A study of syntactic variation in Spanish spoken by native speakers in the United States examined patterns of variation in different areas of the country. High school students in larger Hispanic communities throughout the country were surveyed concerning their own and their parents' demographic characteristics and their Spanish speaking, listening, and reading patterns. All had been educated in English-language schools and lived in an English-dominant culture. Based on this information, 30 students were selected for further study. In interviews, students were presented with drawings indicating different sociolinguistic situations and asked to speak about similar personal experiences. The interviews, recorded and transcribed, were then analyzed for syntactic patterns. Three areas of variation were identified: (1) omission of certain elements, particularly articles, prepositions, pronouns, and to a lesser extent, conjunctions; (2) elements added unnecessarily, including prepositions, pronouns, and conjunctions; and (3) element misapplication, including prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, adverbs, and adjectives. Examples of each pattern are offered. Results indicate similar patterns of variation in different geographic areas, and also show variations similar to those of Spanish-as-a-Second-Language learners. Contains 13 references. (MSE)