The grammar of the headline: three ways of telling one story
«El Congreso aprueba la ley», «Aprobada la ley», «La ley, aprobada»: three headlines for one event, three syntaxes and three different stories.
La gramática del titular: tres maneras de contar lo mismo
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A mastery-level Spanish reading text on the syntax peculiar to the newspaper headline and the physical constraint it came from. It compares three possible headlines for the same event and shows what each one puts first; it explains the participle-first headline with its dropped auxiliary, the use of the present tense for events of the previous day, the colon standing in for a verb of speech, and the Spanish tendency to keep the article where English drops it. It closes on the observation that the grammar outlived the metal column that produced it, and with questions for the reader.
Toma un hecho cualquiera: una cámara legislativa vota una ley y la aprueba. Caben al menos tres titulares. «El Congreso aprueba la ley del suelo» pone delante a quien actúa. «Aprobada la ley del suelo» pone delante el resultado y deja al actor fuera. «La ley del suelo, aprobada» pone delante el asunto y relega el hecho a una coma. Las tres son correctas, las tres informan de lo mismo y ninguna cuenta la misma historia.
La segunda merece atención. «Aprobada la ley» no tiene verbo conjugado: el participio va delante y el auxiliar ha desaparecido. La versión plena sería «Ha sido aprobada la ley» o «Se ha aprobado la ley». El titular se queda con el participio, que es la parte que informa, y tira el resto. Esa elipsis está lo bastante asentada en la prensa en español como para que el lector habitual apenas la registre como recorte, y explica por qué ciertos titulares arrancan con un participio: «Detenido», «Rescatados», «Suspendida», «Herido». Fuera del periódico ese arranque es raro en la prosa corriente, pero no es exclusivo del titular: abre también la cláusula absoluta, que anuncia otra oración detrás, y el cartel, que suprime el auxiliar igual que el titular («Prohibido fumar», «Cerrado por vacaciones»).
Luego está el presente. Un periódico cuenta en presente cosas que ocurrieron ayer: «El Congreso aprueba», no «El Congreso aprobó». No se trata de un error de tiempo, sino de una decisión de perspectiva: el presente acerca el hecho al momento de la lectura y le quita el aire de archivo. Es una convención asentada, que los libros de estilo suelen dar por buena y que el lector procesa sin notarla.
Piensa ahora en los dos puntos. Un titular como «La ministra: no habrá recortes» gasta un solo carácter donde una atribución explícita gastaría una decena. Ahí los dos puntos hacen el trabajo de un verbo de habla entero: dijo, declaró, aseguró, sostuvo. Pocas cosas rinden tanto por tan poco espacio.
Conviene señalar también lo que el titular en español no hace. El inglés suprime artículos con soltura y encadena sustantivos en secuencias que en español resultarían ilegibles. El titular español tiende a conservar el artículo mucho más que el inglés, y cuando lo suprime lo hace en contextos acotados, sobre todo en grupos nominales breves que funcionan como sujeto antepuesto y nombran a alguien por su cargo o su categoría, con bastante mayor amplitud en la prensa hispanoamericana; fuera de esos usos, la supresión suena a telegrama antiguo. La restricción de espacio es la misma; la solución, distinta, porque cada lengua recorta por donde puede permitírselo.
About this article
What you'll learn
Fronted participle with the auxiliary elided, the headline present tense, the colon in place of a verb of speech, the comma that replaces a repeated verb, the effect of fronting, and three-part parallelism with a turn at the end.
A mastery-level Spanish reading text on the syntax peculiar to the newspaper headline and the physical constraint it came from. It compares three possible headlines for the same event and shows what each one puts first; it explains the participle-first headline with its dropped auxiliary, the use of the present tense for events of the previous day, the colon standing in for a verb of speech, and the Spanish tendency to keep the article where English drops it. It closes on the observation that the grammar outlived the metal column that produced it, and with questions for the reader.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
con soltura
newfluently, with ease
`Soltura` is ease and freedom in doing something: hablar con soltura, moverse con soltura. It very often refers to language: `tener soltura en un idioma` is to handle it fluently. The verb of the same family is `soltarse`, to loosen up or find your tongue.
A key phrase whenever level of command of a language is discussed.
dar por buena
newto consider something to be, to accept as
`Dar por` + adjective or participle means to treat something as being so, often definitively: dar por buena una solución, dar por terminada la reunión, dar por perdido un caso. Both the adjective and the participle agree with the object: `dar por buena` (una convención) but `dar por bueno` (un método), and `dar por zanjada` (la discusión).
A very productive construction in official and academic Spanish.
suena a telegrama antiguo
newto sound like, to smack of
`Sonar a` + noun means to resemble something in sound or in feel: suena a telegrama, suena a excusa, me suena a chino. It differs from `sonar` + adjective (suena raro) and from `sonarle a alguien`, meaning to ring a bell: `ese nombre me suena`.
The most natural way of judging the stylistic impression a wording makes.
Pocas cosas rinden tanto
newto yield, to pay off
Besides its senses of rendering accounts (`rendir cuentas`) and surrendering, `rendir` means to give a return on what was put in: este método rinde mucho, el motor rinde poco. Hence the noun `rendimiento`, meaning performance, output or efficiency.
A basic word wherever efficiency is at stake, in engineering, economics or the assessment of any technique.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
el titular
Un titular
the headline; also the holder, the first-choice player
As a noun `el titular` is a press headline, and also the person in whose name something stands: el titular de la cuenta, el titular del pasaporte. As an adjective it means tenured or first-choice: profesor titular, portero titular. One form, three everyday uses.
The word turns up in three quite different contexts: the press, official documents and sport.
el cuerpo de letra
cuerpo de letra
the type size, the point size
In typography `el cuerpo` is the size of the type, measured in points: un cuerpo 10, subir el cuerpo. Keep it apart from `la letra` (the letter or the typeface) and `la fuente` (the font). `Un texto en cuerpo pequeño` is text set small.
A technical term you need in order to read editorial and design instructions.
el recorte
recorte
a cut; a trimming; a press clipping
`Recorte` is the result of `recortar`. It covers budget cuts (recortes en sanidad), a trimmed-down piece of text, and a newspaper clipping (un recorte de prensa). This text uses it in two of those senses: the budget cut in the sample headline, and the stylistic trimming of a phrase.
Three senses, of which the political one is the most frequent in the news today.
arrancar
arrancan
to start; to start up; to pull out
`Arrancar` means to begin (el curso arranca en septiembre, el titular arranca con un participio), to start an engine (el coche no arranca), and to tear or pull out (arrancar una página, arrancar una muela). Context is usually enough to tell which of the three senses is meant.
One of those verbs whose figurative sense is now more frequent than the literal one.
relegar
relega
to relegate, to push into the background
`Relegar` is to move something to a less visible or less important place: relegar al olvido, relegar a un segundo plano, relegar a la última página. It nearly always takes the preposition `a`, which names where the thing has been pushed.
The precise word for describing a hierarchy of attention in a text, a list or an organisation.
regir
rige
to be in force; to govern
`Regir` means to be in force, of a rule (la ley que rige desde enero), and to govern or determine (ese criterio rige nuestras decisiones). It is an e/i stem-changing verb: rijo, riges, rige, regimos, rigen. In grammar you say that a preposition or a conjunction `rige` a given mood.
A frequent word in legal, administrative and grammatical writing.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
The participle-first headline with the auxiliary dropped
Aprobada la ley del suelo
land act approved
This headline type has no finite verb: the auxiliary `ha sido`, or the reflexive `se ha`, is dropped and the participle moves to the front. The participle agrees in gender and number with the subject, which is why the four sample headlines in the text show three different endings: `Detenido` and `Herido` in the masculine singular, `Rescatados` in the masculine plural and `Suspendida` in the feminine singular.
A syntactic template characteristic of the Spanish-language press, as much at home in a news brief as in a front-page headline; recognising it stops you reading as ungrammatical headlines that are nothing of the kind.
The present tense in a headline about yesterday
El Congreso aprueba
Congress approves
The press normally reports in the present what happened the day before: `El Congreso aprueba` rather than `El Congreso aprobó`. It is not a tense error but a choice of perspective: the present brings the event closer to the moment of reading. The convention is well established and style guides generally accept it, even though the body of the report then goes back to past tenses.
Once you recognise the convention you stop reading a headline as a report of something happening right now.
The colon that replaces a verb of speech
La ministra: no habrá recortes
the minister: there will be no cuts
In a headline, a colon after a name introduces the quoted words and takes on the work of a whole verb: dijo, declaró, aseguró, sostuvo. The `Name: statement` pattern saves space and, at the same time, avoids committing the speaker to the shade of meaning any particular verb would add.
One of the most economical ways of quoting in Spanish, and a common sight in the daily press.
The comma holding the place of a dropped verb
La restricción de espacio es la misma; la solución, distinta
the constraint is the same; the solution, different
In the second half of the contrast the verb `es` is not repeated and a comma stands in its place: `La restricción de espacio es la misma; la solución, distinta`. The semicolon separates the two halves and the comma inside the second marks the gap. The adjective still agrees with its own subject: `distinta`, because `la solución` is feminine.
A mark of compressed, well-edited prose; repeating the verb makes the sentence go slack at once.
Whatever you front becomes the topic
Un hombre, detenido tras una pelea
a man, detained after a fight
The same words in a different order carry a different emphasis. In `Detenido un hombre tras una pelea` the arrest arrives first; in `Un hombre, detenido tras una pelea` the person arrives first and the participle is pushed behind a comma. The information is identical, the hierarchy of attention is not, so fronting works at once as a layout adjustment and as a stylistic decision.
It lets you decide deliberately what the sentence is about before the reader reaches the verb.
A three-part parallel with a turn at the end
Las tres son correctas, las tres informan de lo mismo y ninguna cuenta la misma historia
all three are correct, all three report the same thing, and none tells the same story
The sentence builds three matching syntactic frames, two of which open with the same `las tres`, while the third breaks the symmetry with `ninguna`. The repetition sets up an expectation and the change of subject in the final member defeats it, and that is exactly where the point sits. This is parallelism with a turn, not a plain list.
One of the most reliable ways of making a conclusion land without raising your voice.
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