Questions & Answers about Só eu guardei a velharia inútil.
Why is só placed at the very beginning of the sentence instead of before the verb?
Focus adverbs like só (only) apply to the word or phrase immediately following them. By placing it directly before eu, the sentence strictly means "Only I kept the junk" (nobody else did). If you placed it before the verb—Eu só guardei a velharia inútil—the focus would shift to the action or the object, meaning "I only kept the junk" (I didn't keep the valuable stuff, or I didn't do anything else with it).
Since we normally drop subject pronouns in Portuguese, could I just say Só guardei a velharia inútil?
Not without changing the meaning. While subject pronouns like eu are usually omitted, you must include them when they are the specific target of a focus adverb. If you remove eu, the adverb só automatically attaches to the verb guardei, changing your intended meaning from "Only I kept..." to "I only kept...".
The word for "old junk" here is velharia. How does the suffix -aria work in this word?
The suffix -aria is frequently used to form collective nouns (a group of things) or to indicate a place of business (like padaria for bakery). Here, it attaches to the root of velho (old) to mean "a collection of old things." While it often implies useless "junk" as it does here alongside inútil, in other contexts velharia can respectfully refer to "antiques."