diff --git a/spacy/lang/en/tag_map.py b/spacy/lang/en/tag_map.py
index 76eabf307..fc3d2cc93 100644
--- a/spacy/lang/en/tag_map.py
+++ b/spacy/lang/en/tag_map.py
@@ -42,6 +42,7 @@ TAG_MAP = {
     "RBR":      {POS: ADV, "Degree": "comp"},
     "RBS":      {POS: ADV, "Degree": "sup"},
     "RP":       {POS: PART},
+    "SP":       {POS: SPACE},
     "SYM":      {POS: SYM},
     "TO":       {POS: PART, "PartType": "inf", "VerbForm": "inf"},
     "UH":       {POS: INTJ},
diff --git a/spacy/morphology.pyx b/spacy/morphology.pyx
index 090a07fe8..91befaa1b 100644
--- a/spacy/morphology.pyx
+++ b/spacy/morphology.pyx
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ cdef class Morphology:
         self.strings = string_store
         # Add special space symbol. We prefix with underscore, to make sure it
         # always sorts to the end.
-        space_attrs = tag_map.pop('SP', {POS: SPACE})
+        space_attrs = tag_map.get('SP', {POS: SPACE})
         if '_SP' not in tag_map:
             self.strings.add('_SP')
             tag_map = dict(tag_map)