Page:Dictionary of spoken Spanish (1945).djvu/26

 visto "he thought he'd seen it". Among the many verbs which occur in this construction are:

2.42 object, which is normally a noun, pronoun, or clause: no tenemos libros "we haven't any books"; no me tratan bien "they don't treat me well"; quiero que estén contentos "I want them to be happy". But this construction is normally replaced by that of object  with proper nouns or nouns referring to specific persons (or personified objects or animals), and with disjunctive personal pronouns, relative, demonstrative, and indefinite pronouns referring to persons (except que).

2.43 complement, which is normally a noun or pronoun used after ser or estar "be" and certain other verbs indicating identity or development, and agreeing with the subject in gender and number: mi amigo es abogado "my friend's a lawyer"; estamos cansados "we're tired".

2.44 complement.This latter may be:

1.An adverb: habla muy bien "he speaks very well".

2.An adjective or noun used as an adverb: el enemigo atacó duro "the enemy attacked hard".

3.A phrase introduced by a preposition: sigue viviendo a la antigua "he continues to live in the old way"; nos entendimos por fin "we understood each other at last". This type of adverbial complement, with the preposition a, is normal instead of a direct object, in referring to a person above). Furthermore, the preposition a is normally used to introduce an infinitive after most verbs indicating motion, beginning, teaching, and learning, among others  the following: