Portuguese grammar, the morphology and syntax of the Portuguese language, is similar to the grammar of most other Romance languages—especially that of Spanish, and even more so to that of Galician. It is a relatively synthetic, fusional language.
Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and articles are moderately inflected: there are two genders (masculine and feminine) and two numbers (singular and plural). The case system of the ancestor language, Latin, has been lost, but personal pronouns are still declined with three main types of forms: subject, object of verb, and object of preposition. Most nouns and many adjectives can take diminutive or augmentative derivational suffixes, and most adjectives can take a so-called "superlative" derivational suffix. Adjectives usually follow the noun.
Verbs are highly inflected: there are three tenses (past, present, future), three moods (indicative, subjunctive, imperative), three aspects (perfective, imperfective, and progressive), two voices (active and passive), and an inflected infinitive. Most perfect and imperfect tenses are synthetic, totaling 11 conjugational paradigms, while all progressive tenses and passive constructions are periphrastic. As in other Romance languages, there is also an impersonal passive construction, with the agent replaced by an indefinite pronoun. Portuguese is basically an SVO language, although SOV syntax may occur with a few object pronouns, and word order is generally not as rigid as in English. It is a null subject language, with a tendency to drop object pronouns as well, in colloquial varieties. It has two copular verbs.
It has a number of grammatical features that distinguish it from most other Romance languages, such as a synthetic pluperfect, a future subjunctive tense, the inflected infinitive, and a present perfect with an iterative sense. A unique feature of Portuguese is mesoclisis, the infixing of clitic pronouns in some verbal forms.
Like most Indo-European languages, including English, Portuguese classifies most of its lexicon into four word classes: verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. These are "open" classes, in the sense that they readily accept new members, by coinage, borrowing, or compounding. Interjections form a smaller open class.
There are also several small closed classes, such as pronouns, prepositions, articles, demonstratives, numerals, conjunctions, and a few grammatically peculiar words such as eis ("here is"; cf. Latin ecce and French voilà), cadê ("where is"), tomara ("let's hope"), and oxalá ("let's hope that").
Within the four main classes there are many semi-regular mechanisms that can be used to derive new words from existing words, sometimes with change of class; for example, veloz ("fast") → velocíssimo ("very fast"), medir ("to measure") → medição ("measurement"), piloto ("pilot") → pilotar ("to pilot"). Finally, there are several phrase embedding mechanisms that allow arbitrarily complex phrases to behave like nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.
Following the general Indo-European pattern, the central element of almost any Portuguese clause is a verb, which may directly connect to one, two, or (rarely) three nouns (or noun-like phrases), called the subject, the object (more specifically, the direct object), and the complement (more specifically, the object complement or objective complement). The most frequent order of these elements in Portuguese is subject–verb–object (SVO, as in examples (1) and (2) below), or, when a complement is present, subject–verb–object-complement (SVOC — examples (3) and (4)):
Any of the three noun elements may be omitted if it can be inferred from the context or from other syntactic clues; but many grammatical rules will still apply as if the omitted part were there.
A clause will often contain a number of adverbs (or adverbial phrases) that modify the meaning of the verb; they may be inserted between the major components of the clause. Additional nouns can be connected to the verb by means of prepositions; the resulting prepositional phrases have an adverbial function. For example:
Portuguese is a null subject language, i.e., a language whose grammar permits and sometimes mandates the omission of an explicit subject.
In Portuguese, the grammatical person of the subject is generally reflected by the inflection of the verb. Sometimes, though an explicit subject is not necessary to form a grammatically correct sentence, one may be stated in order to emphasize its importance. Some sentences, however, do not allow a subject at all and in some other cases an explicit subject would sound awkward or unnatural:
As in other null subject SVO languages, the subject is often postponed, mostly in existential sentences, answers to partial questions and contrast structures:
Portuguese declarative sentences, as in many languages, are the less marked.
Imperative sentences use the imperative mood for the second person. For other grammatical persons and for every negative imperative sentence, the subjunctive is used.
Yes/no questions have the same structure as declarative sentences, and are marked only by a different tonal pattern (mostly a raised tone near the end of the sentence), represented by a question mark («?») in writing. Wh-questions often start with quem ("who"), o que ("what"), qual ("which"), onde ("where"), aonde ("where... to"), quando ("when"), porquê ("why"), etc. Quem, o que and qual can be preceded by any preposition, but in this case o que will most times be replaced by que. In oral language, but often also in writing, these words are followed by the interrogative device é que (literally, "is [it] that"; compare French est-ce que).
Wh-questions sometimes occur without wh-movement, that is, wh-words remain in situ. In this case, o que and porque are to be replaced by their stressed counterparts o quê and porquê'.' (There are also four types of "porquês". When it is the first word in a sentence, comes as "porque"; if it be the last word, "porquê"; if meaning "because", porque; and when it's a noun i.e. meaning "the reason of / in this / about this", hence it comes as "porquê"). For example:
In Brazilian Portuguese, the phrase é que is more often omitted.
Não ("no") is the natural negative answer to yes/no questions. As in Latin, positive answers are usually made with the inflected verb of the question in the appropriate person and number. Portuguese is one of the few Romance languages keeping this Latin peculiarity. The adverbs já ("already"), ainda ("yet"), and também ("too", "also") are used when one of them appears in the question.
The word sim ("yes") may be used for a positive answer, but, if used alone, it may in certain cases sound unnatural or impolite. In Brazilian Portuguese, sim can be used after the verb for emphasis. In European Portuguese, emphasis in answers is added with the duplication of the verb. In both versions of Portuguese, emphasis can also result from syntactical processes that are not restricted to answers, such as the addition of adverbs like muito ("much") or muitíssimo ("very much").
It is also acceptable, though sometimes formal, to use yes before the verb of the question, separated by a pause or, in writing, a comma. The use of sim before the verb does not add emphasis, and may on the contrary be less assertive.
Portuguese has a definite article and an indefinite one, with different forms according to the gender and number of the noun to which they refer:
| singular | plural | meaning | |||
| masculine | feminine | masculine | feminine | ||
| definite article | o | a | os | as | the |
| indefinite article | um | uma | uns | umas | a, an; some |
Unlike some other Romance languages or English, the written form of the Portuguese articles is the same, independently of the next word. The noun after the indefinite article may be elided, in which case the article is equivalent to English "one" (if singular) or "a few ones" (if plural): quero um também ("I want one too"), quero uns maduros ("I want a few ripe ones").
The definite article may appear before a noun in certain contexts where it is not used in English, for example before certain proper nouns, such as country, and organization names:
However:
The article is never used with Portugal, Angola, Cabo Verde, Moçambique and Timor. In general, article usage for proper nouns is largely determined by tradition, and it may vary with dialect.
In many varieties of the language, including all European varieties, personal names are normally preceded by a definite article, a trait which Portuguese shares with Catalan. This is a relatively recent development, which some Brazilian dialects (e.g. those of the Northeast) have not adopted. In those dialects of Portuguese that do regularly use definite articles before proper nouns, the article may be omitted for extra formality, or to show distance in a literary narrative.
However:
Like all western Romance languages, Portuguese does not inflect nouns to indicate their grammatical function, relying instead on the use of more prepositions (including an accusative preposition), phrasal prepositions, pleonastic objects, or on the context or word order. It has fairly regular noun inflection rules to indicate number (singular or plural), and many semi-regular ones to express biological sex or social gender, size, endearment, deprecation, etc. Nouns are classified into two grammatical genders, and adjectives, articles and demonstratives must be inflected to agree with the noun in gender and number.
There are two genders, masculine and feminine, and two numbers, singular and plural. Articles and adjectives are usually inflected to agree in gender and number with the nouns or pronouns they refer to. There are no cases; only personal pronouns are still declined. Diminutive and augmentative forms exist for nouns.
Most adjectives and demonstratives, and all articles must be inflected according to the gender and number of the noun they reference:
The agreement rules apply also to adjectives used with copulas, e.g. o carro é branco ("the car is white") vs. a casa é branca ("the house is white").
As in all Romance languages, the grammatical gender of inanimate entities is quite arbitrary, and often different from that used in sister languages: thus, for example, Portuguese árvore ("tree") and flor ("flower") are feminine, while Spanish árbol and Italian fiore are masculine; Portuguese mar ("sea") and mapa ("map") are masculine, while French mer and mappe are feminine; and so on.
The gender and number of many nouns can be deduced from its ending: the basic pattern is "-o" / "-os" for masculine singular and plural, "-a" / "-as" for feminine. And, indeed, casa ("house"), mala ("suitcase"), pedra ("stone"), and inteligência ("intelligence") are all feminine, while carro ("car"), saco ("bag"), tijolo ("brick"), and aborrecimento ("annoyance") are all masculine. However, the complete rules are quite complex: for instance, nouns ending in -ção are usually feminine, except for augmentatives like bração ("big arm"). And there are many irregular exceptions. For words ending in other letters, there are few rules: flor ("flower"), gente ("folk"), nau ("ship"), maré ("tide") are feminine, amor ("love"), pente ("comb"), pau ("stick"), café ("coffee") are masculine.
The gender of animate beings often matches the biological sex, but there are many exceptions: autoridade ("authority"), testemunha ("witness"), and girafa ("giraffe"), for example, are always feminine regardless of their sex, and so are all respectful treatments such as Vossa Excelência ("Your Excellency"); whereas peixe fêmea ("female fish") is strictly masculine.
On the other hand, the gender of some nouns, as well as of 1st and 2nd person pronouns, is determined semantically by the biological sex of the referent: aquela estudante é nova, mas aquele estudante é velho ("this (female) student is new, but that (male) student is old"; or eu sou brasileiro ("I am Brazilian", said by a man) and eu sou brasileira (the same, said by a woman).
Also, many animate masculine nouns have specific feminine derivative forms to indicate female biological sex: lobo ("wolf" or "male wolf", masculine gender) → loba ("she-wolf", feminine), conde ("count", m.) → condessa ("countess", f.), doutor ("doctor" or "male doctor", m.) → doutora ("female doctor", f.), ator ("actor", m.) → atriz ("actress", f.), etc.. The feminine noun derivations should not be confused with the adjectival gender inflections, which use different (and more regular) rules.
The Portuguese language is abundant in the use of diminutives, which convey the senses of small size, endearment or insignificance. Diminutives are very commonly used in informal language. On the other hand, most uses of diminutives are avoided in written and otherwise formal language.
The most common diminutive endings are -inho and -inha, replacing -o and -a, respectively. Words with the stress on the last syllable generally have -zinho or -zinha added, such as café "coffee" and cafezinho "coffee served as a show of Brazilian hospitality". In writing, a c (but not a ç) becomes qu in some words, like pouco ("few") and pouquinho ("very few"), in order to preserve the [k] pronunciation.
Possible endings other than -inho(a) are:
|
-ito(a), e.g. copo/copito ("glass") |
-ote, e.g. saia/saiote ("skirt") |
-acho, e.g. rio/riacho ("river") |
It is also possible to form a diminutive of a diminutive, e.g. "burriquito" (burro + -ico + -ito).
Portuguese diminutive endings are often used not only with nouns but also with adjectives, e.g. tonto/tontinho ("silly" / "a bit silly"), or verde/verdinho ("green" / "nicely green") and occasionally with adverbs, e.g. depressa/depressinha ("quickly") and some other word classes, e.g. obrigadinho– diminutive for the interjection obrigado "thanks". Even the numeral um (one) can informally become unzinho.
The most common augmentatives are the masculine -ão and the feminine -ona, although there are others, like -aço(a) e.g. mulher/mulheraça ("woman"); or -eirão, e.g. voz/vozeirão ("voice"), less frequently used. Sometimes the masculine augmentative can be applied to a feminine noun, which then becomes grammatically masculine, but with a feminine meaning, e.g. a mulher / o mulherão ("the woman" / "the big woman").
Adjectives normally follow the nouns which they modify. Thus "white house" is casa branca but the reverse order branca casa is possible. Some adjectives like bom ("good"), belo ("nice"), and grande ("great", "big") are often prefixed. Indeed, some of these have rather different meanings depending on position: um grande homem means "a great man", um homem grande means "a big man".
They are inflected for gender and number, and have also a "superlative" inflection, which actually enhances the meaning of the adjective without explicitly comparing it ("lindo", beautiful; "lindíssimo", very beautiful). The actual degrees of comparison are expressed analytically, mostly with the adverb mais "more": mais alto (do) que = "higher than", o mais alto "the highest". However, a few other adjectives (besides mais itself) have suppletive comparative/superlative forms:
| Adjective | Comparative | Superlative (absolut) | Superlative (relative) |
|---|---|---|---|
| bom (good) | melhor (better) | o melhor (the best) | ótimo (very good) |
| mau (bad) | pior (worse) | o pior (the worst) | péssimo (very bad) |
| pequeno (small) | menor (smaller) | o menor (the smallest) | mínimo (very small) |
| grande (big) | maior (bigger) | o maior (the biggest) | máximo (very big) |
The others adjectives follow this example:
| Adjective | Comparative | Superlative (absolut) | Superlative (relative) |
|---|---|---|---|
| belo (pretty) | mais belo (prettier) | o mais belo (the prettiest) | belíssimo (very pretty) |
| caro (expensive) | mais caro (more expensive) | o mais caro (the most expensive) | caríssimo (very expensive) |
The rules for inflecting adjectives for gender and number are the same as those for nouns. There are a few basic patterns, including:
However, there are a few exceptions, such as:
Portuguese prepositions are somewhat similar to those of neighboring Romance languages; but there are some conspicuous differences.
There is no simple correspondence between English and Portuguese prepositions; the following table is a rough approximation:
|
|
The English possessive case has no systematic counterpart in Portuguese (or, for that matter, in any other Romance language except Romanian and Latin). Portuguese generally uses de ("of") to indicate possession or, indeed, any relation (which must be deciphered from the context).
Several prepositions contract with the definite article.
| preposition | article | |||
| o | a | os | as | |
| de | do | da | dos | das |
| em | no | na | nos | nas |
| por | pelo | pela | pelos | pelas |
| a | ao | à | aos | às |
| para | prò1, pro1 | prà1, pra1 | pròs1, pros1 | pràs1, pras1 |
1 colloquial
The contractions in the first four rows (with de, em, por, a) are mandatory in all registers. The grave accent in à / às has phonetic value in Portugal and African countries, but not in Brazil (see Portuguese phonology). In Brazil, the grave accent serves only to indicate the crasis in written text. The contractions in the last row are common in speech, but not used in formal writing. They may, however, appear when transcribing colloquial speech, for example in comic books. In the latter case, the grave accent is often omitted in Brazil, and it is also often mistakenly replaced with an acute accent elsewhere.
The prepositions de and em may also contract with the indefinite article, and with some pronouns that begin with a vowel:
The contractions above are very common in the spoken language, formal or informal, and are also acceptable in formal writing in Portugal. In Brazil, they are avoided in writing, especially those of the preposition de with the indefinite article.
Across clause boundaries, contractions may occur in colloquial speech, but they are not done in writing, for clarity sake:
The English concept of phrasal verb (like "set up", "get by", "pick out", etc.) does not exist in Portuguese: as a rule, prepositions are attached to the noun more strongly than to the verb.
For a list of contracted prepositions in Portuguese, see Wikipedia in Portuguese: Contração gramatical.
Pronouns are often inflected for gender and number, although many have irregular inflections.
Personal pronouns are inflected according to their syntactic role. They have three main types of forms: for the subject, for the object of a verb, and for the object of a preposition. In the third person, a distinction is also made between simple direct objects, simple indirect objects, and reflexive objects.
Possessive pronouns are identical to possessive adjectives. As in other Romance languages, they are inflected to agree with the gender of the possessed being.
Adverbs of place show a three-way distinction between close to the speaker, close to the listener, and far from both:
There seem to be differences in usage between aqui and cá, with the latter being used more often after prepositions: e.g. estamos aqui ("we are here") and vem para cá (lit., "come to here"). Differences also happen in the meaning of ali, lá and acolá (especially, lá seems to be farther than ali), but they are not quite distinct degrees of separation.
Demonstratives have the same three-way distinction as place adverbs:
In colloquial Brazilian Portuguese, esse is often used interchangeably with este when there is no need to make a distinction. This distinction is usually only made in formal writing or by people with more formal education, or simply to emphasize the fact it is near, like in "esta sexta!" ("next Friday!").
The noun after a demonstrative can be elided: quero esse também ("I want that one too"), vendi aqueles ontem ("I sold those yesterday").
Demonstratives form contractions with some prepositions, like the articles: de + este = deste ("of this"), de + esse = desse ("of that"), em + aquilo = naquilo ("in that thing"), a + aquela = àquela ("to that").
Demonstrative adjectives are identical to demonstrative pronouns: cf. Aquele carro "That car" with Aquele "That one."
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:
In terms of agreement, however, these "neuter" words function as masculine: both todo and tudo take masculine adjectives.
As in most Romance languages, the Portuguese verb is usually inflected to agree with the subject's grammatical person (with three values, 1=I/we, 2=you, 3=he/she/it/they) and grammatical number (singular or plural), and to express various attributes of the action, such as time (past, present, future); completed, frustrated, or continuing; subordination and conditionality; command; and more. As a consequence, a regular Portuguese verb stem can take over 50 distinct suffixes. (For comparison, regular French and Italian verbs have about 40 distinct forms.)
Two verbs are used as main copulae, as in some other Romance languages, the verbs ser and estar ("to be"). They developed from Latin SUM and STO, although the infinitive form ser actually comes from SEDERE. Most forms of ser come from SUM (infinitive ESSE), the only exceptions being the indicative future, the subjunctive present and the imperative. Ficar is also used as secondary copula, sometimes being translatable as "to become (to be)" or "to get (to be)" (e.g., Fiquei rico. = "I got rich"), some other times as "to stay" (e.g., Fica aí! = "Stay there!"), some other times even as "to be" (e.g., Coimbra fica na Beira = "Coimbra is in Beira" and Fica quieto! = "Be still!").
The distinction between ser and estar is perhaps a little more of a concept of permanent versus temporary, rather than essence versus state. This makes Portuguese closer to Catalan than to Spanish.
The word meaning "made" is in square brackets here, as it is usually omitted.
The same applies in sentences such as the following, which use ser for the passive voice, with no special exceptions for prohibitions and the like:
Portuguese counts location either as fundamental or not, and accordingly uses ser or ficar and estar:
Note: Questions often include the interrogative structure é que (literally "is that"). The two last examples would probably be uttered as Onde é que é/está/fica...
With adjectives referring to beauty and the like, ser means "to be", and estar means "to look".
As in Spanish, the differentiation between "nature" and "state" makes sense when talking about the states of life and death: Está vivo (He is alive). Está morto (He is dead).
Ser is used with adjectives of fundamental belief (Não sou católico, "I'm not Catholic"), nationality (És português, "You are Portuguese"), sex (É homem, "He's a man"), intelligence (Somos espertos, "We are smart"), etc.
Due to Catholicism being the main religion in most Lusophone countries the use of católico ("Catholic") with estar has a figurative meaning:
With this exception, estar is not used for fundamental belief, nationality, sex, or intelligence. One can nevertheless say Estou abrasileirado. ("I'm Brazilian-influenced." — state) or Estás americanizado. (You are Americanised — state).
The infinitive is used, as in English, to make subordinate noun clauses that express an action at an indefinite time, and possibly with an indefinite or implicit subject, e.g. queremos cantar ("we would like to sing"), cantar é agradável (lit. "to sing is pleasant"). Many of its uses would be translated into English by the "-ing" nominal form, e.g. mesa para cortar ("cutting table"), cantar é bom ("singing is good"), trabalhe sem parar ("work without pausing")
European Portuguese has the distinct feature of preferentially using the infinitive preceded by the preposition "a" in place of the gerund as the typical method of describing continuing action:
The gerund "-ndo" form is still correct in European Portuguese, but relatively rare (although its adverbial uses and the other participle forms are not uncommon). On the other hand, the "a + infinitive" form is virtually nonexistent in Brazil, and considered an improper use in Brazilian Portuguese.
A distinctive trait of Portuguese grammar (shared with Galician and Sardinian) is the existence of infinitive verb forms inflected according to the person and number of the subject:
Depending on the context and intended sense, the personal infinitive may be forbidden, required, or optional.
Personal infinitive sentences may often be used interchangeably with finite subordinate clauses. In these cases, finite clauses are usually associated with the more formal registers of the language.
Verbs are divided into three main conjugation classes according to the ending of their infinitive form, which may be either -ar, -er, or -ir. There is also the irregular verb pôr ("to put") and its prefixed derivatives, which for historical reasons many grammarians still place in the -er conjugation class (it used to be poer). Most stems belong to the -ar conjugation class, which is the only one open to neologisms such as clicar ("to click" with a mouse).
Each conjugation class has its own distinctive set of 50 or so inflection suffixes: cant/ar → cant/ou ("he sang"), vend/er → vend/eu ("he sold"), part/ir → part/iu ("he left"), rep/or → rep/ôs ("he put back") . Some suffixes undergo various regular adjustments depending on the final consonant of the stem, either in pronunciation, in the spelling, or in both. Some verbal inflections also entail a shift in syllable stress: 'canto ("I sing"), can'tamos ("we sing"), canta'rei ("I will sing"). See Portuguese verb conjugation.
There are a couple hundred verbs with some irregular inflections, and about a dozen or so that are very irregular, including the auxiliaries ser ("to be"), haver ("there to be" or "to have"), ter ("to possess", "to have", "there to be" - in Brazilian Portuguese), ir ("to go"), and a few others.
The gerund form of a verb always ends with -ndo. It is used to make compound tenses expressing continuing action, e.g. ele está cantando ("he is singing"), ele estava cantando ("he was singing"); or as an adverb, e.g. ele trabalha cantando ("he works while singing"). It is never inflected for person or number.
In European Portuguese, the gerund is often replaced by the infinitive (preceded by "a") when used to express continuing action.
The participle of regular verbs is used in compound verb tenses, as in ele tinha cantado ("he had sung"). It can also be used as an adjective:, and in this case it is inflected to agree with the noun's gender and number: um hino cantado ("a sung anthem", masculine singular), três árias cantadas ("three sung arias", feminine plural). Some verbs have two distinct forms (one regular, one irregular), for these two uses. Additionally, a few verbs have two different verbal participles, a regular one for the active voice, and an irregular one for the passive voice. An example is the verb matar (to kill): Bruto tinha matado César ("Brutus had killed Cesar"), César foi morto por Bruto ("Cesar was killed by Brutus").
Grammarians usually classify the verbal inflections (i.e. the synthetic verb forms) into the following moods, tenses, and non-finite forms:
The conditional tense is usually called "future of the past" in Brazilian grammars, whereas in Portugal it is usually classified as a separate "conditional mood". Portuguese grammarians call subjunctive "conjuntivo"; Brazilians call it "subjuntivo".
In regular verbs, the personal infinitive is identical to the subjunctive future tense; but they are different in irregular verbs: quando formos ("when we go", subjunctive) versus é melhor irmos ("it is better that we go").
There are also are many compound tenses expressed with inflected forms of the auxiliary verbs ser and estar (variants of "to be"), haver and ter (variants of "to have").
Like all Romance languages, Portuguese has many compound verb tenses, consisting of an auxiliary verb (inflected in any of the above forms) combined with the gerund, participle or infinitive of the principal verb.
The basic auxiliary verbs of Portuguese are ter (originally "to hold", from Latin tenere, but nowadays meaning "to have"), haver ("to have", from Latin habere; tends to be replaced with ter in most constructions), ser ("to be", from Latin esse), estar ("to be", from Latin stare "to stand"), and ir ("to go", Latin ire), which have analogues in most other Romance languages. Thus, for example, "he had spoken" can be translated as ele havia falado or ele tinha falado. Other auxiliary verbs are ser (also "to be", from Latin esse), ficar ("to remain", "to become"), and ir ("to go").
In other Romance languages, compound perfect are constructed with a verb derived from Latin habere. This used to be the case in Portuguese, too, but in recent centuries the verb ter, from Latin tenere, has been steadily overtaking haver, although the latter is still used with some frequency in writing and in formal spoken registers. While ter is used as auxiliary by other Iberian languages, it is much more pervasive in Portuguese. In fact, there has been a general shift from haver, which in Old Portuguese literally meant "to have", towards ter, which used to mean "to hold", but has now taken the meaning of "to have". In colloquial European Portuguese, haver is only used impersonally, with the sense of "there to be", and in spoken Brazilian Portuguese it is replaced with ter even in this case, as in Tem muito peixe no mar "There are plenty of fish in the sea" (although the latter use is not endorsed by official grammar).
Tenses with ter/haver + past participle (composed tenses):
With no inflexion:
In addition to the compound forms for completed past actions, Portuguese also retains a synthetic pluperfect: so ele tinha falado and ele havia falado ("he had spoken") can also be expressed as ele falara. However, the pluperfect is losing ground to the compound forms. While pluperfect forms like falara are generally understood, they are generally limited to regional use (in some regions of Portugal) or written speech. In BP, its use is even less frequent.
The simple past (or pretérito perfeito simples in Portuguese) is widely used, sometimes corresponding to the present perfect of English (this happens in many dialects of American Spanish, too).
A present perfect also exists (normally called pretérito perfeito composto), but it has a very restricted use, denoting an action or a series of actions which began in the past and are expected to continue into the future, but will stop soon. For instance, the meaning of "Tenho tentado falar com ela" may be closer to "I have been trying to talk to her" than to "I have tried to talk to her", in some contexts. This iterative sense of the present perfect is quite exceptional among Romance languages. It seems to be a recent construction, since it only allows the verb ter as auxiliary, never haver, and is absent from Galician.
Portuguese originally constructed progressive tenses with a conjugated form of the verb "to be", followed by the gerund of the main verb, like English: e.g. Eu estou trabalhando "I am working" (cf. also the corresponding Italian phrase: (Io) sto lavorando). However, in European Portuguese an alternative construction has appeared, formed with the preposition a followed by the infinitive of the main verb: e.g. Eu estou a trabalhar. This has replaced the ancient syntax in central and northern Portugal. The gerund may also be replaced with a followed by the infinitive in less common verb phrases, such as Ele ficou lá, trabalhando / Ele ficou lá, a trabalhar "He stayed there, working". However, the construction with the gerund is still found in southern and insular Portugal and in Portuguese literature, and it is the rule in Brazil.
Like in most romance languages, the simple future of the indicative and the conditional are formed by appending the present and the preterit imperfect of the verb haver to the infinitive, respectively. In Portuguese, it can also be used before the verb, together with the proposition de. This is usually limited to oral speech.
Examples:
Sometimes, other tenses of haver are used, though it is infrequent. Example: Quem houver de ficar com a casa, há-de vir para aqui.
The only other tenses commonly used are the conditional/future and their meaning is approximately the same of the present/preterit imperfect described herein.
In EP, a hyphen is put between the monosyllabic forms of haver and de (hei, hás, há, heis and hão).
There are, however, differences of meaning between this construction and the future of the indicative/conditional. The former usually conveys a sense of obligation/necessity (be it logic, circumstantial, of convenience, natural or moral law, ...), duty, certainty or resolution, rather than simple futurity, although that would depend on the context. This is somewhat comparable to the use of shall outside the first person.
Examples:
It has also acquired other meanings - for instance, O que está cá dentro? Dinheiro! O que havia de ser?! could be translated into What is in here? Money! What else?!.
Tenses with ir + infinitive
Tenses with multiple auxiliaries:
It is possible to construct passive variants of clauses with transitive verb and object. The rules for it are basically as in English; namely, the original object becomes the subject; the original subject becomes an adverbial complement with preposition por ("by"); and the verb is replaced by its past participle, preceded by the copular verb ser ("to be") inflected in the original mood and tense:
As in Spanish, there is also a synthetic passive voice, in which the agent is replaced with the pronoun se, when its identity is not relevant:
The same construction extends to some intransitive verbs, in which case the pronoun se denotes the subject (impersonal passive voice):
Portuguese subjunctive mood is used mainly in certain kinds of subordinate clauses. There are three synthetic subjunctive inflections, conventionally called "present", "past" and "future". The rules of usage are rather complex, but on a first approximation:
More on the subjunctive mood in Portuguese can be found at Wikibooks: Variation of the Portuguese Verbs.
Portuguese has also many adjectives which consist of a verbal stem plus an ending in -nte, which are applied to nouns that perform that action; e.g. dançar ("to dance") ~ areia dançante ("dancing sand"), ferver ("to boil") ~ água fervente ("boiling water"), and many others.
However, those adjectives were not always derived from the corresponding Portuguese verbs. Most of them were directly derived from the accusatives of the present participles of Latin verbs, a form which was not retained by Portuguese. Thus, for example, Portuguese mutante ("changing", "varying") does not derive from the Portuguese verb mudar ("to change"), but directly from the Latin accusative present participle mutantem ("changing"). On the other hand, those pairs of words were eventually generalized by Portuguese speakers into a derivation rule, that is somewhat irregular and defective but still productive. So, for example, within the last 500 years we had the derivation pï'poka (Tupi for "to pop the skin") → pipoca (Portuguese for "popcorn") → pipocar ("to pop up all over") → pipocante ("popping up all over").
Similar processes resulted in many other semi-regular derivation rules that turn verbs into words of other classes. For example,
The latter rule is quite productive, to the point that the pervasive -ção ending (derived from Latin -tione) is the most visually striking feature of written Portuguese.
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