and how they differ from English.
You’re welcome. For the record, in post 55, you said “Spanish rarely capitalizes even proper nouns of this kind.” The RAE describe such usage as “frecuente.” I thought it was worth pointing out.
No need to get defensive. It’s not like I singled you out or have been hounding you or anyone, for that matter. I follow this board because I appreciate the opportunity to learn and I just assume that it’s why others are here, too. If you prefer, I’ll refrain from making similar observations in the future.
That’s not what your post said. Your original post suggested it was normally capitalized. The RAE indicates that it is “frequently” capitalized only in special circumstances, not that it is frequently capitalized overall.
Who’s being defensive? You’re the one trying to defend an incorrect post rather than simply admitting you made an error in your first post. Take this as a learning opportunity.
I would definitely prefer that people post correct information in General Questions, and especially not “correct” information that was already correct by posting misinformation.
I thought it was a rule. Turns out its common usage.
I put the correct information in my second post. I thought it would be understood that it was an acknowledgement.
The text mentions “determinados casos.” After that, in separate sentences, three distinct “casos” are decribed, starting with “Así…,” “Por otra parte…” and “Por último.” “Frecuente” appears in the first “caso.” There’s no indication that it’s anything but a description of common usage.
Laws are the third “caso.” In your own translation, you use the word “also,” not the word “only.” As noted above, the RAE’s use of “frecuente” seems to describe common usage.
So, just to be clear, it’s not wrong to use lower case, but the word (as “pope”) is frequently written with upper case.
RAE describe. Every. Single. Case. As being exceptions to the rule. These words are “frequently” capitalized only in very specific cases, one of which is the puffed-up language often used in laws; they are not frequently capitalized in general terms.
I said that laws are the third “caso” in which it’s commonly written capitalized. It’s actually the second “caso.” What matters here is that the context of the first “caso” is not defined. It just says it’s common practice (“frecuente”). I’m really not seeing your line of reasoning.
Italian does something even weirder with genders: it has heteroclitic nouns.
‘Egg’ — l’uovo (masculine singular) but ‘eggs’ — le uova (feminine plural, although, ending in -a, you’d expect it to be feminine singular).
‘Arm’ — il braccio (masculine singular) but ‘arms’ — le braccia (feminine plural, likewise).
This is because these words come from a Latin neuter declension: ovum, bracchium in the singular but ova, *bracchia *in the plural — consistently neuter in both numbers. Italian is down to only two genders, so, having gotten rid of the neuter, they just split the difference and have these words be masculine when singular, feminine when plural.
Meanwhile, just as in Spanish, la mano (s.), le mani (p.) remain feminine throughout, albeit with endings that appear masculine, for the reason as already explained by TitoBenito in post #4 above. Latin *manūs *is a feminine noun of the 4th declension. Notice that macron over the ū. The long vowel distinguishes this declension from the usual masculine second declension, ending in -us with a short u. The vowel length is all the Romans needed to tell them apart, although we who lack phonemic vowel length and shun diacritics fail to notice the difference.
You can still tell something is different from compound words like *manufacture *or manumit. The original long ū makes the -u- stick in those words instead of the usual -o-. (We don’t say *manofacture or *manomit.) Likewise, the adjectival form is manual with that sticking -u-, instead of *manal.
Yes, plus the fact that there are no signs of a “palacio” of any sort. Rural, some reconstructed, some ruined houses, one of which on Google street view is labelled casa de medicos.
There is absolutely no way it would be a plural; the singular would be “palaz”, which doesn’t mean anything. There is a lastname that’s Palacés, but whether it comes from the village or it’s the other way 'round, I don’t know.
Most name places don’t make any sense, what’s rare is the ones that do.
Dios es Cristo…
there are a total of FOUR cases.
The general case, not described in your quote, is not capitalization. That is the GENERAL, that is, the MOST FREQUENT, case.
The three cases described in your quote are all EXCEPTIONS. That is, by definition, less frequent than the general case.
The normal thing is not capitalizing, BUT, in those EXCEPTIONS, it is OK to capitalize.
As the words of an isolational language acquire fixed positions, they eventually become adfixes and the language becomes agglutinative. As words in an agglutinative language develop two or more adfixes, the complex words may fuse into inflected forms. That complexity may become unnecessary, leading the language to become isolational again. According to Hodge, Egyptian was fusional in 1000 BC and has gone completely around the cycle and is now fusional again.
Note that for such cycling to be expected there must be at least three grammar modes, not two.
I can’t find Hodge’s paper on-line. The best Google hit I found quotes Dixon, which is where I came across the idea.
Just for clarity, the nominative singular is manus (no macron). The genitive singular and nominative / accusative plural are manūs (with macron).
As to why Latin had three genders and five declensions, it is because it inherited them from the proto-language (Western Indo-European). This is usually the answer: an inherited system that has changed over time. It’s not a deliberately designed system.
A lot of the masculines in Spanish ending in -a are from Latin, but ultimately borrowed into Latin from Greek, such as idiota above.
And jerez, an adjective can function as a noun. This is called a substantive adjective. You just supply (person) after it. So in Spanish, es idiota could be either an adjective “[he] is idiotic” or a substantive “[he] is an idiot.” Un idiota is definitely a noun, though, because of the article.
In Spanish, the word idiota can be an adjective or a noun, depending on context. Un idiota is always a context where it is a noun.
I see that the RAE does not list this possibility, but other Spanish dictionaries do (e.g. Larousse). Certainly any grammar should. You’ll note that RAE’s own etymology cites a Latin noun (idiōta) and an ultimate derivation from a Greek noun (ἰδιώτης).
RAE also does not list negro, gordo or rubio as being nouns, but all of them can be used in such a fashion; in several cases, they even give a definition which is “person who [happens to have the characteristic described in the first entry]”.
One may say that it’s a case of the noun “hombre/mujer” being ellided, but in any case, the usage leaves the adjective behaving like a noun. It’s only that RAE gets serious birth pains whenever the idea that a word might belong to several “types” simultaneously is floated.
