Indefinite Pronouns
The indefinite pronouns todo, toda, todos, todas are followed by the definite article in European Portuguese, and also elsewhere when they mean "whole". Otherwise, articles and indefinite pronouns are mutually exclusive.
In the demonstratives and in some indefinite pronouns, there is a trace of the neuter gender of Latin. For example, todo and esse are used with masculine referents, toda and essa are used with feminine referents, and tudo and isso are used when there is no definite referent e.g. todo livro or todo o livro, "every book"; toda salada or toda a salada, "every salad"; tudo "everything", and so on:
- este, esta, estes, estas ("this", "these"); isto ("this thing")
- esse, essa, esses, essas ("that", "those"); isso ("that thing")
- aquele, aquela, aqueles, aquelas ("that", "those"); aquilo ("that thing")
- algum, alguma, alguns, algumas ("some"); algo ("something")
- nenhum, nenhuma, nenhuns, nenhumas ("no"); nada ("nothing")
- todo, toda, todos, todas ("every", "all"); tudo ("everything")
In terms of agreement, however, these "neuter" words function as masculine: both todo and tudo take masculine adjective pronouns.
Read more about this topic: Inho
Famous quotes containing the words indefinite and/or pronouns:
“For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world.... I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: “I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.””
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)
“In the meantime no sense in bickering about pronouns and other parts of blather.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)