In Spanish, object pronouns are personal pronouns that take the function of the object in the sentence. Object pronouns may be both clitic and non-clitic, with non-clitic forms carrying greater emphasis. When used as clitics, object pronouns are generally proclitic, meaning they appear before the verb of which they are the object; enclitic pronouns (pronouns attached to the end of the verb) appear with positive imperatives, infinitives, and gerunds. Non-clitic forms, by contrast, can appear anywhere in the sentence but can only rarely be used without their clitic counterparts. When used together, clitic pronouns cluster in specific orders based primarily on person; clitic doubling is often found as well. In many dialects in Central Spain, including that of Madrid, speakers exhibit leísmo, using the indirect object pronoun le as the direct object pronoun where most other dialects would use lo (masculine) or la (feminine).
History As the history of the Spanish language saw the shedding of Latin declensions, only the subject and prepositional object survived as independent personal pronouns in Spanish: the rest became clitics. These clitics may be proclitic or enclitic, or doubled for emphasis. In modern Spanish, the placement of clitic pronouns is determined morphologically by the form of the verb. Clitics precede most conjugated verbs but come after infinitives, gerunds, and positive imperatives. For example: me vio but verme, viéndome, ¡véame! Exceptions exist for certain idiomatic expressions, like "once upon a time" (Érase una vez).
Person Latin Spanish 1st EGŌ (nominative) MIHI (dative) MĒ (accusative) MĒCUM (ablative MĒ + CUM "with")yo (nominative) mí (prepositional) me (unstressed/clitic) conmigo (comitative) 1st NŌS (nominative/accusative) NŌBĪS (dative/ablative) NŌBĪSCUM (ablative NŌBĪS + CUM "with")nosotros, nosotras (nominative/prepositional) nos (accusative/dative) connosco (comitative, archaic) 2nd TŪ (nominative) TIBI (dative) TĒ (accusative) TĒCUM (ablative TĒ + CUM "with")tú (nominative) ti (prepositional) te (accusative/dative) contigo (comitative) 2nd VŌS (nominative/accusative) VŌBĪS (dative/ablative) VŌBĪSCUM (ablative VŌBĪS + CUM "with")vosotros, vosotras (nominative/prepositional) os (accusative/dative) convusco (comitative, archaic) 3rd ILLE, ILLA, ILLUD (nominative) ILLĪ (dative) ILLUM, ILLAM, ILLUD (accusative)él, ella, ello (nominative/prepositional) le (dative), se (dative, alongside an accusative pronoun) lo, la (accusative) 3rd ILLĪ, ILLAE (nominative) ILLĪS (dative) ILLŌS, ILLĀS (accusative)ellos, ellas (nominative/prepositional) les (dative) los, las (accusative)3rd ( & )SIBI (dative) SĒ/SĒSĒ (accusative) SĒCUM (ablative SĒ + CUM "with")sí (prepositional) se (accusative/dative) consigo (comitative)
Old Spanish
Unstressed pronouns in Old Spanish were governed by rules different from those in modern Spanish. The old rules were more determined by syntax than by morphology: the pronoun followed the verb, except when the verb was preceded (in the same clause) by a stressed word, such as a noun, adverb, or stressed pronoun.
For example, from Cantar de Mio Cid: e tornós pora su casa, ascóndense de mio Cid non lo desafié, aquel que gela diesse
If the first stressed word of a clause was in the future or conditional tense, or if it was a compound verb made up of haber + a participle, then any unstressed pronoun was placed between the two elements of the compound verb (this process still applies in European Portuguese where it is called mesoclisis).
daregelo he (modern: se lo daré) = "I'll give it to him". daregelo ia/ie (modern: se lo daría) = "I would give it." dado gelo ha (modern: se lo ha dado) = "He has given it."
Before the 15th century, clitics never appeared in the initial position; not even after a coordinating conjunction or a caesura. They could, however, precede a conjugated verb if there was a negative or adverbial marker. For example:
Fuese el conde = "The count left", but El conde se fue = "The count left" No se fue el conde = "The count did not leave" Entonces se fue el conde = "Then the count left".
The same rule applied to gerunds, infinitives, and imperatives. The forms of the future and the conditional functioned like any other verb conjugated with respect to the clitics. But a clitic following a future or conditional was usually placed between the infinitive root and the inflection. For example: Verme ha mañana = "See me tomorrow", but No me verá mañana = "He will not see me tomorrow" Mañana me verá = "He will see me tomorrow"
Early Modern Spanish By the 15th century, Early Modern Spanish had developed "proclisis", in which an object's agreement markers come before the verb. According to Andrés Enrique-Arias, this shift helped speed up language processing of complex morphological material in the verb's inflection (including time, manner, and aspect).
This proclisis (ascenso de clítico) was a syntactic movement away from the idea that an object must follow the verb. For example, in these two sentences with the same meaning: María quiere comprarlo = "Maria wants to buy it." María lo quiere comprar = "Maria wants to buy it."
"Lo" is the object of "comprar" in the first example, but Spanish allows that clitic to appear in a preverbal position of a syntagma that it dominates strictly, as in the second example. This movement only happens in conjugated verbs. But a special case occurs for the imperative, where we see the postverbal position of the clitic Llámame = "Call me" dímelo = "Tell it to me"/"Tell me it"
This is accounted for by a second syntactic movement wherein the verb "passes by" the clitic that has already "ascended".
Usage Spanish object pronouns come in two forms: clitic and non-clitic, or stressed. Clitics, by definition, cannot function independently, and they therefore must appear attached to a host (a verb or preposition). With verbs, clitics may appear as proclitics before the verb or as enclitics attached to the end of the verb, with proclitization being significantly more common. When used together, clitic pronouns cluster in specific orders, and the process of enclitization is subject to certain rules in which sounds are dropped. Non-clitic pronouns, by contrast, are the stressed form of object pronouns; they are formed with the preposition a ("to") and the prepositional case of the pronoun. In contrast to clitic pronouns, non-clitic pronouns can appear anywhere in the sentence, but with very few exceptions, they cannot be used without their clitic counterparts (a process known as clitic doubling).
When used as clitics, object pronouns are generally proclitic, i.e. they appear before the verb of which they are the object. Thus: Yo te veo = "I see you" (lit. "I you see") Él lo dijo = "He said it" (lit. "He it said") Tú lo has hecho = "You have done it" (lit. "You it have done") El libro nos fue dado = "The book was given to us" (lit. "The book us was given")
In certain environments, however, enclitic pronouns (i.e. pronouns attached to the end of the verb or a word derived from a verb) may appear. Enclitization is generally only found with: positive imperatives infinitives gerunds
With positive imperatives, enclitization is always mandatory: Hazlo ("Do it") but never Lo haz Dáselo a alguien diferente ("Give it to somebody else") but never Se lo da a alguien diferente (as a command; that sentence can also mean "He/she/it gives it to somebody else", in which sense it is entirely correct)
With negative imperatives, however, proclitization is mandatory: No lo hagas ("Don't do it") but never No hágaslo No se lo des a alguien diferente ("Don't give it to somebody else") but never No déselo a alguien diferente
With infinitives and gerunds, enclitization is often, but not always, mandatory. With bare infinitives, enclitization is mandatory: tenerlo = "to have it" debértelo = "to owe it to you" oírnos = "to hear us"
In compound infinitives that make use of the past participle (i.e. all perfect and passive infinitives), enclitics attach to the uninflected auxiliary verb and not the past participle itself: haberlo visto = "to have seen it" serme guardado = "to be saved for me" habértelos dado = "to have given them to you" haberle sido mostrado = "to have been shown to him/her/you"
In compound infinitives that make use of the gerund, however, enclitics may attach to either the gerund itself or the main verb, including the rare cases when the gerund is used together with the past participle in a single infinitive: estar diciéndolo or estarlo diciendo = "to be saying it" andar buscándolos or andarlos buscando = "to go around looking for them" haber estado haciéndolo or haberlo estado haciendo = "to have been doing it"
With bare gerunds, enclitization is once again mandatory. In compound gerunds, enclitics attach to the same word as they would in the infinitive, and one has the same options with combinations of gerunds as with gerunds used in infinitives: haciéndolo = "doing it" hablándoles = "talking to them" habiéndolo visto = "having seen it" siéndome dado = "being given to me" habiéndole sido mostrado = "having been shown to him/her/you" habiendo estado teniéndolos or habiéndolos estado teniendo = "having been holding them" andando buscándolos or andándolos buscando = "going around looking for them"
In constructions that make use of infinitives or gerunds as arguments of a conjugated verb, clitic pronouns may appear as proclitics before the verb (as in most verbal constructions) or simply as enclitics attached to the infinitive or gerund itself. Similarly, in combinations of infinitives, enclitics may attach to any one infinitive: Quería hacerlo or Lo quería hacer = "He wanted to do it" Estoy considerándolo or Lo estoy considerando = "I'm considering it" Empieza a hacerlo or Empiézalo a hacer = "Start doing it" Sigue diciéndolo or Síguelo diciendo = "Keep saying it" querer vernos or querernos ver = "to want to see us" tener que poder hacerlo, tener que poderlo hacer, or tenerlo que poder hacer = "to have to be able to do it"
Enclitics may be found in other environments in literary and archaic language, but such constructions are virtually absent from everyday speech.
Enclitization is subject to the following rules: The s in the first-person plural ending -mos drops before nos, se, and os: vámonos ("let's go"), démoselo ("let's give it to him"), mostrémoos ("let's show you [pl.]"), etc. The d in the informal second-person plural positive imperative drops before os: sentaos ("[you all] sit down"), apuraos ("[you all] hurry up"), suscribíos ("[you all] subscribe"), etc., except for the verb ir: idos ("[you all] leave")
Non-clitic, or stressed pronouns, on the other hand, do not require a host, and they can thus be placed anywhere in the sentence. With very few exceptions, however, they must be used along with their clitic equivalents:
A mí me gusta toda gente = "I like all people" Su amigo te vio a ti mucho en esos días = "His friend saw you a lot in those days" Le dará mucho tiempo a él = "She'll give him a lot of time" Se lo habrían dado a ellos los muchachos = "The boys would have given it to them"
Non-clitic accusative pronouns cannot have impersonal antecedents; impersonal accusative clitics must therefore be used with their antecedents instead: Se las di las cosas but never Se las di ellas = "I gave the things (them) to her" Lo vi el libro but never Lo vi él = "I saw the book (it)"
Impersonal dative clitic pronouns, however, may be stressed as such: Se lo hiciste a ellos = "You did it to them" Esto le cabe a ella = "This fits that (it)"
In a similar vein, impersonal accusative clitics are occasionally used to provide a degree of emphasis to the sentence as a whole: Lo sé lo que dijo = "I know what he/she/you said" (with a degree of emphasis) ¡Lo hace el trabajo! ¡Déjalo solo! = "He's doing his work! Leave him alone!"