Find out why "hay" is always singular, why there are so many more irregulars in the preterite than the imperfect, where "boot" and "-zco" irregulars come from, and much more.

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Top 10 Spanish verb mysteries
unraveled

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Mystery 1: Hay is always singular
Hay un pollito
‘There is a chick’
Hay tres pollitos
‘There are three chicks’
Same for other tenses:
• Había un(os) // problema(s)
‘There was a problem // were some problems’
• Habrá una(s) fiesta(s)
‘There will be a party //some parties’
• etc.
All other verbs show plural marking. e.g.
• Existe(n) un(os) problema(s)
‘A problem exists // Some problems exist’
• Ocurrió/Ocurrieron un(as) fiesta(s)
‘A party/some parties took place’

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• Hay, había, habrá, and so on are forms of the verb haber. Its original
meaning ‘to have’ is seen in its auxiliary usage, as in Había ido ‘He had gone’.
• The use of haber as an existential (‘there is/are’, etc.) sprang from possessive
sentences with an unspecified subject.
 Sentences like Hay tres pollitos thus originally meant ‘One has three chicks.’
 Pollitos was an object, not a subject, so number agreement didn’t apply.
• This usage has survived even though hay has lost its possessive meaning.
• Sentences like Habían tres pollitos are technically incorrect but increasingly
common – and logical.

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Mystery 2:
Object pronoun(s) come before negative commands
but after affirmative commands
• No las comas. ‘Don’t eat them.’
• No me lo diga. ‘Don’t tell me it.’
• Cómelas. ‘Eat them.’
• Dígamelo. ‘Tell me it.’

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• Medieval Spanish didn’t allow unstressed words, such as
object pronouns, to appear at the beginning of a sentence.
 Linguists call this the Tobler-Mussafia rule.
• In negative commands, the word No acted as a buffer at the
beginning of a sentence, so that the object pronoun could
precede the verb. Not so with positive commands.
• Pronoun position thus came to be associated with the
positive/negative difference.
• This pattern carried over into modern Spanish, even though
pronouns can now start sentences freely, as in Te quiero.

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Mystery 3:
Si ‘if’ doesn’t trigger the present subjunctive:
Si tienes hambre… ‘If you are hungry’
2. The present subjunctive is found after other
hypothetical expressions:
• con tal de que ‘provided that’
• en caso de que ‘in case’
• a menos que ‘unless’
• siempre que ‘whenever’
• a condición de que ‘on the condition that’
• dado que ‘in case that’
1. Si does trigger the
subjunctive in the past tense:
• Si tuvieras hambre…
‘If you were hungry…’
This is bizarre because…

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• Latin allowed both the present indicative and the
present subjunctive in si clauses.
• Old Spanish developed a future subjunctive that
replaced the present subjunctive in si clauses.
• The future subjunctive became obsolete, and is now
found only in legal documents.
• This left the present indicative as the only option in
this context.

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4. The multiple irregularities of ser ‘to be’
• present indicative: soy, eres, es, somos, sois, son
• imperfect: era, eras, era, etc.
• preterite: fui, fuiste, fue, etc.
• imperfect subjunctive: fuera, fueras, fuera, etc.
• participles: siendo, sido
• present subjunctive: sea, seas, sea, etc.
• informal commands: sé, sed

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• Esse, the Latin verb ‘to be’, was already irregular. It merged two Proto-Indo-
European roots: *h1es- ‘to be’ and *bhuhx- ‘to grow, become’.
 The present tense came from *h1es-. Half its forms began with s-, and half with e-.
 As Latin evolved into Spanish, s- also spread to the vosotros form.
 The y in soy is a mystery, but is clearly related to the y in doy, estoy, and voy.
 The imperfect also came from *h1es-. It was irregular in Latin: eram, eras, erat, etc.
 The a in these forms is related to the -aba imperfect ending we see in Spanish.
 The past tense forms beginning with f came from the *bhuhx- root.
• The remaining forms of ser, including the infinitive ser itself, came from the
Latin verb sedere ‘to sit’, and replaced the corresponding forms of esse.

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5. The multiple irregularities of ir ‘to go’
• infinitive: ir
• imperfect: iba, ibas, iba, etc.
• participles: yendo, ido
• preterite: fui, fuiste, fue, etc.
• imperfect subjunctive: fuera, fueras, fuera, etc.
• present indicative: voy, vas, va, etc.
• present subjunctive: vaya, vayas, vaya, etc.
• informal commands: ve, id

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• Ir is the product of three different Latin verbs:
 The Latin verb ire ‘to go’ is the source of the infinitive, the imperfect,
the two participles, and the informal plural command (id).
 The past tense forms beginning with f- came from the Latin verb esse
‘to be’, and took the place of the corresponding forms of ire.
 All forms beginning with v- came from the Latin verb vadere,
meaning ‘to go, to hurry’.
• Further irregularities, such as the -y in voy and the present subjunctive
forms, arose over time as the Latin verb forms evolved.

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6. –zco verbs
Conocer ‘to know’
conozco conocemos
conoces conocéis
conoce conocen
Close to 90 other verbs, mostly
ending in -ecer and -ucir, display
this irregularity.

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• This pattern began with Latin verbs ending in -scere, such as florescere ‘to
flourish’. The sc cluster was pronounced sk.
• In Spanish, the sc was reduced to c (pronounced th or s) in most verb forms.
This change was triggered by the -e or -i that usually follow the sc.
• The original sc was only preserved before -o (as in conozco) and -a (as in the
subjunctive conozca).
• This sc/c alternation has spread to many verbs that didn’t have an sc cluster
in Latin, including common verbs like conducir (from Latin conducĕre).

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7. “Boot” verbs
This irregular verb
pattern affects 100s
of Spanish verbs.

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• The first two “boot” patterns (e ie and o ue) reflect
the contrast between short and long vowels in Latin.
 In stressed syllables (as in the “boot” forms), short ĕ and ŏ
became ie and ue in Spanish.
 The same change can be seen in words like fiesta and puerta,
from Latin fĕsta and pŏrta.
 This pattern then spread to other verbs that had a long vowel
in Latin, like pensar, from Latin pēnsare.
• Simplifying a bit, the e in verbs like pedir originally
changed to i in anticipation of the –io ending in the
Latin ego (yo) form. This i then spread to other forms.

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8. The preterite past tense has many irregulars;
the imperfect has three
Imperfect irregulars
1. ser (era, eras, etc.)
2. ir (iba, ibas, etc.)
3. ver (veía, veías, etc.)
Preterite irregulars
• Many verbs show a stem change:
• decir  dije, dijiste, etc.
• saber  supe, supiste, etc.
• venir  vine, viniste, etc.
• Dar has -er/-ir endings (di, diste, etc.).
• Ser and ir are identical (fui, fuiste, etc.).
• Verbs like dormir and sentir (-ir “boot” verbs) have u and
i in the third person (durmió/durmieron, sintió/sintieron).
(Preterites like empecé, saqué, and pagué aren’t irregular,
since they are 100% predictable and only involve spelling.)

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• Most stem changing verbs began as Latin “strong” verbs, a common category.
 Some already had a stem change in Latin, e.g. dicere  dixi, dixisti, etc.
 Some absorbed u or i from their Latin endings, e.g. sapui > supe and veni > vine.
 Some (including estar) were regular in Latin but joined the “strong” group in Spanish.
 Dar was “strong” (dedi, dedisti, etc.), and may also have been influenced by ver.
• Ir borrowed the past tense of ser. This is similar to the use of Estuve en Madrid ‘I
was in Madrid’ in modern Spanish to also mean ‘I went to Madrid’.
• The o and e in verbs like dormir and sentir were raised to u and i (both high
vowels) in anticipation of the i in the -ió and -ieron endings.
• Iba and era preserve two of Latin’s few irregular imperfects.
• Veía reflects an earlier form of the verb ver: veer, conjugated like creer and leer.

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9. The present and past subjunctives
have the same irregularities
as the present and preterite indicatives.
Present
indicative subjunctive
conozco conozca
hago haga
tiembla tiemble
Past
indicative subjunctive
supieron supieran, supiesen
hicieron hicieran, hiciesen
fueran fueran, fuesen

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• Some Latin consonants had different outcomes in Spanish based on
their following vowel: in particular, e and i versus o, a, and u.
 The o in the present indicative yo ending, and the a in all the present
subjunctive endings, thus led to the same -zco and -go irregularities.
• Some Latin vowels had different outcomes in Spanish in stressed and
unstressed syllables.
 The identical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in the present
indicative and subjunctive led to the “boot” pattern in verbs like temblar.
• The Latin forms that gave rise to the preterite, and to both forms of
the imperfect subjunctive, were all based on the Latin “perfect” stem.

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10. Spanish has two sets of endings
for the imperfect subjunctive
Quería que mis padres me visitaran/visitasen.
‘I wanted my parents to visit me’.
Ojalá que tuvieran/tuviesen más tiempo.
‘Would be to God that they had more time.’

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• Both sets of endings came from Latin “pluperfect” forms --
essentially, forms that described something that took place prior to
some point in time (as in ‘I had eaten already when they arrived’).
• Latin’s pluperfect subjunctive was the source of the Spanish -se
subjunctive, while its pluperfect indicative was the source of the
Spanish -ra subjunctive, a more recent development.
• The co-existence of these parallel sets of endings is one of the most
unusual aspects of Spanish grammar.

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SUMMARY
• A variety of factors have combined to create these
Spanish verb mysteries.
• The table on the following slide summarizes these
factors and their effects.

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Factor Effect(s)
Change in verb meaning hay (loss of possessive sense)
Syntactic change
Pronouns before or after commands
(legacy of medieval “Tobler-Mussafia rule”)
Creation and loss of verb tenses
• No present subjunctive after si
(legacy of Old Spanish future subjunctive)
• Two sets of imperfect subjunctive endings
“Marriage” of verb roots ir, ser
Complications inherited
from Latin
• Many irregularities of ser
• Iba and era imperfects
• “Strong” preterites
Spread of irregular patterns
by analogy
• -oy ending (soy, voy, etc.)
• Irregular preterite of estar (and other verbs)
Sound change
• -zco, -go (consonant changes before e, i)
• “Boot” verbs (changes in stressed vowels)
• Some irregular preterite patterns (e.g. durmió)
• Veía imperfect (from veer  ver)

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