Appendix:Spanish pronouns

Personal pronouns

Inflection

Personal pronoun inflection in Spanish

			nominative	objective			reflexive
Person	No	Gender	subject	direct object	indirect object	prepositional object	con + form 1	plain
1st	sg		yo	me		mí	conmigo	me
2nd (familiar) 2			vos	te, os 7, vos		vos	con vos	te, os 7, vos
2nd (familiar)			tú	te		ti	contigo	te
2nd (formal)	sg		usted, vusted 3		se	usted, vusted	consigo, con usted	se
3rd		m	él	le, lo	le, se 4	él	consigo, con él	se, sí 5
		f	ella	la		ella	consigo, con ella
		n	ello	lo		ello	consigo
1st	pl	m, c	nosotros	nos		nosotros	con nosotros	nos
		f	nosotras			nosotras	con nosotras
2nd (familiar, is used only in Spain)		m, c	vosotros	os		vosotros	con vosotros	os
2nd (familiar)		f	vosotras			vosotras	con vosotras
2nd 6	pl		ustedes, vustedes 3		se	ustedes, vustedes	consigo, con ustedes	se
3rd		m, c	ellos	los	les, se 4	ellos	consigo, con ellos
		f	ellas	las		ellas	consigo, con ellas
1 Most personal pronouns compound with the preposition con, but the meaning varies with grammatical person (see below). 2 Use of the vos forms is restricted to portions of Latin America and, in certain countries, is considered non-standard. 3 The second person formal usted and ustedes take verbs conjugated in the third person. 4 The form se is used in place of le or les before the third person direct object pronouns lo and la. 5 Use of the form sí is always accompanied by a preposition. 6 In Spain (except Andalusia), ustedes is formal; elsewhere, it is neither specifically formal nor specifically informal. 7 The use of os as the object form of vos is rare.

Usage

Nominative forms

Nominative forms of Spanish pronouns function as the subject of a sentence. However, because Spanish verb conjugation implies the subject pronoun, these forms are seldom used except in cases where the subject pronoun is given emphasis.

• Subject implied by verb:

  Soy de España. — “I am from Spain.”

• Subject given for emphasis:

  Él es de Portugal, pero yo soy de España. — “He is from Portugal, but I am from Spain.”

Nominative forms of pronouns precede the verb in most situations, but when asking questions or giving commands, the pronoun follows the verb.

• Statement; pronoun precedes verb:

  Ella está en casa. “She is at home.”

• Question; pronoun follows verb:

  ¿Dónde está ella? — “Where is she?”

Compounds with con

Most personal pronouns compound with the preposition con, but the meaning varies with grammatical person. Such first and second person compounds are objective only (e.g. conmigo (“with me”)), but third person compounds may function either as an objective or reflexive form, e.g. consigo (“with him/her; with himself/herself”).

In the past, there were also compound forms for nosotros (connosco) and vosotros (convusco). These forms have dropped out of usage and are considered archaic or obsolete.

Regional and temporal variation

Tú, usted and vusted

The second person formal pronoun is usually usted, but the in older forms of the language, vusted (and its plural vustedes) were used. The archaic forms are confined mostly to period works now though they also appear in Spanish translations of the Bible. Vuestra merced (“your grace”) and vuestras mercedes (“your graces”) are the origin of usted, usarcé and similar forms that are conjugated in the third person to address the second one.

The variant vusted/vustedes is mostly a regionalism of some South American countries. It is common to hear it in isolated areas of Colombia or Venezuela. It is archaic for other speakers of the language because it is an older form of the diminutive for vuestra merced. However, the abbreviations Vd. and Vds. are still used in all Spanish-speaking areas for the singular and plural form respectively. In Colombia, it is not rare to hear people use su merced (“your grace”) for usted or vusted. It is used interchangeably by most users, however. It can be used to replace a person’s name as well. When speaking to an older man named Miguel, one could say, “Su merced, ¿por qué no viene vusted y sus nietos a mi casa esta tarde?” (“Your grace, why don't you and your grandchildren come to my house this afternoon?”)

In Spain, tú is increasingly used in neutral situations, reserving usted for a more formal register. In Latin America, usted (or its variants) is the normal polite form, and tú is reserved for family and friends.

Ustedes and vosotros

The ustedes second-person plural form is the formal plural form of address in Spain but is also commonly used in Latin American countries, where vosotros is considered archaic, and it is neither formal nor informal.

The pronoun vosotros is absent in Latin America (the pronoun ustedes being used instead) except among some speakers of Ladino in countries like Venezuela, Curaçao, Cuba, Mexico, or Argentina. It is still used as the second-person familiar plural for most people in Spain and is the only form used by Sephardic Jews who speak Ladino.

Voseo

The term voseo refers to use of the pronoun vos, which has both an archaic usage in mainstream Spanish as well as a modern usage that is quite different from the archaic one. In Old Spanish, vos was used to address superiors of noble standing and to address God. It has long since dropped out of the spoken Spanish language though it occasionally appears in poetic literature.

Today, the word vos is as an informal personal pronoun in Latin America, particularly in Central America, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, the state of Zulia in Venezuela, and some Andean regions. There, it can be used with the same treatment that tú is used (informal and intimate) or in some areas, it is employed among equals but not to very close people (couples or family) or to “inferiors” (children, animals, etc.) to whom the pronoun tú would normally be used.

Ladino speakers use vos as well but employ it with the same treatment as usted is used. In fact, Ladino speakers do not use usted at all because vos implies the same respect that it once had in Old Spanish. In Ladino, tú is used towards anyone informally.

Possessive pronouns

Possessive pronouns are a special class of personal pronouns which indicate a relationship of ownership or possession. However, they may serve as either as a pronoun or as an adjective.

Inflection

Inflection of possessive pronouns in Spanish

Grammar of the possessor		Grammar of the possessed noun				Short forms 1
Person	No	m sg	m/c pl	f sg	f pl	c sg	c pl
1st	sg	mío	míos	mía	mías	mi	mis
2nd (familiar)		tuyo	tuyos	tuya	tuyas	tu	tus
2nd (formal) 2		suyo	suyos	suya	suyas	su	sus
3rd
Person	No	m sg	m/c pl	f sg	f pl	c sg	c pl
1st	pl	nuestro	nuestros	nuestra	nuestras
2nd (familiar)		vuestro	vuestros	vuestra	vuestras
2nd (formal) 2		suyo	suyos	suya	suyas	su	sus
3rd
1 Short forms function only in the adjectival capacity, always with a noun. 2 The 2nd person formal forms take verbs conjugated in the third person.

Usage

The full forms of the possessive pronouns may function either as pronouns or as adjectives. Full forms always follow the associated noun or appear following the verb. Short forms of the possessive pronouns are functional adjectives. They must precede the noun with which they are associated.

• Full form functioning as pronoun:

  El libro es mío. — “The book is mine.”

  Tu padre es mayor que el mío. — “Your father is older than mine.”

• Full form functioning as adjective:

  Necesito el libro mío. — “I need the book of mine.” -or- “I need my book.”

• Short form functioning as adjective:

  Necesito mi libro. — “I need my book.”

Demonstratives

The demonstratives are another class of pronoun that have both pronomial and adjectival functions. The two functions are traditionally distinguished by the presence or absence of accents. Accented forms (and the neuter forms) always function as pronouns. However, since the 1960s, forms without accents may function either as adjectives or as pronouns.

Inflection

Inflection of demonstratives in Spanish

		Masculine		Feminine		Neuter 1
Remoteness	Function	sg	pl	sg	pl	sg	pl
aquí "here"	pronomial 2	éste	éstos	ésta	éstas	esto	—
	adjectival	este	estos	esta	estas	—	—
ahí "there"	pronomial	ése	ésos	ésa	ésas	eso	—
	adjectival	ese	esos	esa	esas	—	—
allí, allá "over there"	pronomial	aquél	aquéllos	aquélla	aquéllas	aquello	—
	adjectival	aquel	aquellos	aquella	aquellas	—	—
1 There is no neuter adjectival form because Spanish does not have neuter nouns. 2 Pronomial forms are functional pronouns.

Usage

According to a decision from the 1960s of the Real Academia (which governs the academic use of Spanish), the accents on demonstrative pronomials (pronoun forms) are only to be used when necessary to avoid ambiguity with the demonstrative determiners (adjectival forms). However, the normal educated standard is still to use the accents on pronomials in all cases. Foreign learners may safely adhere to either standard.

• Accented form functioning as pronoun:

  Éstos son caballos. — “These are horses.”

  Ése es mío. — “That one is mine.”

• Unaccented form functioning as adjective:

  Estas llamas son peruanas. — “These llamas are Peruvian.”

  Esa llama está enferma. — “That llama is sick.”

  Aquellos nubarrones parecen siniestros. — “Those storm clouds look ominous.”

Note that there is never an accent on the neuter forms esto, eso, and aquello. The neuter forms have no determiner equivalents because there are no neuter nouns in Spanish. The neuter forms are a remnant from Latin, which had three genders of noun. As a result, no accents are necessary to distinguish these forms.

See also

• Spanish pronouns on Wikipedia.Wikipedia