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Spanish has two grammatical numbers: singular and plural. [27] The singular form is the lemma, and the plural is the marked form. [28] Whether a noun is singular or plural generally depends on the referent of the noun, with singular nouns typically referring to one being and plural nouns to multiple.
Spanish is a pro-drop language with respect to subject pronouns, and, like many European languages, Spanish makes a T-V distinction in second person pronouns that has no equivalent in modern English. Object pronouns can be both clitic and non-clitic, with non-clitic forms carrying greater emphasis.
Spanish is a pro-drop language with respect to subject pronouns. Like French and other languages with the T–V distinction, Spanish has a distinction in its second person pronouns that has no equivalent in modern English. Object pronouns come in two forms: clitic and non-clitic, or stressed.
In Standard European Spanish the plural of tú is vosotros and the plural of usted is ustedes. In Hispanic America vosotros is not used, and the plural of both tú and usted is ustedes. This means that speaking to a group of friends a Spaniard will use vosotros, while a Latin American Spanish speaker will use ustedes.
In Spanish, adjectives agree with what they refer to in terms of both plurality (singular/plural) and grammatical gender (masculine/feminine). For example, taza (cup) is feminine, so "the red cup" is la taza roj a , but vaso (glass) is masculine, so "the red glass" is el vaso roj o .
Starting in the early Middle Ages, however, languages such as French and Spanish began to attach honorary significance to these pronouns beyond literal number. Plural pronouns were often used to refer to a person of respect to aggrandize them. Vos, the second-person plural inherited from Latin, came to be used in this manner.
Spanish adjectives are similar to those in most other Indo-European languages. They are generally postpositive , [ 1 ] and they agree in both gender and number with the noun they modify. Inflection and usage
Spanish, like most other Romance languages, is generally regarded to have two genders, but its ancestor, Latin, had three. The transition from three genders to two is mostly complete; however, vestiges of a neuter gender can still be seen. This was noted by Andrés Bello in his work on the grammar of Latin American Spanish. [7]