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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.
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.
Another sign that Spanish once had a grammatical neuter exists in words that derive from neuter plurals. In Latin, a neuter plural ended in -a, and so these words today in Spanish are interpreted as feminine singulars and take singular verb forms; however, they do express some notion of a plural. [citation needed]
In Portuguese and Spanish (as in other languages with similar forms), the "extra-polite" forms in time came to be the normal polite forms, and the former polite (or plural) second-person vos was displaced to a familiar form, either becoming a familiar plural (as in European Spanish) or a familiar singular (as in many varieties of Latin American ...
before masculine singular nouns bueno ("good") buen: before masculine singular nouns ciento ("hundred") cien: before nouns and, in composite numbers, before numbers greater than or equal to mil ("thousand") cualquiera ("whatever", singular) cualesquiera (plural) cualquier cualesquier: before the noun grande ("big, grand") gran: before singular ...
Spanish verbs are conjugated in three persons, each having a singular and a plural form. In some varieties of Spanish, such as that of the Río de la Plata Region, a special form of the second person is used. Spanish is a pro-drop language, meaning that subject pronouns are often omitted.
Classical Latin, and the Vulgar Latin from which Romance languages such as Spanish are descended, had only two second-person pronouns – the singular tu and the plural vos. 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 ...
As in English, the plural indefinite article is not always required: Hay [unas] cosas en la mesa = "There are [some] things on the table" The use of uno/una/unos/unas before adjectives can be analyzed as a pronoun, followed by an adjective, rather than as an indefinite article, followed by a nominalized adjective :