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The modern Spanish verb paradigm (conjugation) has 16 distinct complete [1] forms (tenses), i.e. sets of forms for each combination of tense, mood and aspect, plus one incomplete [2] tense (the imperative), as well as three non-temporal forms (the infinitive, gerund, and past participle). Two of the tenses, namely both subjunctive futures, are ...
Verbs are marked for tense, aspect, mood, person, and number (resulting in up to fifty conjugated forms per verb). Nouns follow a two- gender system and are marked for number . Personal pronouns are inflected for person , number , gender (including a residual neuter), and a very reduced case system; the Spanish pronominal system represents a ...
The Spanish copulas are ser and estar.The latter developed as follows: stare → *estare → estar. The copula ser developed from two Latin verbs. Thus its inflectional paradigm is a combination: most of it derives from svm (to be) but the present subjunctive appears to come from sedeo (to sit) via the Old Spanish verb seer.
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]
A class of false friends between the two languages is composed of the verb forms with endings containing -ra-, such as cantara, cantaras, cantáramos, and so on. Spanish has two forms for the imperfect subjunctive, one with endings in -se-and another with endings in -ra- (e.g., cantase/cantara 'were
Spanish is described as a "verb-framed" language, meaning that the direction of motion is expressed in the verb while the mode of locomotion is expressed adverbially (e.g. subir corriendo or salir volando; the respective English equivalents of these examples—'to run up' and 'to fly out'—show that English is, by contrast, "satellite-framed ...
For other irregular verbs and their common patterns, see the article on Spanish irregular verbs. The tables include only the "simple" tenses (that is, those formed with a single word), and not the "compound" tenses (those formed with an auxiliary verb plus a non-finite form of the main verb), such as the progressive, perfect, and passive voice.
Many forms with d and g preserved, e.g. ligar, legal, dígito, crudo, are learned words ; cf. the alternate forms liar, leal, dedo and Old Spanish cruo and its Latin origin crūdus. An exemption to the rule: The retention of the d and g is due to the invalidity of the -ao , -aa , -oo, and -oa hiatuses in Old Spanish that would result from ...