| Summary: | As a reaction to the few existing descriptions of headlines, descriptions which in some respects often fail the empirical proof of comparing them to the observable newspapers reality, it is proposed an updated set of the most distinctive formal features of headlines, according to their distribution within a large corpus of current newspapers in Spanish. The set is summarized in four constant and four variable features. The constant features —relatively homogeneous throughout the corpus (although some of its variants have certain conditions)— are: expressive bimembration, ellipsis, nominal structures and historical present. On the other hand, the variable traits —which show a not so regular distribution— are: impersonal third person, verb in starting position, quoting conditional and anthroponyms abbreviated by initializations. The analysis is based on a corpus of 3 689 recent headlines published in Spanish in the printed editions of the following newspapers: El País, from Madrid (Spain); La Opinión, from Los Angeles (United States); El Universal, from Mexico City (Mexico); La Nación, from San Jose (Costa Rica); Hoy, from Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic); El Tiempo, from Bogota (Colombia); El Nacional, from Caracas (Venezuela); El Comercio, from Lima (Peru); El Mercurio, from Santiago (Chile), and Clarín, from Buenos Aires (Argentina). Where appropriate, the diatopic factor is considered, and the inaccuracy of some frequent approaches is also demonstrated.
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