A New Reference Grammar of 
             Modern Spanish 
                    ANew 
              Reference Grammar 
               of Modern Spanish 
                   Second Edition 
                    John Butt 
                 Carmen Benjamin 
                   Edward Arnold 
               A member of the Hodder Headline Group 
             LONDON  NEW YORK  MELBOURNE  AUCKLAND 
                         © 1988, 1994 John Butt and Carmen Benjamin 
                         First published in Great Britain 1988 
                         Second edition published 1994 
                         Distributed in the USA by Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc 
                         29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 
                         British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data 
                         Available upon request 
                         Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 
                         Butt, John, 1943-
                            A new reference grammar of modern SpanishIJohn Butt, Carmen Benjamin. - 2nd ed. 
                              p.    em. 
                            Includes bibliographical references (p.499) and index. 
                         ISBN-13: 978-1-4615-8370-7                  e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4615-8368-4 
                         DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4615-8368-4 
                            1.  Spanish language--Grammar. 
                            I. Benjamin, Carmen.             II.  Title. 
                         PC4112.B88  1994 
                         468.2' 421-dc20 
                         All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form 
                         or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording or any 
                         information storage or retrieval system, without either prior permission in writing from the 
                                      or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences 
                         publisher 
                         are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency: 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE. 
                                       10/12 pt. Palatino by Anneset, Weston-super-Mare, Avon. 
                         Typeset in 
                          a division of Hodder Headline PLC, 
                         338 Euston Road, London NWI3BH.by St Edmondsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk 
                         and Hartnolls Ltd., Bodmin, Cornwall. 
                                              Contents 
               Preface to the first edition (abridged and revised)                             vii 
               Preface to the second edition                                                    xi 
               Conventions, spelling and abbreviations                                        xiii 
                 1   Gender of nouns                                                            1 
                 2   Plural of nouns                                                           17 
                 3   Articles                                                                  30 
                 4   Adjectives                                                                51 
                 5   Comparison of adjectives and adverbs                                      73 
                 6   Demonstrative adjectives and pronouns                                     83 
                 7   Neuter article and pronouns                                               89 
                 8   Possessive adjectives and pronouns                                        94 
                 9   Miscellaneous adjectives and pronouns                                    101 
                10   Numerals                                                                 114 
                11   Personal pronouns                                                        123 
                12   Lelles and lo/lallos/las                                                 143 
                13   Forms of verbs                                                           156 
                14   Use of indicative (non-continuous) verb forms                            207 
                15   Continuous forms of the verb                                             230 
                16   The subjunctive                                                          237 
                17   The imperative                                                           273 
                18   The infinitive                                                           281 
                19   Participles                                                              292 
                20   The gerund                                                               298 
                21   Modal auxiliary verbs                                                    307 
                22   Personal a                                                               312 
                23   Negation                                                                 319 
                24   Interrogation and exclamation                                            329 
                25   Conditional sentences                                                    335 
                26   Pronominal verbs                                                         341 
                27   Verbs of becoming                                                        358 
                28   Passive and impersonal sentences                                         362 
                29   Ser and estar                                                            375 
                30   Existential sentences(/there is/are', etc.)                              382 
                31   Adverbs                                                                  385 
                32   Expressions of time                                                      401 
                33   Conjunctions                                                             410