Breakdown of Grande parte dos animais transportam os cestos de milho.
de
of / from / by (means of transport) / wearing (attire)
grande
big / large
o animal
the animal
o
him/it (m)
o cesto
the basket
a parte
the part
transportar
to transport
o milho
the corn
Questions & Answers about Grande parte dos animais transportam os cestos de milho.
Why is the verb transportam in the plural when the subject starts with the singular phrase grande parte?
When a singular partitive expression like grande parte de (a large part of) or a maioria de (the majority of) is followed by a plural noun like animais, the verb can agree with either the singular expression or the plural noun. Here, transportam agrees with the plural animais. Using the singular transporta to agree with grande parte would also be perfectly correct!
Why does the sentence use dos instead of just de after grande parte?
The base expression is grande parte de, but we are talking about specific animals, so we need the definite article os (the). The preposition de merges with os to form dos (of the).
Why is it cestos de milho instead of cestos do milho?
When describing what a container is meant to hold in a general sense, Portuguese uses the simple preposition de without an article. Cestos de milho translates to "baskets of corn" or "corn baskets". If you said do milho, it would mean the baskets hold a specific, previously mentioned batch of corn.
As a quick refresher, why is the plural of animal spelled animais?
For most Portuguese words ending in -al, -el, -ol, or -ul, you form the plural by dropping the final -l and adding -is. This is a great pattern to remember as you expand your vocabulary!
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