Breakdown of Si el vestit és còmode, compra també uns guants que hi combinin.
ser
to be
comprar
to buy
si
if
també
also
que
that
el vestit
the dress
combinar
to match
el guant
the glove
còmode
comfortable
un
some
hi
with it
Questions & Answers about Si el vestit és còmode, compra també uns guants que hi combinin.
Why is it el vestit? Is vestit masculine?
Yes. Vestit is a grammatically masculine noun, so it takes el in the singular. In Catalan, grammatical gender belongs to the noun itself and does not depend on the English translation. Here el also shows that we are talking about a specific garment already in context; un vestit would mean an unspecified one.
Why does the sentence use si + present indicative in Si el vestit és còmode?
Because this is a real, possible condition: if the garment is comfortable. In Catalan, that type of condition normally uses si + present indicative. The main clause can then be an imperative, as in compra també.... You do not normally use the future after si in this kind of sentence.
Why is it és còmode and not està còmode?
Here Catalan uses ser to describe a quality of the object: the garment is comfortable. Estar còmode is more commonly used for a person who feels comfortable. So el vestit és còmode is the natural way to describe the item itself.
Is compra a present-tense form or a command?
Here it is a command: the tu imperative of comprar. This imperative form looks the same as the 3rd-person singular present form, so context tells you which one it is. In this sentence, the meaning is clearly buy rather than he/she buys.
Why is també placed after the verb?
També means also or too. In compra també uns guants, it adds another item to the instruction: buy gloves as well. Catalan word order is fairly flexible, but this placement is very natural in an imperative sentence.
What exactly does uns guants mean?
Uns is the plural indefinite article, so uns guants means some gloves. Even though gloves function as a pair, Catalan normally still uses the plural noun guants. You could also say un parell de guants, but uns guants is completely normal.
What is que doing in uns guants que hi combinin?
It is a relative pronoun, equivalent to English that or which. It connects uns guants with the clause that describes them: hi combinin. So the phrase means gloves that match it.
What does hi mean here?
Hi is a weak pronoun that stands in for a prepositional phrase, here roughly with it. It refers back to el vestit. A fuller version would be uns guants que combinin amb el vestit.
Why is it combinin and not combinen?
Because Catalan often uses the subjunctive in a relative clause when the thing being referred to is not specific yet, but desired or sought. The sentence is not talking about a known pair of gloves; it means buy some gloves that will match it. If you used combinen, it would sound more like you already have a specific pair in mind and know that they match.
Why is combinin plural?
Because the verb agrees with guants, which is plural. The understood subject of combinin is the gloves. If the noun were singular, the verb would also be singular: un accessori que hi combini.
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