Spanish grammar

Spanish grammar is the grammar of the Spanish language (español, castellano), which is a Romance language that originated in north central Spain and is spoken today throughout Spain, some twenty countries in the Americas, and Equatorial Guinea.

Spanish is an inflected language. The verbs are potentially marked for tense, aspect, mood, person, and number (resulting in some fifty conjugated forms per verb). The nouns form a two-gender system and are marked for number. Pronouns can be inflected for person, number, gender (including a residual neuter), and case, although the Spanish pronominal system represents a simplification of the ancestral Latin system.

Spanish was the first of the European vernaculars to have a grammar treatise, Gramática de la lengua castellana, written in 1492 by the Andalusian linguist Antonio de Nebrija and presented to Isabella of Castile at Salamanca.[1]

The Real Academia Española (RAE) traditionally dictates the normative rules of the Spanish language, as well as its orthography.

Formal differences between Peninsular and American Spanish are remarkably few, and someone who has learned the dialect of one area will have no difficulties using reasonably formal speech in the other; however, pronunciation does vary, as well as grammar and vocabulary.

Recently published comprehensive Spanish reference grammars in English include DeBruyne (1996), Butt & Benjamin (2004), and Batchelor & San José (2010).

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 verb tense has potentially six 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 (usted, ustedes) take third-person verb forms.

The second-person familiar plural is expressed in most of Spain with the pronoun vosotros and its characteristic verb forms (e.g. coméis 'you (plural) eat'), while in Latin American Spanish that part of the paradigm is merged with the formal second-person plural (e.g. ustedes comen). In other words, in Latin America, the familiar/formal distinction in the second person is not maintained in the plural.

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

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:

Present indicative forms of the regular -ar verb hablar ('to speak'):

Present indicative of

hablar

 Singular Plural
First person(yo) hablo(nosotros/-as) hablamos
Second person familiar(tú) hablas(vosotros/-as) habláis
Second person familiar(vos) hablás/habláis 
Second person formal(usted) habla(ustedes) hablan
Third person(él, ella) habla(ellos, ellas) hablan

Present indicative forms of the regular -er verb comer ('to eat'):

Present indicative of

comer

 Singular Plural
First person(yo) como(nosotros/-as) comemos
Second person familiar(tú) comes(vosotros/-as) coméis
Second person familiar(vos) comés/coméis 
Second person formal(usted) come(ustedes) comen
Third person(él, ella) come(ellos, ellas) comen

Present indicative forms of the regular -ir verb vivir ('to live'):

Present indicative of

vivir

 Singular Plural
First person(yo) vivo(nosotros/-as) vivimos
Second person familiar(tú) vives(vosotros/-as) vivís
Second person familiar(vos) vivís 
Second person formal(usted) vive(ustedes) viven
Third person(él, ella) vive(ellos, ellas) viven

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:

Preterite forms of the regular -ar verb hablar ('to speak'):

Preterite of hablar Singular Plural
First person(yo) hablé(nosotros/-as) hablamos
Second person familiar(tú, vos) hablaste(vosotros/-as) hablasteis
Second person formal(usted) habló(ustedes) hablaron
Third person(él, ella) habló(ellos, ellas) hablaron

Preterite forms of the regular -er verb comer ('to eat'):

Preterite of comer Singular Plural
First person(yo) comí(nosotros/-as) comimos
Second person familiar(tú, vos) comiste(vosotros/-as) comisteis
Second person formal(usted) comió(ustedes) comieron
Third person(él, ella) comió(ellos, ellas) comieron

Preterite forms of the regular -ir verb vivir ('to live'):

Preterite of vivir Singular Plural
First person(yo) viví(nosotros/-as) vivimos
Second person familiar(tú, vos) viviste(vosotros/-as) vivisteis
Second person formal(usted) vivió(ustedes) vivieron
Third person(él, ella) vivió(ellos, ellas) vivieron

Note that (1) for -ar and -ir verbs (but not -er), the first-person plural form is the same as that of the present indicative; and (2) -er and -ir 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:

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.

Imperfect forms of the regular -ar verb hablar ('to speak'):

Imperfect of hablar Singular Plural
First person(yo) hablaba(nosotros/-as) hablábamos
Second person familiar(tú, vos) hablabas(vosotros/-as) hablabais
Second person formal(usted) hablaba(ustedes) hablaban
Third person(él, ella) hablaba(ellos, ellas) hablaban

Imperfect forms of the regular -er verb comer ('to eat'):

Imperfect of comer Singular Plural
First person(yo) comía(nosotros/-as) comíamos
Second person familiar(tú, vos) comías(vosotros/-as) comíais
Second person formal(usted) comía(ustedes) comían
Third person(él, ella) comía(ellos, ellas) comían

Imperfect forms of the regular -ir verb vivir ('to live'):

Imperfect of vivir Singular Plural
First person(yo) vivía(nosotros/-as) vivíamos
Second person familiar(tú, vos) vivías(vosotros/-as) vivíais
Second person formal(usted) vivía(ustedes) vivían
Third person(él, ella) vivía(ellos, ellas) vivían

Note that (1) for all verbs in the imperfect, the first- and third-person singular share the same form; and (2) -er and -ir 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:

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:

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

Forming gerunds

To form gerunds in an -ar verb, replace the -ar in the infinitive with -ando i.e.: jugar, hablar, caminar --> jugando, hablando, caminando For -er, or -ir verbs, replace the -er or -ir ending with -iendo i.e.: comer, escribir, dormir --> comiendo, escribiendo, durmiendo - note that dormir also has a stem change, since it is an irregular verb. Verbs that end with two vowels and a consonant such as leer, traer, creer have a special exception: i.e.: leer, traer, creer --> leyendo, trayendo, creyendo Verbs that end with -eir, such as reír and sonreír have yet another exception i.e.: reír, freír --> riendo, friendo

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.

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

Literally, the sentence above is saying I want that you be very ambitious

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

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 subjunctive, first take the present indicative first-person ('yo') form of a verb. For example, the verbs hablar, comer, and escribir (To talk, to eat, to write) --> Yo hablo, yo como, yo escribo Then, replace the ending 'o' with the "opposite ending". The way this works is in the following: If the verb is an -er or -ir verb such as comer, poder, escribir, or compartir, replace the ending o with an 'a' i.e. : Yo como; yo puedo; yo escribo --> Yo coma; yo pueda; yo escriba If the verb is an -ar verb such as caminar, or hablar, replace the ending o with an 'e' i.e. : Yo hablo; yo camino --> Yo hable, yo camine This forms the first-person conjugation. The others are as follows:

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

However, the Spanish Royal Academy, based in Argentinian usage recommends to use the same forms used for tú:

Imperfect subjunctive

Today, the two forms of the imperfect subjunctive are largely interchangeable.* The "-se" form derives (as in most Romance languages) from the Latin pluperfect subjunctive, while the "-ra" 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 -ra forms in speech, but vary between the two in writing. Many may spontaneously use either, or even prefer the rarer -se 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

Spanish has nouns of two genders, masculine and feminine.

Adjectives

Main article: Spanish 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.

Determiners

Main article: Spanish determiners

Spanish uses determiners in a similar way to English. The main difference is that they "agree" with what they refer to in terms of both number (singular/plural) and gender (masculine/feminine).

Articles

Definite articles: equivalent to "the". Indefinite articles: equivalent to "a/an, some."

ARTICLESDefinite Indefinite
SingularPluralSingularPlural
Masculineellosununos
Femininelalasunaunas
Neuterlo—uno—

The "neuter article" lo is used before a masculine singular adjective to form an expression equivalent to an abstract noun, e.g. lo interesante 'the interesting thing, the interesting part' (Butt & Benjamin (2004), §7.2.1; DeBruyne (1996), §64). Lo may also be used adverbially before an adjective that shows agreement with a noun, being equivalent to the relative adverb 'how', as in lo buenas que son 'how good they (f.pl.) are' (Butt & Benjamin (2004), §7.2.2; DeBruyne (1996), §69).

When the article el follows either of the prepositions a or de, the sequence of two words forms a contraction, al ('to the') or del ('of the, from the') respectively. Examples: Vamos al parque ('We're going to the park'). Él regresa del cine ('He returns from the movie theater'). One never says a el or de el in Spanish.

The feminine singular definite article la is replaced by el when directly before a noun that begins with a stressed [a] sound (with or without silent h). Thus el agua, el hambre. The noun remains feminine, as shown by el agua fría. Likewise, the feminine indefinite article una is usually replaced by un in the same circumstances, thus un águila mexicana. When these words are in plural, the feminine articles are used. Example: el agua, las aguas.

Demonstratives

Spanish has three kinds of demonstrative, whose use depends on the distance between the speaker and the indicated thing/person. The demonstrative equates to the English terms "this" and "that", although in Spanish the word used must agree for number and gender.

DEMONSTRATIVES Proximal Medial Distal
Masculine singularesteeseaquel
Masculine pluralestosesosaquellos
Feminine singularestaesaaquella
Feminine pluralestasesasaquellas
Neuter singularestoesoaquello

NOTE: When standing before the noun they qualify — i.e. when used as adjectives — demonstratives never take an accent: esta casa (this house), esos días (those days).

But demonstratives may also stand on their own, instead of the noun they refer to — i.e. as demonstrative pronouns. In that case, they usually carry a written accent: Quiero éste (I want this one).

Neuter demonstratives have the meaning of "this (or that) thing, concept or idea": Eso está bien (That is okay). In certain cases, neuter demonstratives can convey a pejorative connotation: Quita eso de ahí (Take that out of there).

Neuter demonstratives, because of their use, are never used as adjectives, which makes it unnecessary for them ever to take an accent. Moreover, for their indefinite meaning they do not have plural forms.

Possessive

The possessive words agree in gender and number with the thing possessed. The possessive pronoun is formed by putting the agreeing definite article before the "long form" of the possessive adjective. Each cell in the table below shows the indicated adjective, followed by the corresponding pronoun. When the possessor is usted or ustedes, the third-person (possessor) form is used.

POSSESSIVES 1st-person singular (possessor) 2nd-person singular (possessor) 3rd-person singular (possessor) 1st-person plural (possessors) 2nd-person plural (possessors) 3rd-person plural (possessors)
Masculine singular
(thing possessed)		mi,
el mío		tu,
el tuyo		su,
el suyo 		nuestro,
el nuestro		vuestro,
el vuestro		su,
el suyo
Masculine plural (things possessed)mis,
los míos		tus,
los tuyos		sus,
los suyos		nuestros,
los nuestros		vuestros,
los vuestros		sus,
los suyos
Feminine singular
(thing possessed)		mi,
la mía		tu,
la tuya		su,
la suya		nuestra,
la nuestra		vuestra,
la vuestra		su,
la suya
Feminine plural
(things possessed)		mis,
las mías		tus,
las tuyas		sus,
las suyas		nuestras,
las nuestras		vuestras,
las vuestras		sus,
las suyas

Notice particularly that the gender here refers to that of the thing possessed, rather than to the possessor. Therefore, if a man has a house (Spanish "casa", which is a feminine noun) we can say that "La casa es suya" (The house is his), with a feminine possessive, according to the gender of the object this man possesses.

Similarly, if a woman has a dog (in Spanish, "perro", a masculine noun), then we can say that "El perro es suyo" (The dog is hers), with a masculine possessive to agree with the noun "perro".

Also note that if a noun is used with the long form, the noun goes between the article and possessor. For example, one could say "El coche mío consume mucha gasolina." (My car consumes a lot of gas.)

Other determiners

Cardinal and ordinal numbers are adjectives of amount (like mucho and poco) and precede nouns (dos animales = 'two animals', primera persona = 'first person'). Primero and tercero drop their final -o before a masculine singular noun, thus el primer libro ('the first book'), el tercer año ('the third year').

The cardinal numbers greater than un/una and the interrogative qué are indeclinable. The indefinite quantifiers, ordinals, un, and cuál are declined as adjectives.

Pronouns

Main article: Spanish pronouns

Spanish has a range of pronouns that in some ways work quite differently from English ones. They include: yo, tú, vos, usted, él, ella, ello, nosotros, vosotros, ustedes, ellos, ellas, esto, eso, aquello etc. Personal pronouns are usually omitted due to context, but it is not rare to see one in written text or in the spoken language, whether it be for emphasis or in cases where there may be some confusion between conjugations.

Prepositions

Main article: Spanish prepositions

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

A, ante, bajo, cabe, con, contra, de, desde, en, entre, hacia, hasta, para, por, según, sin, so, sobre, tras.

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

This list includes two archaic prepositions (so and cabe), but leaves out two new Latinisms (vía and pro) 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" "run in a thief" into Spanish requires completely different verbs, and not simply the use of "correr" ("run") plus the corresponding Spanish prepositions. 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 y ('and') and o ('or') alter their form in both spoken and written language to e and u respectively when followed by an identical vowel sound. Thus, padre e hijo ('father and son'), Fernando e Isabel ('Ferdinand and Isabella'), sujeto u objeto ('subject or object'), vertical u horizontal ('vertical or horizontal').

The change does not take place before the (h)i of a diphthong, as in acero y hierro ('steel and iron'). Nor does the conjunction y 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 ¿Y Inés? ('What about Inés?').

When the conjunction o appears between numerals, it is usually spelled with an accent mark (ó), in order to distinguish it from zero (0); thus, 2 ó 3 ('2 or 3') in contrast to 203 ('two-hundred three').

Syntactic variation

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:

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 Fue Juan el que perdió las llaves. Whereas the English sentence uses a special structure, the Spanish one does not. The verb fue has no dummy subject, and the pronoun el que is not a cleaver but a nominalising relative pronoun meaning "the [male] one that". Provided we respect the parings of "el que" and "las llaves", 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 fue el que perdió las llaves ("Juan was the one who lost the keys") or El que perdió las llaves fue Juan ("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:

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

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

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):

In casual speech, the complex cleaving pronoun is often reduced to que, just as it is reduced to "that" in English. Foreign learners are advised to avoid this.

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
Plural

Dialectal variations

Forms of address

The use of usted and ustedes as a polite form of address is universal. However, there are variations in informal address. Ustedes replaces vosotros in much of Andalusia, the Canary Islands and Latin America, except in the liturgical or poetic of styles. In some parts of Andalusia, the pronoun ustedes is used with the standard vosotros endings.

Depending on the region, Latin Americans may also replace the singular tú with usted or vos. The choice of pronoun is a tricky issue and can even vary from village to village. Travellers are often advised to play it safe and call everyone usted.

A feature of the speech of the Dominican Republic and other areas where syllable-final /s/ is completely silent is that there is no audible difference between the second and third person singular form of the verb. This leads to redundant pronoun use, for example, the tagging on of ¿tú ves? (pronounced tuvé) to the ends of sentences, where other speakers would say ¿ves?.

Voseo

Main article: Voseo

Vos was used in medieval Castilian as a polite form, like the French vous and the Italian voi, and it used the same forms as vosotros. This gave three levels of formality:

Whereas vos was lost in standard Spanish, some dialects lost tú, and began using vos as the informal pronoun. The exact connotations of this practice, called voseo, depend on the dialect. In certain countries there may be socioeconomic implications. El voseo uses the pronoun vos for tú, but maintains te as an object pronoun and tu and tuyo as possessives.

In voseo, verbs corresponding to vos in the present indicative (roughly equivalent to the English simple present), are formed from the second person plural (the form for vosotros). If the second person plural ends in áis or éis, the form for vos drops the i:

Similarly the verb ser (to be) has:

If the second person plural ends in -ís (with an accent on the í), then the form for vos is identical:

In the imperative, the form for vos is also derived from the second person plural. The latter ends always in -d. So for the form for vos this d is removed, and if the verb has more than one syllable, an accent is added to the last vowel:

The only exception to these rules is in the verb ir (to go), which does not have an imperative form for vos and uses the analogous form of the verb andar, which has a similar meaning, and is regular:

In the present subjunctive, the same rules as for the present indicative apply, though these forms coexist in Argentina with those for the pronoun tú:

OR

Other tenses always have the same form for vos as for tú.

Outside Argentina, other combinations are possible. For instance, people in Maracaibo may use standard vosotros endings for vos (vos habláis, que vos habléis).

Vosotros imperative: -ar for -ad

In Spain, colloquially, the infinitive is used instead of the normative imperative for vosotros. This is not accepted in the normative language.

non-normative -s on tú form

A form used for centuries but never accepted normatively has an -s ending in the second person singular of the preterite or simple past. For example, lo hicistes instead of the normative lo hiciste; hablastes tú for hablaste tú. This is the only instance in which the tú form does not end in an -s in the normative language.

Ladino has gone further with hablates.

Third-person object pronoun variation

The third-person direct- and indirect-object pronouns exhibit variation — from region to region, from one individual to another, and even within the language of single individuals. The Real Academia Española prefers an "etymological" usage, namely one in which the indirect object function is carried by le (regardless of gender), and the direct object function is carried by la or lo (according to the gender of the antecedent, and regardless of its animacy). The Academy also condones the use of le as a direct object form for masculine, animate antecedents (i.e. male humans). Deviations from these approved usages are named leísmo (for the use of le as a direct object), and laísmo and loísmo (for the use of la and lo as indirect objects). Each of these usages is further described in its own Wikipedia article. This object pronoun variation is studied in detail by García & Otheguy (1977).

Queísmo and dequeísmo

Noun clauses in Spanish are typically introduced by the complementizer que, and such a noun clause may serve as the object of the preposition de, resulting in the sequence de que in the standard language. This sequence, in turn, is often reduced colloquially to just que, and this reduction is called queísmo.

Some speakers, by way of hypercorrection (i.e. in an apparent effort to avoid the "error" of queísmo), insert de before que in contexts where it is not prescribed in the standard grammar. This insertion of "extraneous" de before que — called dequeísmo — is generally associated with less-educated speakers.

References

  1. ↑ Henry Kamen, Empire: how Spain became a world power, 1492-1763, 2002:3.
  2. ↑ Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española, hablar
  3. ↑ Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española, comer
  4. ↑ Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española, escribir