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Personal pronouns in Spanish have distinct forms according to whether they stand for a subject , a direct object , an indirect object , or a reflexive object. Several pronouns further have special forms used after prepositions. Spanish is a pro-drop language with respect to
Another unique aspect of Spanish is that personal pronouns have distinct feminine forms for the first and second person plural. For example, the Spanish pronouns nosotras and vosotras specifically refer to groups of females, distinguishing them from the masculine forms used for mixed-gender or male groups. [3]
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.
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 this way, nouns differ from other Spanish words that show number contrast (i.e., adjectives, determiners, and verbs), which vary in number to agree with nouns. [27]
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 .
The pronouns yo, tú, vos, [1] él, nosotros, vosotros [2] and ellos are used to symbolise the three persons and two numbers. Note, however, that Spanish is a pro-drop language, and so it is the norm to omit subject pronouns when not needed for contrast or emphasis. The subject, if specified, can easily be something other than these pronouns.
In English, the most common formation of plural nouns is by adding an -s suffix to the singular noun. (For details and different cases, see English plurals.) Just like in English, noun plurals in French, Spanish, and Portuguese are also typically formed by adding an -s suffix to the lemma form, sometimes combining it with an additional vowel ...
The possessive for usted and ustedes is su(s) as for other third-person pronouns. The ambiguity that this causes (especially considering that su(s) already covers "his", "her", "its" and "their") can be alleviated by treating usted(es) as a noun and thereby saying la casa de ustedes instead of su casa.