| Subject without a determiner | goes after the verb | Han llegado trenes a la estación. / Se venden casas. | Trains have arrived at the station. / Houses are sold. |
| Fronted object | the unstressed pronoun picks up the known topic | Los libros los tiene Juan. | Juan has the books. |
| Negative word | the unstressed pronoun is still required | El alcohol ni lo prueba. | He doesn’t even touch alcohol. |
| C1New subject | goes at the end of the sentence | Llega mañana Pedro. | Pedro arrives tomorrow. |
| C1Topic without a determiner | an indefinite picks it up after the verb | Abrigo, tengo uno viejo. | A coat? I have an old one. |
| C1Contrast or indefinite | the fronted object takes no pronoun | Este vestido he elegido, no aquel. / Discos tienen a montones. | I chose this dress, not that one. / They have loads of records. |
| C1Topic and question | the topic opens the question and the pronoun picks it up | A María, ¿la has visto últimamente? | María, have you seen her lately? |
| C2Focus | the stressed object goes first, with no pronoun | UNOS LIBROS quiere Juan. | Juan wants BOOKS. |
| C2Emphatic order | bonito, vaya and menudo open the sentence | Menudo reloj se compró tu primo. | What a watch your cousin bought himself! |
| C2Emphatic relative | ser links the relative and the complement | Lo que tú eres es un egoísta. | What you are is a selfish person. |
| Trap | with a question word as the object in front, there is no pronoun | ¿Qué regalo has comprado? | What present have you bought? |
| C1Trap | in a parenthetical inside a quotation, the verb comes before the subject | María, dijo Luis, no sabe nada. | María, said Luis, knows nothing. |