Word formation in spanish

The formation of words in Spanish , formación de palabras, is the subject of linguistic morphology , morfología lingüística . Word formation is the term used to describe linguistic processes with which new complex words ( lexemes ) are generated on the basis of existing linguistic means. These linguistic means can be simple and complex words, morphemes and affixes .

A part of speech or class of speech , categorías morfosintácticas as a lexical category, is understood to be the class of words in a language based on their assignment according to common grammatical features.

Word formation, formación de palabras

Word formation is one of the main forms of vocabulary expansion , alongside a change in meaning , cambio léxico-semántico and borrowing , préstamo lingüístico . As such, they are methods of lexical innovation .

At any time, epoch and in a constantly changing environment, people are called upon to react to the fact of missing words or linguistic means of expression by continuously expanding their vocabulary , procesos de formación de palabras . For the production of new words from existing words , i.e. word formation , formación de palabras , two variants are distinguished:

• Word derivation ( derivation , derivación );
• Word composition ( composition , composición ) and
• Parasynthesis, parasíntesis .

Derivation is characterized by the fact that a lexeme with one or more affixes combines on a morphological level to form a new unit of the Spanish vocabulary. When composing, the formation of a new word by combining at least two existing words (or word stems ).

• In the case of word derivation or derivation, derivación , a base lexem , base lexemática is combined with just one or several affixes to form a new word.
  • Derivation = base lexeme + affix

Therefore, depending on their position in relation to the basic complex , affixes, afijos can be divided into:

• • Prefixes , prefijos before the base lexeme: im — pur o, im — posible ;
  • Infixes , infijos or Inter Fixed midst of Basislexems: buen — ec -ito
  • Suffixes , sufijos after the base lexeme: internacio- al

There is also the option of combining several affixes for word formation: des — nacion — al — izar .

• In the case of composition, composición , two and possibly several autonomous lexemes are combined to form a new word.
  • Composition = Lexeme + Lexeme + (n-Lexeme)

In Spanish there are various word combinations:

• Verb and noun verbo + sustantivo : saca-corchos , abre-latas , agua-fiestas .
• Noun and adjective sustantivo + adjetivo : agua-marina , campo-santo , paso-doble , pelir-rojo , boqui-abierto , cari-lleno .
• Adjective and noun adjetivo + sustantivo : extrema-unción . media-noche , salvo-conducto , bajor-relieve .
• Noun and noun sustantivo + sustantivo : boca-calle , coli-flor , sueldo base , casa cuna , moto-carro , hombre lobo , hispano-hablante.
• Adjective and adjective adjetivo + adjetivo : sordo-mudo , verdi-azul , agri-dulce , alti-bajo.
• Adverb and adjective adverbio + adjetivo : biem-pensante .
• Noun, verb sustantivo + verbo : faz-ferir.
• Pronouns and verb pronombre + verbo : cual-quiera , que-hacer , quien-quiera.
• Verb and verb verbo + verbo : duerme-vela.

Another form of «word formation» is the expansion of meaning . The speakers of a language community can react to the demands of a constantly changing environment by changing the meaning or the change in meaning of existing words in their language by expanding their meaning. The word “pantalla”, for example, has its original relation to the object of an “ umbrella ”, for example protection. With the demands later, its meaning expanded to “cinema screen”, “screen” or “display”.

Another way of forming new words is nominalization and its opposite is denominalization .

In the area of loan words or borrowing , préstamo lingüístico for example in the terminology of electronic data processing , the English language has a great influence . The Internet vocabulary in Spanish in particular has a high number of Anglicisms or Anglo-American word creations.

Not to go unmentioned:

• the apheresis , aféresis . — Example: bus for autobus .
• the apocopying , apócope . — Example: cine for cinema .
• the contraction , contracción . — Example: docudrama from documento and drama .
• the epenthesis , epéntesis . — Example: toballa for toalla .

Parts of speech, categorías morfosintácticas

The part of speech theory tries to classify the lexical- grammatical units of a language. The part of speech must be distinguished from the syntactic function (sentence function) of a word such as subject , object , adverbial , attribute , etc.

Words can therefore be classified according to their meaning ( semantic ), according to their form ( morphological ) or according to their use in the sentence ( syntactic ). The speech of Spanish can be like everywhere in lexical and grammatical words divided, roughly content words and function words .

Both classes contain inflected , conjugable and immutable words:

Meaning, function ↓	Forms, classes
flexible	flexionless
Lexically	Noun , sustantivo	Numerical word , nombre numeral
Lexically	Adjective , adjetivo	Adverb , adverbio
Lexically	Verb , verbo	Particle , partícula gramatical Interjection , interjección
Grammatically	Article , artículo	Preposition , preposición
Grammatically	Pronoun , pronombre	Conjunction , conjunción

Classifications

A word can be examined from different perspectives or scientific approaches, as follows:

• phonological criteria, criterio fonológico .
• morphological criteria, criterio morfológico .
• functional criteria, criterio funcional .
• semantic criteria, criterio semántico .

One word , palabra , is morphologically composed of meaningful units called morphemes , morfemas . Two classes can be constructed semantically and functionally for these morphemes:

• the lexical morphemes ( lexemes ), morfemas léxicos and

• the grammatical morphemes, morfemas gramaticales .

To simplify matters , the two groups can be summarized in such a way that the lexemes (lexical content morphemes ) preferably describe or verbalize facts , things , actions , properties . The grammatical morphemes (grammatical function morphemes ), however, the relationships between these facts, facts. They also give expression to more abstract categories of meaning, such as gender , number , tense .

Words either have a more lexical or grammatical meaning. With the lexical word classes, the main semantic information is conveyed to the recipient on the part of the language producer in a text , the spoken text , whereas the grammatical word classes or units are more functional characters. The group of grammatical units, including inflectional morphemes , functional words (such as structural verbs ), affixes , etc., is much more limited in number than the lexical word units.

literature

• Helmut Berschin , Julio Fernández-Sevilla, Josef Felixberger: The Spanish language. Distribution, history, structure. 3. Edition. Georg Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 2005, ISBN 3-487-12814-4
• Franz Rainer: Spanish word formation theory. Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 1984, ISBN 3-484-50337-8

Web links

• Ursula Reutner: Marking information in Spanish lexicons. The example of euphemisms. Romance Linguistics, University of Augsburg, pp. 1–15 — Romance Studies in Past and Present 14.2 (2008), Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg [2]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Another, rather rare process is that of the new creation or original creation (cf. Wolfgang Fleischer, Irmhild Barz, with the collaboration of Marianne Schröder: Wortbildung der Deutschen Gegenwartsssprach. 2nd, revised and supplemented edition. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1995, ISBN 3-484 -10682-4 , p. 5f., Johannes Erben: Introduction to the German Word Formation Theory . 3rd revised edition, Schmidt, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-503-03038-7 , p. 18f.).
   
2. ^ Paul Gévaudan: Typology of lexical change. Change of meaning, word formation and borrowing using the example of the Romance languages. Stauffenburg, Tübingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86057-173-6 , pp. 34f., 42-44. Another form of change is lexical depletion.
3. ↑ Martin Becker: The Development of Modern Word Formation in Spanish: The Political-Social Vocabulary Since 1869. Bonn Romance Works, Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-631-51011-X .
4. ↑ Kim Vermeersch: The desubstantivic ‘ornative’ verbs in German and Spanish: A chapter from the word formation viewed in contrast. Universiteit Gent, 2011/2012 [1]
5. ↑ Reglas de ortografía. Prefijos y sufijos.
6. ^ Justo Fernández López: Word formation. Formación de palabras. hispanoteca.org
7. ^ Antoon van Bommel, Kees van Esch, Jos Hallebeek: Estudiando español, basic grammar. Ernst Klett Sprachen, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-12-535499-9 , p. 178 f.
8. ↑ Juan Antonio Marín Candón: Prefijo- sufijo. Reglas de Ortografía.
9. ↑ Wolf Dietrich, Horst Geckeler: Introduction to Spanish Linguistics. (= Basics of Romance Studies. Volume 15). Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-503-06188-6 , pp. 88-99.
10. ^ Mervyn F. Lang: Formación de palabras en español: morfología derivativa productiva en el léxico moderno. Ed. Cátedra, Madrid 1990, ISBN 84-376-1145-8 .
11. ^ Rainer Walter: Spanish word formation theory. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-11-095605-5 .
12. ↑ Diccionario de la lengua española. Real Academia Española
13. ↑ The word originally comes from the Catalan «pàmpol» where it means «vine leaf», «lampshade» and is related to the Latin word «pampinus» for vine leaf pampinus
14. ↑ Martina Rüdel-Hahn: Anglicisms in the Internet vocabulary of the Romance languages: French — Italian — Spanish. Dissertation . Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf 2008.
15. 
    ^ Paul Gévaudan: Classification of Lexical Developments. Semantic, morphological and stratic filiation. ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Dissertation. University of Tübingen, Tübingen 2002, p. 150 f. 
    
16. ↑ Justo Fernández López: Apokope, Epenthese, Contraction — Apócope, epéntesis y contracción. hispanoteca.eu
17. ^ Bernhard Pöll: Spanish Lexicology. An introduction. Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen 2002, ISBN 3-8233-4993-7 , p. 36.
18. ^ Table based on Helmut Berschin, Julio Fernández-Sevilla, Josef Felixberger: The Spanish language. Distribution, history, structure. 3. Edition. Georg Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 2005, ISBN 3-487-12814-4 , p. 161.
19. 
    ↑ Numerals, nombres numerales can be inflected to a limited extent .
    
20. ↑ Interjections, interjecciónes and particles, partícula gramatical , as structural elements in the sentence, also have a grammatical function
21. ^ Modified from Helmut Berschin, Julio Fernández-Sevilla, Josef Felixberger: The Spanish language. Distribution, history, structure. 3. Edition. Georg Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 2005, ISBN 3-487-12814-4 , p. 161.
22. ↑ The word grammar , canoonet

You are probably familiar with the common conception that an easy way to form a Spanish word from an English one is simply by adding an «o» to the end of it. Although this may be true in 1% of cases, read on to learn Spanish word formation hacks that will work more often.

Cognates

In this article, you will be learning how to form Spanish words that are very similar to the English words and that have the same meaning in both languages. These types of words are called cognates, and they are a language learner’s best friends. An example would be that the Spanish word conversación. This word is easily recognizable as the English word conversation. Sometimes cognates are exactly the same in both languages. These are called exact cognates. The common misconception that you can create a Spanish word by simply adding o to the end of an English one likely comes from knowing a few exact cognates in Spanish. A few examples are rodeo, macho, and solo. These three words are exactly the same in English and Spanish. Now that you know that cognates are your friends, take a look at these Spanish word formation hacks. 

English Words Ending in «tion»

This word formation hack is pretty simple and words pretty often. If you take an English word that ends in tion, change the t to c, and add an accent to the o (ó), you will have hacked your way into forming a Spanish word. For example, information becomes información in Spanish. Participation in Spanish is participación. This hack works very well for forming Spanish words by looking at the English ones. It does not always work exactly though. An example is the word atención. Although the t changes to a c, and you add the accent to the o, you also have to remove a t. It is always best to look up a word to make sure of your hack, but in a bind, 9 times out of 10, changing tion  to ción will create the Spanish word. Do pay attention to the difference in pronunciation, however. Click on atención to hear the correction pronunciación for the ending ción in Spanish.

English Words Ending in «sion»

Forming the Spanish word from an English word that ends in sion only requires you to make one small modificación: add an accent to the o. Words formed in this way are usually exact cognates. Tension turns into tensión. Fusion becomes fusión. Version in Spanish is versión. Although English words ending in sion will simply add an accent to form the Spanish, you may have to drop some of the letters from the English word to create the Spanish one. For example, aggression drops a g and an s to form the Spanish word agresión. This modificación is due to the fact that the only double letters found in Spanish words are rr and ll and sometimes cc. Anytime an English word has a double letter other than r or l in this Spanish hack words, you will have to drop one of the double letters. Admission becomes admisión, and commission becomes comisión. Although dropping the double letter does not affect the pronunciación, it is always best to consult a dictionary to make sure your written comunicación is accurate.

English Words Ending in «ary»

The next Spanish word formación hack is creating Spanish words from English words that end in ary. The English word adversary will turn into adversario in English. Contrary becomes contrario. The English word primary, in Spanish, becomes primario. Like all rules, there are always going to be excepciones. The month of January does not become Januario. It is enero. Similarly, library is not librario. It is biblioteca. This hack is best paired with a diccionario. Another way to safely use this hack is to only use it for forming adjectives. Like the previous word formation hacks, some spelling modifications will be necesario. 

1.1 Approaches to word formation

As a branch of linguistic science, word formation is concerned with analysing and understanding the mechanisms by which the lexis is created and renewed. These mechanisms are mainly morphological, involving the combination of words and their subunits in various ways, although word creation may also involve other procedures such as borrowing words from other languages, the formation of new terms through the combining of initial letters of the names of institutions, generally known as acronymy, or the subtraction of units from words in processes known as back formation or clipping. The data with which word formation is concerned is to be found not only in the existing lexis of the language as recorded in the dictionary, but also in the neologistic terminology of science, technology, commerce, the mass media, in the creative language of modem literature, and in the colloquial and innovatory language of contemporary speech.

In handling these sources of data, the approach may be diachronic, looking back to the etymological sources of word forming procedures and examining the dominant morphological patterns of the past; or it may be synchronic, referring to present-day tendencies which will determine the features of the vocabulary in the immediate future. It may be illuminating to combine these approaches as Marchand (1969), for example, has done to a certain extent in his exhaustive account of English word formation. Whether diachronic, synchronic, or both combined, a variety of criteria has to be applied in attempting to account adequately for the many regularities as well as the real or apparent irregularities which characterise the procedures of word formation. Etymological analysis can show which patterns are due to Greek or Latin sources and how word forming units evolved in meaning and function in the evolution of Castilian. Morphological criteria will be applied in describing the actual permissible combinations of units, and these in turn are invariably governed by the dominant sound features of the language requiring the application of the principles of phonology. Semantic considerations have to be taken into account in explaining relationships between word components and the result of their combination with regard to meaning. Since the final result of these procedures is a new term which will require immediate or eventual entry in the dictionary, then lexicographical implications ensue. So word formation involves aspects of all the major divisions of linguistic analysis, making it a particularly complex area of study and bringing together many critical problems of present-day linguistic theory.

Different schools of linguistics, while exploiting all such criteria, have tended to favour one or another at particular times. In the pretwentieth century diachronic focus, attention was concentrated on the striking transformations of the lexis over the centuries, and in particular on the way in which the vocabulary seemed to be structured in historical layers through successive periods of different ethnic influences.¹ Thus the constituent parts of the vocabulary of Spanish were perceived as being Latin, Greek, and Arabic words, as in the Arabic series in a/- (<algarroba, alguacil, alfiler, etc.), or word parts as in the latin suffix -tas (sinceritas, Jutilitas, gravitast etc.) which yielded the long Spanish abstract noun of quality series in -dad (sinceridad, futilidad, gravedad, etc.). These historical criteria were reflected in the dictionary where the current forms of the entries were explained by their etymological origins, as exemplified in the Vox dictionary (1964):

Although three of these items show compositional morphological structure the emphasis in the entry is on the etymology rather than on the structure. In the same way, in specific studies of word formation applied to individual languages, great attention is always paid to etymology, as for example in Tekavčič’s account of Italian derivational morphology, where the Latin and Greek sources of the components are given priority in the descriptions (Tekavčč: 1972). This emphasis is seen in the strongly diachronic approach of traditional studies of Spanish word formation as well as in the treatment of derivational morphology in traditional grammars. So, for example, the comprehensive pedagogical grammar of Ragucci (1963) which distinguishes itself by the close attention given to an aspect of language often skirted in grammars, deals with it in a chapter headed:

In this approach, etymology and word formation are thus regarded as one, with suffixes and prefixes classified on an etymological basis (castellanos, latinos, griegos). Similarly, the distinction of Latin, Greek, and Castilian is basic to the Spanish Academy’s approach, as shown in the Gramática de la Lengua Española of 1931.

In the early twentieth century, the advent of Saussurian linguistics marked a change in emphasis away from the historical account of language to a synchronic descriptive approach, studying the systems and rules of the internal mechanisms of language, independently of the historical or ethno-cultural environment. Here, however, word formation was not in the forefront of interest; on the one hand it combined diachrony and synchrony which the new linguists were keen to keep separate, and on the other it was concerned with productive procedures going beyond synchrony and looking towards the future state of the language by way of lexical change and innovation. In the post-Saussurian period, interest concentrated not on the word but on the minimal segments of speech as represented by the morpheme and the phoneme and analysed without close regard to their combination into larger units, and the very status of the word was questioned as a useful unit of analysis.²

Just as the advent of Chomskian linguistics from the late 1950s marked a dramatic innovation in general linguistic theory, it eventually did so also in the treatment of word formation. Although initially transformational-generative grammar was concerned with syntax in its attempts to explain the creativity and competence of the native speaker in producing and understanding an infinite number of new sentences, the problems posed by the plethora of structure models which emerged led to a new interest in the word, especially in its function as the lexical insertion component in deep structure and its syntactic relationship with the rest of the sentence. At the same time, by stressing the creative rather than the prescriptive aspect of the grammar, transformationalism could no more overlook the ability of the native speaker to speak and understand new words than it could the ability to construct and understand new sentences. As well as an innate grammatical faculty, the native speaker was perceived to be endowed with an inherent lexical competence, which is the basis of the lexicon and of neologistic terminology not yet recorded in the dictionary. In this way, from being marginal, word formation has come to play a central role in general linguistic theory, and under the label of ‘derivational’ or ‘lexical’ morphology become the raw material of a wealth of modern theories evolving from transformational-generativism.³

In the later development of transformational-generative grammar, word formation ceased to be isolated from phrase structure and sentence formation. Indeed, ‘the development of transformational or transformational-generative grammar from its beginnings up to the present can be seen, among other ways, as a progressive refinement of the structure of the lexical component’ (Scalise 1984: 1). Following the tenets of post Chomskian syntactic theory, the procedures involved in forming words were taken as being analogous to those involved in forming new sentences. The form of complex words was seen as itself containing syntactic structure, the derivative or compound being no more than a surface representation of this, a sort of graphic shortcut. Stemming from this, linguists enthusiastically applied transformational analysis to the lexis in an attempt to explain word formation on some logical basis. An example of this is the prolific work of Guilbert in French, both in the study of individual lexical subject areas and in the dictionary as a whole.⁴ In Spanish this might be exemplified as follows, where a) = derivative lexeme and b) = underlying syntactic structure:

In terms of transformational-generativism these represent surface realisations of transpositions from verb to noun structures. This approach may be specious in seeing everything in terms of deep structure and tending to be over-preoccupied with the verb and noun phrase relationship which fascinated the post Chomskian linguists. It tends, for example, to overlook other types of syntactic links in word formation, such …

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Table of Contents

1. Overview of Word Order in Spanish
2. Basic Word Order with Subject, Verb, and Object
3. Word Order in Negative Sentences
4. Word Order with Prepositional Phrases
5. Word Order with Modifiers
6. Changing a Sentence into a Yes-or-No Question
7. Translation Exercises
8. How to Master Spanish with SpanishPod101.com

1. Overview of Word Order in Spanish

Basic Spanish language word order refers to the usual order in which words are found in a sentence. Even though the sentences that we use day-to-day may have other elements in them, to learn this basic order, there are three basic elements that we use as a reference. These three elements are the subject, verb, and object.

Despite Spanish being more flexible than English in this sense, our basic word order is the same: 

subject + verb + object (SVO)

Yo + me comí + la tarta

I + ate + the cake

Sometimes, we might want to emphasize one element or another in a sentence. This leads us to moving these around the sentence, but they will keep the same (or very similar) meaning. In English, because the ability to move words in a sentence is quite limited, emphasizing an element is accomplished by intonation. 

Let’s look at two sentences. The first one has basic word order, and the other one has a different order. In the second sentence, the emphasized word is marked in bold:

Example: Yo me comí la tarta. 

Translation: “I ate the cake.”

Example: Me la comí yo, la tarta.

Translation: “I ate the cake.”

There’s a way of modifying the English sentence to emphasize this element even more: “It is I that ate the cake.” However, this wouldn’t be an accurate translation of our example in Spanish, because in English, we’re not just moving an element around: we’re changing the whole structure. 

Did you notice that we actually added an extra word in our second Spanish sentence? If you did, we just want to say: Nice job! The word that we added was a pronoun, and don’t worry, we’ll explain it a little bit later.

We could still modify our sample sentence a bit more:

Example: La tarta me la comí yo.

Translation: “The cake, I ate.”

In this case, we can translate this new structure pretty much literally, but in English, we feel like this sounds quite unnatural. In Spanish, this is completely normal.

2. Basic Word Order with Subject, Verb, and Object

Now, let’s go more into detail about the most basic Spanish word order rules.

1 – Subject

Subject is the person or thing performing the action of the verb. It’s usually a noun phrase, such as a noun or a pronoun: Juan come espaguetis. (“Juan eats spaghetti.”) / Él come espaguetis. (“He eats spaghetti.”). 

Sometimes, the subject might be a verb: Cantar es divertido. (“Singing is fun.”). However, as we’ve explained in previous articles, in Spanish, a subject isn’t always necessary and we often drop pronouns when we already know who the subject is: Como espaguetis. (“I eat spaghetti.”). 

As we saw in our previous article about verb conjugation in Spanish, the verb como is conjugated, and considering the verb is conjugated in the first person singular, we know it means “I eat,” so there’s no possible confusion.

2 – Verb

The second element in Spanish word order is verbs. You know what verbs are, don’t you? According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a verb is “a word or phrase that describes an action, condition, or experience.” 

To give you a few examples: cantar (“to sing”), comer (“to eat”), and hablar (“to talk”) are all verbs. Without them, language wouldn’t make much sense.

3 – Object

The third and last element in basic word order is something we call an object. It isn’t an indispensable element in a sentence, as some verbs don’t require objects, but it’s undoubtedly common and helps us define sentence structure. 

Cambridge defines an object as “a noun or noun phrase that is affected by the action of a verb or that follows a preposition.” In the sentence Juan come espaguetis. (“Juan eats spaghetti.”), spaghetti is the thing that is being eaten by Juan.

3. Word Order in Negative Sentences 

In some languages, negative sentences can completely change an affirmative sentence. Lucky for you, in this sense, Spanish happens to be quite simple. So, what is the Spanish word order for these negative sentences?

To form a regular negative sentence, all we need to do is add the word no, which in this context is equivalent to “not,” to an affirmative sentence. No is always found before the verb. To illustrate this, let’s use the same example we did before: Juan no come espaguetis. (“Juan does not eat spaghetti.”).

As you know, there are other ways of making a negative sentence. One example would be to add nunca (“never”): Juan nunca come espaguetis. (“Juan never eats spaghetti.”). As you can see, it follows exactly the same structure as the previous example. Simple, right? 

Well, there are many other negative words: nada (“nothing”), nadie (“nobody”), ninguno (“none”)… When we use these words, the structure is a bit different, because they can be used in different ways. They can act as subjects or as objects. 

For example: Nadie ha comido espaguetis. (“Nobody has eaten spaghetti.”). Here we find the word nadie before the verb, just as we saw in the previous negative sentences. However, that makes sense, because it acts as a subject. 

Since we’re mentioning this, we should explain that sometimes these words might be found after the verb, even if they’re a subject. Here are a few examples:

• No hay nadie. → “There isn’t anyone.”
• No hay nada. → “There isn’t anything.”
• No queda ninguno. → “There is none left.”

The negative word in bold in each of these examples is the subject of the sentence, even though it might not be as obvious as in the other examples we’ve seen. We could say that the word in bold is “the thing that isn’t.” 

As you might have noticed, the adverb no does appear at the beginning of the sentence, something that happens similarly in the English translation. As you’ll find out in our lesson “How to Be Negative?” in Spanish, it’s quite common to have more than one negative word in one sentence.

4. Word Order with Prepositional Phrases

Another element that needs to be taken into account when talking about word order is prepositional phrases. A prepositional phrase is a type of phrase that always begins with a preposition, such as en (“in,” “on,” “at”) or con (“with”). If you would like to find out more about prepositions, we have an article just for you! Check out our article about Spanish prepositions.

Prepositional phrases are usually found at the end of a sentence, but some of them can be placed at the beginning if you want to emphasize said phrase. Let’s look at some examples of Spanish word order that show this: 

Estudio español en casa. → “I study Spanish at home.”

But what if someone asked us: 

¿Dónde estudias español? → “Where do you study Spanish?”

In this case, a possible answer we could give them would be:

En casa, estudio español. → “At home, I learn Spanish.”

There are many other prepositional phrases we could add to the same sentence, even together, such as: 

Estudio español en casa con SpanishPod101.com. → “I study Spanish at home with SpanishPod101.com.”

5. Word Order with Modifiers

We’ve already seen a type of modifier, which were the ones that turned affirmative sentences into negative sentences. However, there are many more elements in sentences that we call modifiers. These include words such as articles, adjectives, and pronouns.

Determiners are easy, because they always go in front of a noun, just like in English. These are, among others, articles, numerals, and possessives. Let’s look at examples for these types of modifiers:

Articles: El hombre come espaguetis. → “The man eats spaghetti.”

Numerals: Dos hombres comen espaguetis. → “Two men eat spaghetti.”

Possessives: Mi padre come espaguetis. → “My father eats spaghetti.”

However, in Spanish word order, adjectives normally go after the noun, but there are exceptions. For example, in literature, especially poetry, it’s common to write the adjective before the noun. Check out our article on adjectives for more information!

El coche blanco es de mi padre. → “The white car is my dad’s.”

La hermosa princesa abrió los ojos. → “The beautiful princess opened her eyes.”

Pronouns can go either before or after the verb, depending on the kind of pronoun they are, or sometimes depending on what you feel like saying. As we learned in our previous article about pronouns, there are different kinds of pronouns in Spanish. Even though we also talked about the order they follow in that article, we’ll look at them again, one by one:

1 – Personal Pronouns

If you read the article we just mentioned, you might remember that there are many kinds of personal pronouns. 

a) Subject Pronouns

Subject pronouns, which are the ones we use for the subject of a sentence, are always found before the verb. This is because, as we saw, in Spanish, the subject is always the first element in a sentence. 

Ellos quieren una casa nueva. → “They want a new house.”

b) Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns and Reflexive Pronouns

You probably remember that basic word order in Spanish is subject + verb + object, don’t you? Well, when a direct or indirect object is substituted by a pronoun, the pronoun is actually found before the verb. We’ll illustrate this with a few examples:

Direct object: 

Quieren una casa nueva. → La quieren.

“They want a new house.” → “They want it.”

Both direct and indirect objects: 

Traigo un regalo para mi madre. → Le traigo un regalo. → Se lo traigo.

“I bring a present for my mom.” → “I bring her a present.” → “I bring it to her.”

Reflexive pronouns work in a very similar way and they’re always found before the verb:

Mis padres se van de vacaciones. → “My parents are going on vacation.”  

c) Prepositional Pronouns

Prepositional pronouns follow the same rules that prepositional phrases do, so they can be in different locations inside a sentence depending on what you would like to emphasize.

Sin ti todo es diferente. → “Without you, everything is different.”

Todo es diferente sin ti. → “Everything is different without you.”

d) Possessive Pronouns

A possessive pronoun can be a subject or an object, so its order will depend on the function it does in the sentence:

El nuestro es ese. → “Ours is that one.”

La casa es nuestra. → “The house is ours.” 

2 – Demonstrative Pronouns

Just like what happened with possessive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns can be in different places in the same sentence, depending on their function.

Este es mi hermano. → “This is my brother.”

Nunca he estado ahí. → “I have never been there.”

3 – Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns are pronouns that help us ask questions, and they’re always the first word in a question:

¿Qué quieres? → “What do you want?”

4 – Indefinite Pronouns

Once again, indefinite pronouns don’t have a specific position in a sentence, because that depends on their function.

Todos quieren dinero. → “Everyone wants money.”

Puedes preguntárselo a cualquiera. → “You can ask anyone.”

5 – Relative Pronouns

Relative pronouns are never found in simple sentences. Rather, we find them in complex sentences. These pronouns always start the second part of the sentence, so they’ll always be in the middle. This might sound odd if you’re not sure what a relative pronoun is, but you’ll understand once you look at an example:

Esta es mi prima que vive en la ciudad. → “This is my cousin who lives in the city.”

6. Changing a Sentence into a Yes-or-No Question

In many languages, to transform a normal sentence into a yes-or-no question you must change it a fair bit, or change the order. In Spanish, this is way simpler. So, what is the Spanish word order in questions? Look at these examples:

Estudias español todos los días. → “You study Spanish every day.” 

¿Estudias español todos los días? → “Do you study Spanish every day?” 

As you probably noticed, it’s exactly the same structure. This doesn’t only happen with specific structures: it happens every time you turn a sentence, either affirmative or negative, into a yes-or-no question. 

We’re sure you enjoyed learning this, but you probably know that there are other kinds of questions. If you feel a bit lost when it comes to this topic, you might enjoy our lesson on 15 Questions You Should Know. 

7. Translation Exercises

We thought it would be useful to you to see how we transform a simple sentence into more complex sentences, and translate them to English. Below, you can see exactly what changes we make.

1. Bebiste agua. → “You drank water.”

2. Bebiste agua hace cinco minutos. → “You drank water five minutes ago.”

In this second sentence, the only thing we added was the time the action happened, hace cinco minutos, which means “five minutes ago.”

3. Bebiste dos botellas de agua hace cinco minutos. → “You drank two bottles of water five minutes ago.” 

In this third sentence, we made a bigger change. This time, what we’re drinking isn’t just water, but something slightly more specific: two bottles of water. The new object is dos botellas de agua instead of just agua.

4. ¿Bebiste dos botellas de agua hace cinco minutos? → “Did you drink two bottles of water five minutes ago?”

To end these examples, we thought it would be a good idea to show you once again how to turn an affirmative sentence into a question, to convince you that we don’t have to make any changes to it, just in case you didn’t believe us before!

8. How to Master Spanish with SpanishPod101.com

As we mentioned previously, Spanish word order is more flexible than English word order, so in some cases, if you don’t use our basic order, it might just seem as if you’re trying to emphasize some word or phrase in particular. The way we see it, it means you would have to try pretty hard to get it wrong! When learning a foreign language, this is exactly the kind of motivation you need.

For more information on Spanish word order, SpanishPod101.com has another short lesson on this as well! If you want to get a better understanding of Spanish grammar in general, also check out our relevant page.

No matter what your level is, give us a try and learn Spanish! From beginner to advanced, here you’ll find everything you need.

Before you go, let us know in the comments if there’s anything that’s still not clear about Spanish word order. We’ll do our best to help you out!

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.

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

The Real Academia Española (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 DeBruyne (1996), Butt & Benjamin (2011), and Batchelor & San José (2010).

Verbs[edit]

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 (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 [pl.] eat’), while in Latin American Spanish it merges with the formal second-person plural (e.g., ustedes comen). Thus ustedes 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 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[edit]

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

• Soy alto (I am tall). (Subject pronoun «yo» not required and not routinely used.)
• Ella canta en el club (She sings in the club).
• Todos nosotros vivimos en un submarino amarillo (We all live in a yellow submarine).
• Son las diez y media ([It] is ten thirty).

Present indicative forms of the regular -ar verb hablar (‘to speak’)

	Singular	Plural
First person	(yo) hablo	(nosotros/-as) hablamos
Second person familiar	(tú) hablas (vos) hablás/habláis	(vosotros/-as) 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’)

	Singular	Plural
First person	(yo) como	(nosotros/-as) comemos
Second person familiar	(tú) comes (vos) comés/coméis	(vosotros/-as) 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’)

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

Past tenses[edit]

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[edit]

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:

• Ella se murió ayer (She died yesterday)
• Pablo apagó las luces (Pablo turned the lights off)
• Yo me comí el arroz (I ate the rice)
• Te cortaste el pelo (You had your hair cut, Lit. «You cut yourself the hair»)

Preterite forms of the regular -ar verb hablar (‘to speak’)

	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’)

	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’)

	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»[edit]

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

• Yo era cómico en el pasado (I was/used to be funny in the past).
• Usted comía mucho (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»).
• Ellos escuchaban la radio (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.

Imperfect forms of the regular -ar verb hablar (‘to speak’)

	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’)

	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’)

	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[edit]

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:

• Ellos escuchaban la radio cuando oyeron un ruido afuera. (They were listening to the radio when they heard a noise outside.)
• Yo estaba en mi cuarto cuando usted entró. (I was in my room when you came in.)
• Era un día muy tranquilo cuando eso pasó. (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[edit]

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

• Estoy haciendo mi tarea. (I am doing my homework)
• Estamos estudiando. (We are studying)
• Estaba escuchando la radio. (I was listening to the radio)
• Él estaba limpiando su cuarto. (He was cleaning his room)

The present progressive is formed by first conjugating the verb estar or seguir, 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 estar or seguir to be conjugated, depending on context, in imperfect, with respect to the subject.

Forming gerunds[edit]

To form the gerund of an -ar verb, replace the -ar of the infinitive with -ando;
e.g. jugar, hablar, caminar → jugando, hablando, caminando.
For -er or -ir verbs, replace the -er or -ir ending with -iendo;
e.g. comer, escribir, dormir → comiendo, escribiendo, durmiendo (note that dormir undergoes the stem vowel change that is typical of -ir verbs).
In -er verbs whose stem ends with a vowel, the i of the -iendo ending is replaced by y: e.g. leer, traer, creer → leyendo, trayendo, creyendo.
In -ir verbs whose stem ends with e—such as reír and sonreír—the stem vowel e is raised to i (as is typical of -ir verbs), and this i merges with the i of the -iendo ending; e.g. reír, freír → riendo, friendo.

Subjunctive[edit]

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[edit]

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

• Yo soy muy ambicioso. (I am very ambitious)
• Marta trae la comida. (Marta brings the food)

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

• Quiero que seas muy ambicioso. (I want you to be very ambitious—literally, I want that you be very ambitious)
• Me alegro de que Marta traiga la comida. (I am happy that Marta brings the food)
• Es una lástima que llegues tarde. (It is a shame that you arrive late)

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

• Busco un amigo que sea simpático. (I search for a friend who will be likable or I search for a likable friend)
• No hay ningún autor que lo escriba. (There are no authors who write that.)
• Es posible que ella sepa mucho. (It is possible that she knows a lot.)
• No parece que tengan mucho dinero. (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:

• Dudar, negar, esperar, alegrarse de, temer, sentir, pedir, aconsejar, exigir, desear, querer, mandar
• Es necesario que, conviene que, no parece que, es dudoso que, es probable que, no creo que, importa que, parece mentira que

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

• Es verdad que, es obvio que, es seguro que, parece que, es evidente que, creo que

To form the first-person singular subjunctive, first take the present indicative first-person singular (yo) form of a verb. For example, the verbs hablar, comer, and vivir (To talk, to eat, to live) → Yo hablo, yo como, yo vivo. Then, replace the ending o with the «opposite ending». This is done in the following way: if the verb is an -er or -ir verb such as comer, poder, vivir, or compartir, replace the ending o with an a i.e. : Yo como; yo puedo; yo vivo → Yo coma; yo pueda; yo viva. If the verb is an -ar verb such as hablar or caminar replace the ending o with an e: i.e., Yo hablo; yo camino → Yo hable, yo camine. This forms the first-person conjugation. The other conjugations work similarly, as follows:

• Yo → Yo hable; yo coma; yo viva
• Tú → Tú hables; tú comas; tú vivas
• Él/Ella/Usted → Él hable; él coma; él viva
• Nosotros → Nosotros hablemos; nosotros comamos; nosotros vivamos
• Vosotros → Vosotros habléis; vosotros comáis; vosotros viváis
• Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes → ellos hablen; ellos coman; ellos vivan

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

• Vos → Vos hablés; vos comás; vos escribás

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

• Vos → Vos hables;^[2] vos comas;^[3] vos escribas^[4]

Imperfect subjunctive[edit]

Today, the two forms of the imperfect subjunctive – for example, «hubiese» and «hubiera«, from «haber» – 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[edit]

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[edit]

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).
  • Mi casa roja 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. Mi casa roja = My house, the red one.
  • Mi roja casa means that I am stressing how red my particular house is (probably the only house I have). Mi roja casa = My house, which is obviously red.
• In Spanish, adjectives agree with what they refer to in terms of both number (singular/plural) and gender (masculine/feminine). For example, taza (cup) is feminine, so «the red cup» is la taza roja, but vaso (glass) is masculine, so «the red glass» is el vaso rojo.
• 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, los altos means «the tall ones» or «the tall men». El grande means «the big one» or «the big man».

Determiners[edit]

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 el («the»), un («a»), este («this»), mucho («much, a lot»), alguno («some»).

Pronouns[edit]

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[edit]

Spanish adverbs work much like their English counterparts, e.g. muy («very»), poco («a little»), lejos («far»), mucho («much, a lot»), casi («almost»), etc. To form adverbs from adjectives, the adverbial suffix -mente is generally added to the feminine singular of the adjective, whether or not it differs from the masculine singular. Thus:

• claro («clear», m. sg.) → clara (f. sg.) → claramente («clearly»)
• rápido («fast, rapid», m. sg.) → rápida (f. sg.) → rápidamente («fast, quickly, rapidly»)
• natural («natural», m. & f. sg.) → naturalmente («naturally»)
• triste («sad», m. & f. sg.) → tristemente («sadly»)
• audaz («bold», m. & f. sg.) → audazmente («boldly»)

The adjectives bueno («good») and malo («bad») have irregular adverbial forms: bien («well») and mal («badly»), respectively.

As in English, some adverbs are identical to their adjectival counterparts. Thus words such as temprano («early»), lento («slow»), and hondo («deep») can also mean «early» (as in English, as in «He arrived early») «slowly», and «deeply», respectively.

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

• rápida y fácilmente = «quickly and easily»
• lenta, cuidosa, y duchamente = «slowly, carefully, and skillfully»
• parcial o completamente = «partially or completely»

There are also a wide variety of adverbial phrases in Spanish, such as a menudo («often»), en todas partes («everywhere»), de repente («suddenly»), por fin («finally»), and sin embargo («however, nevertheless»).

As with adjectives, the comparative of adverbs is formed by placing más («more») or menos («less») before the adverb. Thus más temprano («earlier»), más rápidamente («faster, quicker, more quickly»), menos interesantemente («less interestingly»), etc. The superlative is formed by placing the neuter article lo before the comparative, although it is generally used with an additional qualifier phrase such as que puedas («that you can») or de todos («of all»): lo más rápidamente que puedas («as quickly as you can», lit. «the most quickly that you can»), lo más interesantemente de todos («most interestingly of all»), lo menos claramente de ellos («the least clearly of them»), etc. As with their corresponding adjectival forms, bien («well») and mal («badly») have irregular comparative forms (mejor («better») and peor («worse»)), and más and menos are the comparatives of mucho («much, a lot») and poco («a little»), respectively.

Prepositions[edit]

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

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

Recently, 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», and «run in a thief» into Spanish requires completely different verbs, and not simply the use of correr («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[edit]

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’).

Syntax and syntactic variation[edit]

Order of constituents[edit]

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):

• Mi amigo escribió el libro

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:

• Hace pocos años escribió mi amigo un libro or Hace pocos años escribió un libro mi amigo = «A few years ago, my friend wrote a book»
• Ayer vio mi madre a mi amigo y le preguntó por su libro or Ayer vio a mi amigo mi madre y le preguntó por su libro = «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:

• Este es el libro que escribió mi amigo, but rarely Este es el libro que mi amigo escribió = «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:

• El libro lo escribió mi amigo

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):

• ¿Escribió mi amigo el libro? = «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[edit]

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 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 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 pairings 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:

• Fue Juan el que perdió las llaves = «It was John who lost the keys»
• Son sólo tres días los que te quedan = «It is only three days that you have left»
• Seré yo quien se lo diga = «It will be I who tells him»
• Son pocos los que vienen y se quedan = lit. «There are few who come and stay»

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.

• *Fue Juan que perdió las llaves (incorrect)
• Fue Juan quien perdió las llaves (correct)

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:

• Fue a mí a quien le dio permiso = «It was me to whom he gave permission», lit. «It was to me to whom he gave permission»
• Es para nosotros para quienes se hizo esto = «It is us for whom this was made», lit. «It is for us for whom this was made»
• Es por eso por lo que lo hice = «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»
• Es así como se debe hacer = «It is this way that it must be done», lit. «It is this way how it must be done» (como replaces longer expressions such as la forma en que)

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):

• Me dio permiso a mí = «He gave permission to me«
• Se hizo esto para nosotros = «This was done for us«
• Por eso lo hice = «I did it because of that«
• Se debe hacer así = «It must be done this way»

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^{[by whom?]} to avoid this.

• Es para nosotros que se hizo esto
• Es por eso que lo hice
• Fue a mí que le dio permiso (preferred: a quien)
• Es así que se debe hacer (preferred: como)

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

• Yo fui el que me lo bebí = «I was the one who drank it» (agreement with subject of main sentence)
• Yo fui el que se lo bebió (preferred form with same meaning, agreement with el que)
• La que lo sé soy yo = «I am the one who knows» (agreement with subject of main sentence)
• La que lo sabe soy yo = (preferred form with same meaning, agreement with la que)

Plural

• Somos los únicos que no tenemos ni un centavo para apostar = «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 El coronel no tiene quien le escriba)
• Vosotras sois las que lo sabéis = «You girls are the ones who know» (agreement with subject of main sentence)

Clitic se[edit]

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.^[5]

Historical approaches[edit]

The syntactic role of the clitic se 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 se and its other forms play with regard to the contextual grammar. Some syntacticians have aptly termed the clitic se as «paradigmatic» in reference to the complexity and variance of se 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, se 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 se 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» se «one».^[6]

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:

• No             se                     puede             pisar    el         césped
• Neg.          CL                   can-I.               walk    the       grass
• «You cannot walk on the grass.»^[7]

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

• María                      se                     fue
• María                      CL                   go away-3.sg
• «Maria went away.»^[6]

Imperatives in Spanish do not require the use of clitics, but when they are used, a specific word order must be followed. With an affirmative verb, the clitic succeeds the verb. However, in a negative command, word order alters in that the clitic precedes the verb. Another review of sentence positions of se in various grammatical constructions offers the following example, demonstrating imperative differences thus:

• Ábrelo.
• open-2.sg.CL(Acc.)
• «Open it.»
• No                   lo                                 abras
• Neg                 CL(Acc.)                 open-2.sg.
• «Don’t open it.»^[8]

With continuous verbs, the clitic can precede the auxiliary verb, as in the example below:

• Juan    lo                     estaba              preparando (correct)
• John    CL(Acc.)         was                  prepare-ing
• *Juan                          estaba              preparándolo (incorrect)

The clitic can also be placed after the participle, as in the following example:

• Maria        ya              lo                  habia            preparado (correct)
• Maria        already      CL(Acc.)      have-3.sg.     prepare-pastpart
• *Maria      ya                                   habia            preparádolo (incorrect)^[6]

The second phrase in each example above includes the clitic in this particular grammatical configuration as an attachment to the verb which is marked as ungrammatical.

Specific issues arise in clitic use and syntactic representation in terms of animacy. The Spanish language does not explicitly demonstrate in its grammar whether an object, either direct or indirect, refers to an animate or inanimate object. Therefore, the use of two clitics is common, although not always required. In this way, clitics can be doubled or «redundant» when two instances occur within the same phrase. Double clitics are found in instances of phrases with both direct accusative case objects and indirect dative objects in this way:

• Te                    lo                     dije                  ayer.
• CL(Dat.)         CL(Acc.)       tell-1.sg.pst     yesterday
• «I told you yesterday.»^[7]

Regarding clitic doubling in Spanish, Ordóñez has suggested a «cluster» versus «split» formation, weighing consideration of the double clitic as a single unit (cluster) or a separable unit (split). The syntactic approach maintains a left-dislocation for the clitics while sustaining a separation from the verb.^[9] In the cluster model, both clitics are two adjacent constituents whereas the split model, one clitic has been split from the other, appearing higher on the syntactic tree. Both are still under the same c-command of the left branch but are no longer sisters to each other. Ordóñez suggests that when clitics are sisters, they may not even be considered constituents in the syntax. The hypothesis includes a requirement that a non-third person clitic is located higher on a tree than the third person clitic.

In fact, clitic climbing is a common feature in Romance languages with designation of clitics as unbound morphemes where the clitic «climbs» to adjoin the verb in a higher position.^[10] This widely discussed theory has involved raising of the clitic se as an unaccusative because of the lack of external argument in the grammar structure. The object clitic begins in the subject position of the verb, moving up to attach to the verb via adjunction on the left. Another theory is the «base-generation» which considers clitics to be affixes.^[11] However, both approaches fail when there is clitic doubling.

Recent approaches[edit]

As recently as 2021, Cuervo has suggested that, for clitic doubling, the solution is considering the dative clitic to be the head of an Applicative Phrase with care taken in identifying whether the form is proclitic or enclitic. Cuervo addresses the difference by positing the following: if the process is proclitic, there is climbing; if the process is enclitic, there is no climbing.^[12] Thus, the determining factor for syntactic presentation is the type of verbal phrase.

Bradley illustrates some inflexible constructions, mainly when two third-person pronouns are within the same sentence and the indirect object must be expressed via se:

• Ya                   se                     lo                     he mandado
• already            CL(Nom.)       CL(Acc.)         sent-presperf
• «I have already sent it»^[8]

In such cases, one solution is to use the particle a followed by an infinitive verb when the clitic precedes an auxiliary verb, as in the example provided below:

• Nos                  vamos              a          acostar
• CL(Nom.)       go-1.pres.        to         go to bed
• «We are going to bed»^[7]

The clitic is not attached to the infinitive verb; instead, it is in subject position. Grammatically, attachment to the verb occurs with a non-finite or a main conjugated verb.^[13] The clitic adjoins the verb and undergoes head movement to check its features.^[14]

Additional structures for direct and indirect objects have been suggested. Other views include the use of AgrS and AgrO for Spanish when clitics are involved. Daussá states that se can block features as it travels attached to the appropriate verb form from the feature geometry which alters the nodes.

Daussá’s realization of syntactic structure presents a solution for the paradigmatic issue of se using AgrO and AgrS. This model includes a Determiner Phrase that is nominative with verbal agreement in both person and number. Romain has also offered a thorough examination of the various theories, concluding that se is part of a Determiner Phrase.^[15] While there had been some postulation that clitics are heads of their own phrases, there has not been much support given to those claims.

Even more recently, Lewandowski has focused on one function in the use of se with reflexive verbs, the completive, wherein with specific verbs the clitic denotes a completion of an action.^[16] Lewandowski has proposed an interconnected functionality for the Spanish reflexive pronoun, representing this concept via a cluster map indicating semantic, pragmatic, and grammatical functions. His discussion has centered around the «polyfunctionality» of se and how best to syntactically handle this issue, perhaps by not separating the syntax from morphology. Another recent view is that there are two syntactic formations: first, that se is a probe for A-movement which results in a paradigmatic se and second, that non-paradigmatic se is represented by third person singular.^[17] This cross-referencing of syntax and morphology overlapping with a communicative stylistic approach has been suggested in the past.^[18]

Dialectal variations[edit]

Forms of address[edit]

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[edit]

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:

• Tú quieres
• Vos queréis (originally queredes)
• Vuestra merced quiere (today usted)

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. 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:

• Vosotros habláis – vos hablás
• Vosotros tenéis – vos tenés

Similarly the verb ser (to be) has:

• Vosotros sois – vos sos

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

• Vosotros vivís – vos vivís
• Vosotros oís – vos oís
• Vosotros huís – vos huís

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:

• Tened (vosotros) – tené (vos)
• Dad (vosotros) – da (vos)

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:

• Andad – andá

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:

• Que vosotros digáis – que vos digás

Or:

• Que tú digas – que vos digas

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[edit]

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

• ¡Venir! instead of ¡Venid!
• ¡Callaros! instead of ¡Callaos! (¡Callarse! in some dialects)
• ¡Iros! or ¡Marcharos! instead of ¡Idos!

Non-normative -s on tú form[edit]

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. That 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[edit]

The third-person direct-object 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, 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). The object pronoun variation is studied in detail by García & Otheguy (1977).

Here are some examples for this:

• Leísmo: Le miraron (They saw him/her/it). Normative: lo miraron or la miraron depending on the gender of the object.
• Laísmo: La dijeron que se callara (They told her to shut up). Normative: Le dijeron que se callara. The person who is told something is an indirect object in Spanish, and the substituting pronoun is the same for both genders.
• Loísmo: Lo dijeron que se callara (They told him to shut up). Normative: Le dijeron que se callara. See above.

Queísmo and dequeísmo[edit]

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 standard grammar. This insertion of «extraneous» de before que — called dequeísmo — is generally associated with less-educated speakers.

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Alba de la Fuente, Anahi (2013). Clitic combinations in Spanish : syntax, processing and acquisition. Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada = Bibliothèque et Archives Canada. ISBN 978-0-494-98079-8.
• Alvar, Manuel (1996). Manual de dialectología hispánica: El español de España (in Spanish). Editorial Ariel. ISBN 978-84-344-8217-3.
• Batchelor, R. E.; San José, Miguel Ángel (2010). A Reference Grammar of Spanish. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-42961-0.
• Bradley, Peter T. (2004). Spanish : an essential grammar. I. E. Mackenzie. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-203-49729-5.
• Butt, John; Benjamin, Carmen (2011). A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish (5th ed.). Hodder Education. ISBN 978-1-4441-3769-9.
• Cuervo, Maria Cristina; Fábregas, Antonio; Acedo-Matellán, Victor; Armstrong, Grant; Pujol, Isabel (2021). The Routledge handbook of Spanish morphology. Abingdon, Oxon. 2021. ISBN 978-0-429-31819-1.
• Daussà, E. J. The Syntactic Operator se in Spanish.
• DeBruyne, Jacques (1996). A Comprehensive Spanish Grammar. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-19087-5.
• Diccionario esencial Santillana de la lengua española (in Spanish). Editorial Santillana. 1991. ISBN 84-294-3415-1.
• García, Érica; Otheguy, Ricardo (1977). «Dialectal Variation in leísmo: A Semantic Approach». In Fashold, Ralph W.; Shuy, Roger W. (eds.). Studies in Language Variation: Semantics, Syntax, Phonology, Pragmatics, Social Situations, Ethnographic Approaches. Georgetown University Press. pp. 65–88. ISBN 0-87840-209-8.
• Gómez Torrego, Leonardo (2006). Hablar y escribir correctamente: Gramática normativa del español actual (in Spanish). Arco Libros. ISBN 84-7635-653-6.
• Gonzalez Lopez, Veronica (2008). Spanish clitic climbing. 69-11A. Pennsylvania State University. ISBN 978-0-549-92293-3.
• Lewandowski, Wojciech (2021-01-27). «Constructions are not predictable but are motivated: evidence from the Spanish completive reflexive». Linguistics. 59 (1): 35–74. doi:10.1515/ling-2020-0264. ISSN 1613-396X.
• Ordóñez, Francisco (2002-12-01). «Some Clitic Combinations in the Syntax of Romance». Catalan Journal of Linguistics. 1: 201. doi:10.5565/rev/catjl.59. ISSN 2014-9719.
• Pérez, Angeles; Sala, Rafael; Santamarina, Manuel (1993). Cassell’s Contemporary Spanish: A Handbook of Grammar, Current Usage, and Word Power. Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-595915-8.
• Romain IJ. A phase approach to spanish object clitics. [Order No. 3689735]. University of California, Los Angeles; 2015.
• Roque Mateos, Ricardo (2017). A Good Spanish Book!: Basic Spanish Course for Foreigners. University Academic Editions. ISBN 978-1-5426-9745-3.
• Saab, Andrés (2020-12-29). «Deconstructing Voice. The syntax and semantics of u-syncretism in Spanish». Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. 5 (1). doi:10.5334/gjgl.704. ISSN 2397-1835.
• Serrano, María José; Aijón Oliva, Miguel Ángel (January 2011). «Syntactic variation and communicative style». Language Sciences. 33 (1): 138–153. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2010.08.008.
• Zagona, Karen (2002). Syntax of Spanish. Port Chester: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-15575-8.