Object pronouns in Spanish

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).