ABSTRACT
Word order in Spanish is very flexible in comparison to English. In particular, the positioning of the subject in relation to the verb is governed largely by factors such as emphasis and focus rather than rigid grammatical rules. For example, the English sentence ‘Many people attended the party’ obeys a fixed rule according to which the subject precedes the verb and the object or complement follows the verb. In Spanish however, three different word orders are available, depending on where the emphasis is intended to fall:
