Spanish vs English
Spanish allows a more significant latitude in order of words compared to English. Usually, the construction of the sentence is in the order of subject, verb, and then object. Whereas in Spanish, there is no specific order of forming sentences, that is, any of the verbs, subject, and objects can come first. As a general rule, it is not wrong to follow SVO to form a sentence in Spanish. Although, in most cases, object pronouns come before verbs, and if the verb is command or infinitive, the object pronouns will be attached to them. Ordinary statements can start with either the verb, the object, or the subject. Most sentences begin with verbs. Examples bellow carries a translation of the report “Jane wrote this novel” but with a subject, verb and object appearing in different position of the sentence;
- Starting with a verb. (Escribio Jane novella.)
- Object coming first. (Esta novella la escribio Jane.)Starting with a subject. (Jane escribio esta novella.)
Someone might think that the above sentences carry a different meaning. The choice of words, to begin with, can be for emphasis rather than changing the meaning. In the first sentence, the focus is on the writing: Jane wrote the novel. In the second sentence, the emphasis is on what Jane wrote: Jane wrote this novel. In the final example, the focus on Jane: Jane wrote the novel. Word order in Spanish question is always different; verbs always comes before the subject. ¿Escribió Jane esta novella? (Did Jane write this novel?) Statements in informal speech can be phrase similar to English statements. For example, Jane wrote this novel? (¿Jane escribió esta novela?) Subjects of sentences can be omitted if the statement can be understood in the context. Jane es mi hija. Escribió esta novela. (Jane is my daughter. She wrote this novel.) It is not necessary to start the second sentence with Jane, the word “she” can be used in place of Jane.
Complement clauses come after verbs in the Spanish language. Complimentary provisions are parts of the syntactic category of writing which correspond to subordinate conjunction. The purpose of these clauses in Spanish is to introduce indirect interrogative clauses. For example, Jane dijo [CP que iría a la fiesta] its translation to English is “Jane said she would go to the party.” Considering this above example, the verb comes before the complimentary. Another example: Jane preguntó [CP dónde íbamos, when translated to English, it becomes, “Jane asked where we were going.” “Asked” is the verb while “where we” is a complimentary clause. In simple terms, the complimentary clause comes after a verb, or in some situations, it can replace a verb.