6th Edition
A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish
A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish is a comprehensive, cohesive and clear guide to the forms and structures of Spanish as it is written and spoken today in Spain and Latin-America. It includes clear descriptions of all the main grammatical phenomena of Spanish, and their use, illustrated by numerous examples of contemporary Spanish, both Peninsular and Latin-American, formal and informal. Fully revised and updated, the sixth edition is even more relevant to students and teachers of Spanish.
The sixth edition includes:
• new chapters, providing more detail and examples of key areas of Spanish grammar;
• an increased number of Mexican examples to reflect the growing interest in this country’s variety of Spanish;
• new information for readers studying Spanish and French together;
• a glossary of grammatical terms including English translations of Spanish terms.
The combination of reference grammar and manual of current usage is invaluable for learners at level B2–C2 of the Common European Framework for Languages, and Intermediate High–Advanced High on the ACTFL proficiency scales.
Chapter
1 Gender of nouns
2 Plural of nouns
3 The defi nite article
4 The indefi nite article
5 Adjectives
6 Comparison of adjectives and adverbs
7 Demonstrative adjectives and pronouns
8 Neuter article and neuter pronouns
9 Possessive adjectives and pronouns
10 Miscellaneous adjectives and pronouns
11 Numerals
12 Personal pronouns, subject
13 Personal pronouns used with prepositions
14 Personal pronouns, object
15 Le/les and lo/la/los/las
16 Forms of Spanish verbs
17 Use of indicative (non-continuous) verb tenses
18 Use of indicative (non-continuous) compound tenses
19 Continuous forms of verbs
20 The subjunctive
21 The imperative
22 The infi nitive
23 Participles
24 The gerund
25 Auxiliary verbs
26 Personal a
27 Negation
28 Questions and exclamations
29 Conditional sentences
30 Pronominal verbs
31 Verbs of becoming
32 Passive and impersonal sentences
33 Ser and estar
34 ‘There is’, ‘there are’, ‘there was’, ‘there were’, etc.
35 Adverbs
36 Expressions of time
37 Conjunctions and discourse markers
38 Prepositions
39 Relative clauses and relative pronouns
40 Nominalizers
41 Cleft sentences
42 Word order
43 Diminutive, augmentative and pejorative suffixes
44 Spelling, accent rules, punctuation and word division
Glossary of grammatical terms
Bibliography and sources
Index of English words
Index of grammatical points and Spanish words
Biography
John Butt is Emeritus Professor of Hispanic Studies of King’s College London, UK. He studied Spanish, French and Portuguese at the University of Cambridge and went on to lecture in Spanish literature and language at King’s College London for 37 years.
Carmen Benjamin, a native speaker of Spanish, taught Spanish at King’s College London, UK.
Antonia Moreira Rodríguez, also a native speaker of Spanish, teaches Spanish language and linguistics in the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin-American Studies of King’s College London, UK.
"The sixth edition of A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish equips the multilingual 21st-century learner with the essential tools to master the Spanish language. This new edition amplifies its contrastive approach by incorporating new references to other languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, German...) as well as a wealth of new language samples from the Spanish-speaking world. It also incorporates important references to areas of special difficulty for the anglophone speaker, providing a clear, accessible and comprehensive account of Spanish grammar to the independent learner and maintaining its role as an indispensable companion to language professionals and students of Spanish at all levels." - Javier Muñoz-Basols, University of Oxford, UK
