Grammar and Syntax
What the section tests
Grammar and Syntax checks control of agreement, tense and mood, pronoun placement, prepositions, and clause linking in standard Portuguese. Questions may be discrete sentences or short connected texts; the exam rewards standard written norms while recognising educated variants.
Core rules
- Future subjunctive appears in temporal and conditional clauses about the future: Quando chegar, aviso você; Se fizer sol, saímos. Do not use present indicative after quando for future events.
- Personal infinitive is common when the subject is explicit or differs: É importante eles saberem a verdade; Antes de sairmos... It is not a tense; it is an infinitive with person.
- Clitic placement: proclisis is normal after negation, adverbs, que, and many subordinators: Não me disse; Espero que lhe telefonem. Enclisis follows a positive main verb in European formal style: Disse-me.
- Haver in the sense there is/are is impersonal: Havia muitos problemas, never haviam.
- Ser vs estar: ser for identity or characteristic; estar for state or location.
Worked example
Complete: Se eu ___ amanhã, trago os documentos. Answer: vier (future subjunctive of vir), not venho. Reasoning: se introduces a future hypothesis; Portuguese uses future subjunctive in the subordinate clause and present indicative in the main. Venho would state a present habit or fact.
Traps that cost marks
- Fazem dez anos - correct is Faz dez anos (impersonal).
- Houveram for there were - use houve.
- Mixing tu with third-person object pronouns without variant awareness.
- Overusing enclisis in Brazilian informal writing or proclisis in European formal writing.