Word Order in Spanish

La risa

Y en este siglo de crisis intelectuales, de agitación moral, de decaimientos, de enfermedades del alma, la risa ha podido ser torre de asilo, lugar de salvamento, para los que se allegan a sus dominios y se acogen bajo sus banderas...

¡Bendigámosla, porque ella es la salvación, la lanza y el escudo! ...

Vocablos

Grammar

Word Order in Spanish Sentences

You already know a lot about syntactic features of Spanish sentences from the previous lessons. In this lesson, we will summorize this information.

In Spanish, as you surely noticed, words in a sentence can be placed rather freely if it doesn not change the meaning of the sentence. However, in a simple sentence, you should follow the following word order:

For example:

You can start this sentence with the object, but in this case the object will be repeated by a personal pronoun before the verb:

The subject goes after the verb in the following cases:

• in interrogative sentences, e.g.:

  ¿Adónde vas? — pregunta Juan.

  Where are you going? — Juan asks.

• if a sentence starts with an adverb:

  En seguida comenzó a cantar Carmen.

  Carmen immediately began to sing.

In negative sentences, the word order is the same as in affirmative sentences, only the negation no goes before the verb, e.g.:

In interrogative sentences the following deviations are possible:

For example:

The usage of personal (unstressed) pronouns in a sentence (compare: lessons 24 and 29):

• If the predicate verb is in the simple past of the indicative, conjunctive or conditional mood, then the pronoun goes before the verb:

  Juana te ve, te veía, te vio, te verá, te vería, que te vea, si te viese.
  Juana sees you, used to see you, saw you, will see you, would see you, if she saw you.

• If the predicate verb is in the imperative mood, in presente de subjuntivo (that functions as the imperative mood), and also in gerundio or in the infinitive form, then the pronoun goes after the verb and is written in one word with it, e.g.:

   

  ¡tómalo!

  take it!

   

  ¡dadle el libro!

  give him the book!

   

  ¡quédense aquí!

  stay here!

• If before the predicate verb (except gerundio and the infinitive form) goes some other word, then the pronoun is placed before the verb, e.g.:

   

  Ojalá nos lea algo.

  I hope he will read something to us.

   

  No le molestes.

  Don’t bother him.

   

  Deseo que te quedes.

  I want you to stay.

• If the predicate verb is expressed by a compound/perfect tense, then the pronoun is placed before the auxiliary verb in all the moods, except for the compound gerundio, e.g.:

   

  me han comprado

  have bought me

   

  habiéndome comprado

  having bought me

   

  te habíamos escrito

  we had written to you

   

  habiéndote escrito

  having written to you

• If there are two forms of personal pronouns as objects in a sentence, then they can go before or after the predicate verb. Just remember (see lesson 24) that the 1^st and 2^nd person pronouns always go before the 3^rd person pronoun.

In Spanish, the usage of the aforesaid pronouns separately is impossible. You cannot put one of them before the verb, and the other one after the verb, e.g.:

You cannot say: me das lo.

The usage of objects and adverbial modifiers in a sentence

If there are several objects in a sentence, then the usual word order is the following:

For example:

but you can also say:

or

Thus, the word order depends on what we want to emphasize in the sentence. However, pay attention to the groups of words:

that are always closely connected, regardless of an arrangement variation of members of the sentence.