In the tables of paradigms below, the (optional) subject pronouns appear in parentheses. 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. Thus ustedes is used as both the formal and familiar second-person pronoun in Latin America. The second-person familiar plural is expressed in most of Spain with the pronoun vosotros and its characteristic verb forms (e.g., coméis 'you eat'), while in Latin American Spanish it merges with the formal second-person plural (e.g., ustedes comen). The formal second-person pronouns ( usted, ustedes) take third-person verb forms. In the second person, Spanish maintains the so-called " T–V distinction" between familiar and formal modes of address. In most dialects, each tense has six potential forms, varying for first, second, or third person and for singular or plural number. Main articles: Spanish verbs, Spanish conjugation, and Spanish irregular verbsĮvery 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.Ī 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'). Recently published comprehensive Spanish reference grammars in English include DeBruyne (1996), Butt & Benjamin (2011), and Batchelor & San José (2010). The Real Academia Española (RAE, Royal Spanish Academy) traditionally dictates the normative rules of the Spanish language, as well as its orthography.ĭifferences 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. 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. 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.įrontispiece of the Grammatica Nebrissensis Nouns follow a two- gender system and are marked for number. Verbs are marked for tense, aspect, mood, person, and number (resulting in up to fifty conjugated forms per verb). 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.
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