Voseo

Voseo
In Spanish grammar, is the use of as a second-person singular pronoun, along with its associated verbal forms, in certain regions where the language is spoken. In those regions it replaces , i.e. the use of the pronoun and its verbal forms. can also be found in the context of using verb conjugations for with as the subject pronoun (verbal voseo), as in the case of Chilean Spanish, where this form coexists with the ordinary form of .
In all regions with , the corresponding unstressed object pronoun is and the corresponding possessive is .
Outside of Spain, is used extensively as the second-person singular in Rioplatense Spanish (Argentina and Uruguay), Eastern Bolivia, Paraguayan Spanish, and certain areas of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica); comparatively, vos does not feature in Mexican Spanish (other than in certain Guatemalan border regions of Chiapas and some parts of Oaxaca) nor in the Spanish spoken by Mexican Americans. Likewise, it is rarely used, if at all, in places such as Cuba and Puerto Rico. There is a rural community within the Dominican Republic utilizing vos, though it is not typical of most Spanish spoken in the country.
had been, traditionally, used in Argentina, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, the Philippines and Uruguay, even in formal writing. In the dialect of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (known as 'Rioplatense'), the usage of is prevalent, even in mainstream film, media and music. In Argentina, particularly from the second half of the 20th century, it has become very common to see billboards and other advertising campaigns using .
is present in some regions of other countries, for instance in the Maracucho Spanish of Zulia State, Venezuela (see Venezuelan Spanish), the Azuero peninsula of Panamá, in a few departments in Colombia, and in parts of Ecuador (Sierra down to Esmeraldas). In Perú, is present in certain Andean regions and Cajamarca, but the younger generations have ceased to use it. It is also present in the Ladino language (spoken by Sephardic Jews) throughout the Balkans, Israel, Latin America, Morocco, Turkey and the United States, where it replaces .
is seldom taught to students of Spanish as a second language, and its precise usage varies across different regions. Nevertheless, in recent years, it has become more commonly accepted across the Hispanophone diaspora as a valid part of regional dialects. Its usage has also seen more widespread exposure in the 21st century via the lyrics of young Argentine musicians (the “nuevo generación” of artists) such as Lali Espósito, María Becerra and Tini.
History
Classical Latin, and the Vulgar Latin from which Romance languages such as Spanish are descended, had only two second-person pronounsthe singular and the plural . Starting in the early middle ages, however, languages such as French and Spanish began to attach honorary significance to these pronouns beyond literal number. Plural pronouns were often used in reference to a person of respect so as to aggrandize them. , the second-person plural inherited from Latin, came to be used in this manner.
Already by the late 18th century, however, itself was restricted to politeness among one's familiar friends. The following extract from a textbook is illustrative of usage at the time:
The standard formal way to address a person one was not on familiar terms with was to address such a person as ("your grace", originally abbreviated as ) in the singular and in the plural. Because of the literal meaning of these forms, they were accompanied by the corresponding third-person verb forms. Other formal forms of address included ("your excellence", contracted phonetically to ) and ("your lordship/ladyship", contracted to ). Today, both and are considered to be informal pronouns, with being somewhat synonymous with in regions where both are used. This was the situation when the Spanish language was brought to the Río de la Plata area (around Buenos Aires and Montevideo) and to Chile.
In time, lost currency in Spain but survived in a number of areas in Spanish-speaking America: Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia (east), Uruguay, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and some smaller areas; it is not found, or found only in internally remote areas (such as Chiapas) in the countries historically best connected with Spain: Mexico, Panama, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Perú, and Equatorial Guinea. evolved into ; in fact, is still abbreviated as either or ). Note that the term is a combined form of (meaning literally "ye/you others"), while the term comes from ("we/us others").
In the first half of the 19th century the use of was as prevalent in Chile as it was in Argentina. The current limitation of the use of in Chile is attributed to a campaign to eradicate it by the Chilean education system. The campaign was initiated by Andrés Bello who considered the use of a manifestation of lack of education.
Usage
Vos in relation to other forms of tú
The independent disjunctive pronoun also replaces , from the set of forms. That is, is both nominative and the form to use after prepositions. Therefore, ("for you") corresponds to the form , etc.
The preposition-pronoun combination ("with you") is used for the form .
The direct and indirect object form is used in both and .
The possessive pronouns of also coincide with < > rather than with <, >.
Voseo in Chavacano
Chavacano, a Spanish-based creole spoken in the Philippines, employs , while the standard Spanish spoken in the country does not. The Chavacano language below in comparison of other Chavacano dialects and level of formality with in both subject and possessive pronouns. Note the mixed and co-existing usages of , and .
Conjugation with vos
All modern conjugations derive from Old Spanish second person plural , and (as in , "you are"). The 14th and 15th centuries saw an evolution of these conjugations, with originally giving , giving (or ), giving , and giving . Soon analogous forms and appeared. Hence the variety of forms the contemporary American adopts, some varieties featuring a generalized monophthong (most of them), some a generalized diphthong (e.g. Venezuela), and some combining monophthongs and diphthongs, depending on the conjugation (e.g. Chile). In the most general, monophthongized, conjugation paradigm, a difference between forms and respective forms is visible exclusively in the present indicative, imperative and subjunctive, and, most of the time, in the preterite. Below is a comparison table of the conjugation of several verbs for and for , and next to them the one for , the informal second person plural currently used orally only in Spain; in oratory or legal language (highly formal forms of Spanish) it is used outside of Spain. Verb forms that agree with are stressed on the last syllable, causing the loss of the stem diphthong in those verbs, such as and , which are stem-changing.
General conjugation is the one that is most widely accepted and used in various countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, parts of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia, as well as Central American countries.
Some Uruguayan speakers combine the pronoun tú with the vos conjugation (for example, tú sabés). Conversely, speakers in some other places where both tú and vos are used combine vos with the tú conjugation (for example, vos sabes). This is a frequent occurrence in the Argentine province of Santiago del Estero.
The verb forms employed with vos are also different in Chilean Spanish: Chileans use and 'you are' instead of or and or . Chileans never pronounce these conjugations with a final -s. The forms for 'you are', and and for 'you have' are also found in Chilean Spanish.
In the case of the ending -ís (such as in comís, podís, vivís, erís, venís), the final -s is pronounced like any other final in Chilean Spanish. It is most often pronounced as an aspiration similar to the 'h' sound in English. It can also be pronounced as a fricative , or be dropped completely. Its variable pronunciation is a phonological rather than a morphological phenomenon.
Venezuelan Maracucho Spanish is notable in that they preserve the diphthongized plural verb forms in all tenses, as still used with vosotros in Spain. Chilean Spanish also notably uses the diphthong .
In Ladino, the -áis, -éis, -ís, & -ois endings are pronounced , & .
In Chile, it is much more usual to use tú + vos verb conjugation (tú sabís). The use of pronominal vos (vos sabís) is reserved for very informal situations and may even be considered vulgar in some cases.
Present indicative
General conjugation: the final -r of the infinitive is replaced by -s; in writing, an acute accent is added to the last vowel (i.e. the one preceding the final -s) to indicate stress position.
Chilean:
the -ar ending of the infinitive is replaced by -ái
both -er and -ir are replaced by -ís, which sounds more like -íh.
Venezuelan (Zulian): practically the same ending as modern Spanish vosotros, yet with the final -s being aspirated so that: -áis, -éis, -ís sound like -áih, -éih, -íh (phonetically resembling Chilean).
Unlike tú, which has many irregular forms, the only voseo verbs that are conjugated irregularly in the indicative present are ser, ir and haber. However, haber is seldom used in the indicative present, since there is a strong tendency to use preterite instead of present perfect.
Affirmative imperative
Vos also differs in its affirmative imperative conjugation from both tú and vosotros. Specifically, the vos imperative is formed by dropping the final -r from the infinitive, but keeping the stress on the last syllable. The only verb that is irregular in this regard is ir; its vos imperative is not usually used, with andá (the vos imperative of andar, which is denoted by *) being generally used instead; except for the Argentine province of Tucumán, where the imperative ite is used. For most regular verbs ending in -ir, the vos imperatives use the same conjugations as the yo form in the preterite; almost all verbs that are irregular in the preterite (which are denoted by ‡) retain the regular vos imperative forms.
Again, the conjugation of tú has far more irregularities, whereas vos has only one irregular verb in the affirmative imperative.
In Chile, the general vos conjugation is not used in the affirmative imperative.
Subjunctive
In most places where voseo is used, it is applied also in the subjunctive. In the Río de la Plata region, both the tú-conjugation and the voseo conjugation are found, the tú-form being more common. In this variety, some studies have shown a pragmatic difference between the tú-form and the vos-form, such that the vos form carries information about the speaker's belief state, and can be stigmatized. For example, in Central America the subjunctive and negative command form is no mintás, and in Chile it is no mintái; however, in Río de la Plata both no mientas and no mintás are found. Real Academia Española models its voseo conjugation tables on the most frequent, unstigmatized Río de la Plata usage and therefore omits the subjunctive voseo.
Verbal voseo and pronominal voseo
"Verbal voseo" refers to the use of the verb conjugation of vos regardless of which pronoun is used.
Verbal voseo with a pronoun other than vos is widespread in Chile, in which case one would use the pronoun tú and the verb conjugation of vos at the same time. E.g.: tú venís, tú escribís, tú podís, tú sabís, tú vai, tú estái.
There are some partially rare cases of a similar sort of verbal voseo in Uruguay where one would say for example tú podés or tú sabés.
'Pronominal voseo is the use of the pronoun vos regardless of verb conjugation.
Geographical distribution
Countries where voseo is predominant
In South America:
Argentina — both pronominal and verbal voseo, the pronoun tú is virtually unused.
Paraguay — both pronominal and verbal voseo, the pronoun tú is virtually unused in most of the country.
Uruguay — dual-usage of both pronominal and verbal voseo and a combination of the pronoun tú + verb conjugated in the vos form, except near the Brazilian border, where only pronominal and verbal tuteo is common.
In Central America:
Guatemala — three-tiered system is used to indicate the degree of respect or familiarity: usted, tú, vos. Usted expresses distance and respect; tú corresponds to an intermediate level of familiarity, but not deep trust; vos is the pronoun of maximum familiarity and solidarity. Pronominal tú is frequent with verbal voseo.
Honduras — three-tiered system is used to indicate the degree of respect or familiarity: usted, tú, vos. Usted expresses distance and respect; tú corresponds to an intermediate level of familiarity, but not deep trust; vos is the pronoun of maximum familiarity and solidarity.
Nicaragua — both pronominal and verbal voseo throughout all social classes; tú is mostly used in writing.
Costa Rica — voseo has historically been used, back in the 2000s it was losing ground to ustedeo and tuteo, especially among younger speakers. Vos is now primarily used orally with friends and family in Cartago, Guanacaste province, the San José metropolitan area and near the Nicaraguan border and in advertising signage. Usted is the primary form in other areas and with strangers. Tuteo is rarely used, but when it is used in speech by a Costa Rican, it is commonly considered fake and effeminate.
El Salvador: three-tiered system is used to indicate the degree of respect or familiarity: usted, tú, vos. Usted expresses distance and respect; tú corresponds to an intermediate level of familiarity, but not deep trust; vos is the pronoun of maximum familiarity and solidarity and also lack of respect.
Countries where it is extensive, but not predominant
In South America:
Bolivia: in the Lowlands of Eastern Bolivia—with mestizo, Criollo and German descendants majority—(Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija and the Lowlands of La Paz) voseo is used universally; while in the Highlands of Western Bolivia—with indigenous peoples majority—(highlands of La Paz, Oruro, Potosí, Chuquisaca and Cochabamba) tú is predominant, but there is still a strong use of voseo among less-educated speakers, especially in verb forms.
Chile: verbal voseo and pronominal tú is used in informal situations, whereas pronominal voseo is reserved only for very intimate situations or to offend someone. In every other situation and in writing, the normal tú or usted pronouns are used.
Countries where voseo occurs in some areas
In the following countries, voseo is used in certain areas:
Colombia, in the departments:
in the west (Pacific Coast)
Chocó
Valle del Cauca
Cauca
Nariño
in the center, primarily Paisa Region (Departments of Antioquia, Risaralda, Quindío, and Caldas).
in the (North) East
Norte de Santander - Ocaña Region
La Guajira
Cesar
Cuba, in Camagüey Province among non-educated populations, often used alongside tú.
Ecuador in the Sierra, the center, and Esmeraldas
Mexico, widely used in the countryside of the state of Chiapas by non-educated indigenous populations and becoming rare among the same groups in the state of Tabasco.
Panama, in the west along the border with Costa Rica
Peru, in some areas in both the Northern and Southern ends of the country.
Philippines, among Chavacano speakers in Mindanao and Luzón, but is otherwise absent in standard Spanish.
Puerto Rico at the eastern end of the island, in Fajardo, a frequent voseo that is not shared by cultured speakers.
United States, in private settings among speakers with origins from countries where voseo is predominant, tú is always used in public.
Venezuela, in the northwest (primarily in Zulia State)
Countries where vos is virtually absent from usage
In the following countries, the use of vos has disappeared completely and is not used at all.
Spain
Dominican Republic
Equatorial Guinea
Synchronic analysis of Chilean and River Plate verbal voseo
The traditional assumption that Chilean and River Plate voseo verb forms are derived from those corresponding to vosotros has been challenged as synchronically inadequate in a 2014 article, on the grounds that it requires at least six different rules, including three monophthongization processes that completely lack phonological motivation. Alternatively, the article argues that the Chilean and River Plate voseo verb forms are synchronically derived from underlying representations that coincide with those corresponding to the non-honorific second person singular tú. First, both Chilean and River Plate has an accentuation rule which assigns stress to the syllable following the verb's root, or its infinitive in the case of the future and conditional conjugations. This alone derives all the River Plate verb conjugations, in all tenses. Chilean verb forms also undergo rules of semi-vocalization, vowel raising, and aspiration. In semi-vocalization, becomes the semivowel when after ; thus, becomes , and becomes 'you are'. The vowel raising rule turns stressed into , so becomes . Aspiration, a normal part of Chilean, and River Plate, Spanish phonology, means that syllable or word-final becomes pronounced like an .
The proposed theory requires the use of only one special rule in the case of Chilean voseo. This rule plus other rules that are independently justified in the language make it possible to synchronically derive all the Chilean and River Plate voseo verb forms in a straightforward manner. The article additionally solves the problem posed by the alternate verbal forms of Chilean voseo like the future indicative (e.g. bailaríh or 'you will dance'), the present indicative forms of haber (habíh and hai 'you have'), and the present indicative of ser (soi, eríh and eréi 'you are'), without resorting to any ad hoc rules. All these different verb forms would come from different underlying representations. The future forms and come from underlying and , the latter related to the historical future form in which was documented in Chile in the 17th century. and come from and , while and come from and . The form also comes from , with an extension of semi-vocalization. The theoretical framework of the article is that of classic generative phonology.
Attitudes
In some countries, the pronoun vos is used with family and friends (T-form), like tú in other varieties of Spanish, and contrasts with the respectful usted (V-form used with third person) which is used with strangers, elderly, and people of higher socioeconomic status; appropriate usage varies by dialect. In Central America, vos can be used among those considered equals, while usted maintains its respectful usage. In Ladino, the pronoun usted is completely absent, so the use of vos with strangers and elders is the standard.Voseo was long considered a backwards or uneducated usage by prescriptivist grammarians. Many Central American intellectuals, themselves from nations, have condemned the usage of in the past. With the changing mentalities in the Hispanic world, and with the development of descriptive as opposed to prescriptive linguistics, it has become simply a local variant of Spanish. In some places it has become symbolically important and is pointed to with pride as a local defining characteristic.
See also
Similar trends of personal pronouns in Portuguese
Spanish dialects and varieties
Spanish verbs
T–V distinction#Romance languages
References
Sources
Díaz Collazos, Ana María. Desarrollo sociolingüístico del voseo en la región andina de Colombia.
El voseo at Spanish Wikibooks
Le Voseo
Voseo Spanish Site dedicated to teaching Argentine Voseo usage
Carricaburo. Norma Beatriz (2003). El voseo en la historia y en la lengua de hoy - Las fórmulas de tratamiento en el español actual
Hotta. Hideo (2000). La estandarización y el regionalismo en el voseo del español argentino
Roca, Luis Alberto (2007). Breve historia del habla cruceña y su mestizaje Rosenblat, Ángel (2000). El castellano en Venezuela
Toursinov, Antón (2005). Formas pronominales de tratamiento en el español actual de Guatemala''
Spanish grammar
Personal pronouns
Second-person pronouns
fr:Dialectologie de la langue espagnole#Voseo