Spanish grammar

Spanish is a grammatically inflected language, which means that many words are modified ("marked") in small ways, usually at the end, according to their changing functions. Verbs are marked for tense, aspect, mood, person, and number (resulting in up to fifty conjugated forms per verb). Nouns follow a two-gender system and are marked for number. Personal pronouns are inflected for person, number, gender (including a residual neuter), and a very reduced case system; the Spanish pronominal system represents a simplification of the ancestral Latin system.

thumb|130px|right|Frontispiece of the Grammatica Nebrissensis

Spanish was the first of the European vernaculars to have a grammar treatise, ', published in 1492 by the Andalusian philologist Antonio de Nebrija and presented to Queen Isabella of Castile at Salamanca.

The (RAE, Royal Spanish Academy) traditionally dictates the normative rules of the Spanish language, as well as its orthography.

Differences between formal varieties of Peninsular and American Spanish are remarkably few, and someone who has learned the language in one area will generally have no difficulties of communication in the other; however, pronunciation does vary, as well as grammar and vocabulary.

Recently published comprehensive Spanish reference grammars in English include , , and .

Verbs

Every Spanish verb belongs to one of three form classes, characterized by the infinitive ending: -ar, -er, or -ir—sometimes called the first, second, and third conjugations, respectively.

A Spanish verb has nine indicative tenses with more-or-less direct English equivalents: the present tense ('I walk'), the preterite ('I walked'), the imperfect ('I was walking' or 'I used to walk'), the present perfect ('I have walked'), the past perfect —also called the pluperfect— ('I had walked'), the future ('I will walk'), the future perfect ('I will have walked'), the conditional simple ('I would walk') and the conditional perfect ('I would have walked').

In most dialects, each tense has six potential forms, varying for first, second, or third person and for singular or plural number. In the second person, Spanish maintains the so-called "T–V distinction" between familiar and formal modes of address. The formal second-person pronouns (, ) take third-person verb forms.

The second-person familiar plural is expressed in most of Spain with the pronoun and its characteristic verb forms (e.g., 'you eat'), while in Latin American Spanish it merges with the formal second-person plural (e.g., ). Thus, is used as both the formal and familiar second-person pronoun in Latin America.

In many areas of Latin America (especially Central America and southern South America), the second-person familiar singular pronoun is replaced by , which frequently requires its own characteristic verb forms, especially in the present indicative, where the endings are , , and for , , verbs, respectively. (See "".)

In the tables of paradigms below, the (optional) subject pronouns appear in parentheses.

Present indicative

The present indicative is used to express actions or states of being in a present time frame. For example:

(I am tall.) (Subject pronoun not required and not routinely used.)
(She sings in the club.)
(We all live in a yellow submarine.)
([It] is half past ten.)

{|class="wikitable"

|+Present indicative forms of the regular verb ('to speak')

!Singular

!Plural

!First person

|||

!Second person familiar

|<br />||

!Second person formal

|||

!Third person

|||

{|class="wikitable"

|+Present indicative forms of the regular verb ('to eat')

!Singular

!Plural

!First person

|||

!Second person familiar

|<br/>||

!Second person formal

|||

!Third person

|||

{|class="wikitable"

|+Present indicative forms of the regular verb ('to live')

!Singular

!Plural

!First person

|||

!Second person familiar

|<br/>||

!Second person formal

|||

!Third person

|||

Past tenses

Spanish has a number of verb tenses used to express actions or states of being in a past time frame. The two that are "simple" in form (formed with a single word, rather than being compound verbs) are the preterite and the imperfect.

Preterite

The preterite is used to express actions or events that took place in the past, and which were instantaneous or are viewed as completed. For example:

(She died yesterday.)
(Pablo turned the lights off.)
(I ate the rice.)
(You had your hair cut. Lit. "You cut yourself the hair.")

{|class="wikitable"

|+Preterite forms of the regular verb ('to speak')

!Singular

!Plural

!First person

|||

!Second person familiar

|||

!Second person formal

|||

!Third person

|||

{|class="wikitable"

|+Preterite forms of the regular verb ('to eat')

!Singular

!Plural

!First person

|||

!Second person familiar

|||

!Second person formal

|||

!Third person

|||

{|class="wikitable"

|+Preterite forms of the regular verb ('to live')

!Singular

!Plural

!First person

|||

!Second person familiar

|||

!Second person formal

|||

!Third person

|||

Note that (1) for and verbs (but not ), the first-person plural form is the same as that of the present indicative; and (2) and verbs share the same set of endings.

Imperfect or "copretérito"

The imperfect expresses actions or states that are viewed as ongoing in the past. For example:

(I was/used to be funny in the past.)
(You ate a lot. Literally, this sentence is saying "You used to eat a lot", saying that in the past, the person being referred to had a characteristic of "eating a lot.")
(They were listening to the radio.)

All three of the sentences above describe "non-instantaneous" actions that are viewed as continuing in the past. The characteristic in the first sentence and the action in the second were continuous, not instantaneous occurrences. In the third sentence, the speaker focuses on the action in progress, not on its beginning or end.

{|class="wikitable"

|+Imperfect forms of the regular verb ('to speak')

!Singular

!Plural

!First person

|||

!Second person familiar

|||

!Second person formal

|||

!Third person

|||

{|class="wikitable"

|+Imperfect forms of the regular verb ('to eat')

!Singular

!Plural

!First person

|||

!Second person familiar

|||

!Second person formal

|||

!Third person

|||

{|class="wikitable"

|+Imperfect forms of the regular verb ('to live')

!Singular

!Plural

!First person

|||

!Second person familiar

|||

!Second person formal

|||

!Third person

|||

Note that (1) for all verbs in the imperfect, the first- and third-person singular share the same form; and (2) and verbs share the same set of endings.

Using preterite and imperfect together

The preterite and the imperfect can be combined in the same sentence to express the occurrence of an event in one clause during an action or state expressed in another clause. For example:

(They were listening to the radio when they heard a noise outside.)
(I was in my room when you came in.)
(It was a very peaceful day when that happened.)

In all three cases, an event or completed action interrupts an ongoing state or action. For example, in the second sentence, the speaker states that he was in his room (expressed through the imperfect to reflect the ongoing or unfinished state of being there) when the other person "interrupted" that state by entering (expressed through the preterite to suggest a completed action).

Present progressive and imperfect progressive

The present and imperfect progressive both are used to express ongoing, progressive action in the present and past, respectively. For example:

(I am doing my homework.)
(We are studying.)
(I was listening to the radio.)
(He was cleaning his room.)

The present progressive is formed by first conjugating the verb or , depending on context, to agree with the subject, and then attaching a gerund of the verb that follows. The past (imperfect) progressive simply requires the or to be conjugated, depending on context, in imperfect, with respect to the subject.

Forming gerunds

To form the gerund of an verb, replace the of the infinitive with ;

e.g. , , → , , .

For or verbs, replace the or ending with ;

e.g. , , → , , (note that undergoes the stem vowel change that is typical of verbs).

In verbs (and some -ir verbs, like disminuir) whose stem ends with a vowel, the of the ending is replaced by : e.g. , , → , , .

In verbs whose stem ends with —such as and —the stem vowel is raised to (as is typical of verbs), and this merges with the of the ending; e.g. , → , .

Subjunctive

The subjunctive of a verb is used to express certain connotations in sentences such as a wish or desire, a demand, an emotion, uncertainty, or doubt.

Present subjunctive

Normally, a verb would be conjugated in the present indicative to indicate an event in the present frame of time.

(I am very ambitious.)
(Marta brings the food.)

If the sentence expresses a desire, demand, or emotion, or something similar, in the present tense, the subjunctive is used.

(I want you to be very ambitious. Literally, I want that you be very ambitious.)
(I am happy that Marta brings the food.)
(It is a shame that you arrive late.)

The subjunctive is also used to convey doubt, denial, or uncertainty.

(I search for a friend who will be likable./I search for a likable friend.)
(There are no authors who write that.)
(It is possible that she knows a lot.)
(It does not seem that they have much money.)

In the first two examples, the ideally likable friend has not yet been found and remains an uncertainty, and authors "who write that" are not known to exist. In the third, possibility is not certainty, but rather a conjecture, and the last expresses clear doubt. Thus, subjunctive is used.

Some of the phrases and verbs that require sentences to have subjunctive formation include:

Some phrases that require the indicative instead, because they express certainty, include:

To form the first-person singular subjunctive, first take the present indicative first-person singular () form of a verb. For example, the verbs and (To talk, to eat, to live) → Then, replace the ending with the "opposite ending". This is done in the following way: if the verb is an or verb such as or replace the ending with an : i.e., If the verb is an verb such as or replace the ending with an : i.e., This forms the first-person conjugation. The other conjugations work similarly, as follows:

Since the forms are derived from , the following would be expected (and used in Central America):

However, the Royal Spanish Academy, following Argentinian usage, recommends using the forms:

Imperfect subjunctive

Today, the two forms of the imperfect subjunctive – for example, "" and "", from "" – are largely interchangeable.* The form derives (as in most Romance languages) from the Latin pluperfect subjunctive, while the form derives from the Latin pluperfect indicative. The use of one or the other is largely a matter of personal taste and dialect. Many only use the forms in speech, but vary between the two in writing. Many may spontaneously use either, or even prefer the rarer forms. The imperfect subjunctive is formed for basically the same reasons as the present subjunctive, but is used for other tenses and time frames.

Nouns

In Spanish, as in other Romance languages, all nouns belong to one of two genders, "masculine" or "feminine", and many adjectives change their form to agree in gender with the noun they modify. For most nouns that refer to persons, grammatical gender matches biological gender.

Adjectives

Spanish generally uses adjectives in a similar way to English and most other Indo-European languages. However, there are three key differences between English and Spanish adjectives.

In Spanish, adjectives usually go after the noun they modify. The exception is when the writer/speaker is being slightly emphatic, or even poetic, about a particular quality of an object (rather than the mundane use of using the quality to specify which particular object they are referring to).
could either mean that there are many red houses in the world but I wish to talk about the one that I happen to own, or that I have many houses but am referring to the red one. = My house, which is red.
means that I am stressing how red my particular house is (probably the only house I have). = My house, which is obviously red. Another way of thinking of it is that this makes the house red at declaration, whereas Spanish typically defines a house and makes it red later.
In Spanish, adjectives agree with what they refer to in terms of both plurality (singular/plural) and grammatical gender (masculine/feminine). For example, (cup) is feminine, so "the red cup" is , but (glass) is masculine, so "the red glass" is .
In Spanish, it is perfectly normal to let an adjective stand in for a noun or pronoun—with (where people are involved) no implication of condescension or rudeness. For example, means "the tall ones" or "the tall men". means "the big one" or "the big man".

Determiners

Spanish uses determiners in a similar way to English. The main difference is that they inflect for both number (singular/plural) and gender (masculine/feminine). Common determiners include ("the"), ("a"), ("this"), ("much, a lot"), ("some").

Pronouns

Spanish pronouns fall into the same broad categories as English pronouns do: personal, demonstrative, interrogative, relative, and possessive. The personal pronouns—those that vary in form according to whether they represent the first, second, or third grammatical person—include a variety of second-person forms that differ not only according to number (singular or plural), but also according to formality or the social relation between speakers. Additionally, these second-person forms vary according to geographical region. Because the form of a conjugated verb reflects the person and number of its subject, subject pronouns are usually omitted, except where they are felt to be needed for emphasis or disambiguation.

Adverbs

Spanish adverbs work much like their English counterparts, e.g. ("very"), ("a little"), ("far"), ("much, a lot"), ("almost"), etc. To form adverbs from adjectives, the adverbial suffix is added to the feminine singular of the adjective, whether or not it differs from the masculine singular. Thus:

("clear", m. sg.) → (f. sg.) → ("clearly")
("fast, rapid", m. sg.) → (f. sg.) → ("fast, quickly, rapidly")
("natural", m. & f. sg.) → ("naturally")
("sad", m. & f. sg.) → ("sadly")
("bold", m. & f. sg.) → ("boldly")

As in English, some adverbs are identical to their adjectival counterparts. Thus words such as ("early"), ("slow"), and ("deep") can also mean "early" (as in English, as in "He arrived early") "slowly", and "deeply", respectively. However, adverbs are invariable, meaning they are not amended for number or gender the way most adjectives are.

In series of consecutive adverbs that would each end in on their own, the is dropped from all but the final adverb, and the others are left as if they were adjectives in the feminine singular. Thus:

= "quickly and easily"
= "slowly, carefully, and skillfully"
= "partially or completely"

There are also a wide variety of adverbial phrases in Spanish, such as ("often"), ("everywhere"), ("suddenly"), ("finally"), and ("however, nevertheless").

The adjectives ("good") and ("bad") have irregular adverbial forms: ("well") and ("badly"), respectively.

As with adjectives, the comparative of an adverb is formed by placing ("more") or ("fewer/less") before the adverb, in most cases. ("better") is the comparative for both the adjective ("good") and the adverb ("well"), and ("worse") is the comparative for both ("bad") and ("badly"). Thus, ("earlier"), ("faster, quicker, more quickly"), ("less interestingly"), etc. The superlative is formed by placing the neuter article before the comparative, although it is generally used with an additional qualifier phrase such as ("that you can") or ("of all"): ("as quickly as you can", lit. "the most quickly that you can"), ("most interestingly of all"), ("the least clearly of them"), etc.

Prepositions

Spanish has a relatively large number of prepositions, and does not use postpositions. The following list is traditionally cited:

Recently, two new prepositions have been added: and , usually placed at the end to preserve the list (which is usually learnt by heart by Spanish students).

This list includes two archaic prepositions ( and ), but leaves out two new Latinisms ( and ) as well as a large number of very important compound prepositions.

Prepositions in Spanish do not change a verb's meaning as they do in English. For example, to translate "run out of water", "run up a bill", "run down a pedestrian", and "run in a thief" into Spanish requires completely different verbs, and not simply the use of ("run") plus the corresponding Spanish preposition. This is more due to the nature of English phrasal verbs rather than an inherent function of Spanish verbs or prepositions.

Conjunctions

The Spanish conjunctions ('and') and ('or') alter their form in both spoken and written language to and respectively when followed by an identical vowel sound. Thus, ('father and son'), ('Ferdinand and Isabella'), ('subject or object'), ('vertical or horizontal').

The change does not take place before the of a diphthong, as in ('steel and iron'). Nor does the conjunction change when initial in a question (where it serves to introduce or reintroduce a name as a topic, rather than to link one element with another), as in ('What about Inés?').

When the conjunction appears between numerals, it was usually spelled with an accent mark (), in order to distinguish it from zero (0); thus, ('2 or 3') in contrast to ('two-hundred three'). Nowadays only is standard.

== Syntax and syntactic variation ==

Order of constituents

Spanish unmarked word order for affirmative declarative sentences is subject-verb-object (SVO); however, as in other Romance languages, in practice, word order is more variable, with topicalization and focus being the primary factors in the selection of a particular order. Verb-subject-object (VSO), verb-object-subject (VOS), and object-verb-subject (OVS) are also relatively common, while other orders are very uncommon outside of poetry.

Thus, to simply say, "My friend wrote the book", one would say (SVO):

Although bare VSO and VOS are somewhat rare in declarative independent clauses, they are quite common in sentences in which something other than the subject or direct object functions as the focus. For example:

or = "A few years ago, my friend wrote a book"
or = "Yesterday, my mother saw my friend and asked him about his book"

In many dependent clauses, the verb is placed before the subject (and thus often VSO or VOS) to avoid placing the verb in final position:

, but rarely = "This is the book that my friend wrote"

A sentence in which the direct object is the topic or "theme" (old information), while the subject is part of the comment, or "rheme" (new information), often assumes OVS order. In this case the direct object noun phrase is supplemented with the appropriate direct object pronoun; for example:

Because subject pronouns are often dropped, one will often see sentences with a verb and direct object but no explicitly stated subject.

In questions, VSO is usual (though not obligatory):

= "Did my friend write the book?"

Yes/no questions, regardless of constituent order, are generally distinguished from declarative sentences by context and intonation.

Cleft sentences

A cleft sentence is one formed with the copular verb (generally with a dummy pronoun like "it" as its subject), plus a word that "cleaves" the sentence, plus a subordinate clause. They are often used to put emphasis on a part of the sentence. Here are some examples of English sentences and their cleft versions:

"I did it." → "It was I who did it" or more colloquially "It was me that did it."
"You will stop smoking through willpower." → "It is through willpower that you will stop smoking."

Spanish does not usually employ such a structure in simple sentences. The translations of sentences like these can be readily analyzed as being normal sentences containing relative pronouns. Spanish is capable of expressing such concepts without a special cleft structure thanks to its flexible word order.

For example, if we translate a cleft sentence such as "It was Juan who lost the keys", we get Whereas the English sentence uses a special structure, the Spanish one does not. The verb has no dummy subject, and the pronoun is not a cleaver but a nominalising relative pronoun meaning "the [male] one that". Provided we respect the pairings of "" and "", we can play with the word order of the Spanish sentence without affecting its structure – although each permutation would, to a native speaker, give a subtly different shading of emphasis.

For example, we can say ("Juan was the one who lost the keys") or ("The one who lost the keys was Juan"). As can be seen from the translations, if this word order is chosen, English stops using the cleft structure (there is no more dummy "it" and a nominalising relative is used instead of the cleaving word) whilst in Spanish no words have changed.

Here are some examples of such sentences:

= "It was John who lost the keys"
= "It is only three days that you have left"
= "It will be I who tells him"
= lit. "There are few who come and stay"

Note that it is ungrammatical to try to use just to cleave such sentences as in English, but using in singular or in plural is grammatical.

* (incorrect)
(correct)

When prepositions come into play, things become complicated. Structures unambiguously identifiable as cleft sentences are used. The verb introduces the stressed element and then there is a nominaliser. Both of these are preceded by the relevant preposition. For example:

= "It was me to whom he gave permission", lit. "It was to me to whom he gave permission"
= "It is us for whom this was made", lit. "It is for us for whom this was made"
= "That is why I did it", more literally: "It is because of that that I did it", or completely literally: "It is because of that because of which I did it"
= "It is this way that it must be done", lit. "It is this way how it must be done" ( replaces longer expressions such as )

This structure is quite wordy, and is therefore often avoided by not using a cleft sentence at all. Emphasis is conveyed just by word order and stressing with the voice (indicated here within bolding):

= "He gave permission to me"
= "This was done for us"
= "I did it because of that"
= "It must be done this way"

In casual speech, the complex cleaving pronoun is often reduced to , just as it is reduced to "that" in English.

(preferred: )
(preferred: )

In the singular, the subordinate clause can agree either with the relative pronoun or with the subject of the main sentence, though the latter is seldom used. However, in the plural, only agreement with the subject of the main sentence is acceptable. Therefore:

;Singular

= "I was the one who drank it" (agreement with subject of main sentence)
(preferred form with same meaning, agreement with )
= "I am the one who knows" (agreement with subject of main sentence)
= (preferred form with same meaning, agreement with )

;Plural

= "We are the only ones who do not have even a cent to bet" (agreement with subject of main sentence) (from dialogue of the Gabriel García Márquez novel )
= "You girls are the ones who know" (agreement with subject of main sentence)

Clitic se

Clitics are a necessary part of syntactic form and representation in Spanish. Defining a specific syntactic role of a clitic in Spanish is cumbersome, as they are used in a variety of ways. Syntactic approaches to this common element have attempted to find a universal way of handling them. For example, all languages are capable of having subjects, objects, and verbs, so a universal methodology to handling word order, whether SVO, VSO, or OSV, is imperative for a multilingual and universal syntactic representation system to work. As such, there has been great discussion and investigation in the literature for that particular word order element. Clitics, on the other hand, have been given relatively less thought and investigation, particularly an inquiry into an uncomplicated approach in their syntactic distribution. Clitics offer a myriad of functional roles depending upon the language in question, further complicating the situation.

Spanish is a diasporic language which also experiences diachronic variation. While Spanish is said to generally have flexible or "free" word order, others such as Pountain assert that the syntax is heavily influenced by topic and comment identification.

Historical approaches

The syntactic role of the clitic and its forms in Spanish has undergone much debate within the research with no obvious conclusion. Part of the difficulty stems from the variable role and its other forms play with regard to the contextual grammar. Some syntacticians have aptly termed the clitic as "paradigmatic" in reference to the complexity and variance of features and functions. It is utilized in a variety of Spanish grammar contexts, including the following forms: reflexive pronoun, reciprocal pronoun, replacive pronoun (direct and indirect object), intrinsic pronoun (without the pronoun, the structure is ungrammatical), "derivational" pronoun, and "stylistic" pronoun. Further, is used in addition with certain intransitive verbs, in reflexive-passive constructions, and in impersonal constructions.

As a class, clitics have such a variety of grammatical functions that they are not always pronominal, anaphoric or related to verbal arguments. Syntactically, they are most often found in non-argument benefactive theta-roles, in formation of passive, in formation of middle voice, and with a completive meaning. They can take the form of either phrasal constituents or words with an independent syntactic structure.

Despite being grammatically diverse in Spanish grammatical application, it does certain specific roles. Zagona, author of a comprehensive Spanish syntax textbook, has extensively outlined form and function in depth, stating that:

[sic] the only true subject clitic in Spanish is "impersonal" "one".

The impersonal form is clearly defined as it does not double and uses only the third person singular verb form as in the impersonal form example here:

Zagona also notes that, generally, oblique phrases do not allow for a double clitic, yet some verbs of motion are formed with double clitics:

With continuous verbs, the clitic can precede the auxiliary verb or follow the participle, as in (1a) and (1b):

The clitic cannot follow a past or passive participle, as in (2b):