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 most of 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).
In all regions with , the corresponding unstressed object pronoun is and the corresponding possessive is .
is used extensively as the second-person singular in Rioplatense Spanish (Argentina and Uruguay), Paraguayan Spanish, Eastern Bolivia, Chilean Spanish, and much of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica); in Mexico, in the southern regions of Chiapas and parts of Oaxaca. It is rarely used, if at all, in places such as Cuba and Puerto Rico.
In the Rioplatense dialect, 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 Panama, in a few departments in Colombia,Díaz Collazos, Ana María. Desarrollo sociolingüístico del voseo en la región andina de Colombia (1555–1976). and in parts of Ecuador (Sierra down to Esmeraldas). In Peru, is present in certain Andean regions and Cajamarca, but the younger generations have ceased to use it. It is also present in Judaeo-Spanish, spoken by Sephardic Jews, where it is the archaic plural form that replaced.
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 world as a valid part of regional dialects.
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 backward 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.
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 to refer to a person of respect 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. The use of tú rather than vos is most associated with areas that were in regular contact with the Iberian Peninsula: Mexico, Panama, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Equatorial Guinea. was used as a noun phrase until the late 17th century, when it pronomialized into (). Note that the second person plural pronoun is a combined form of (meaning literally 'ye/you others'), while the first person plural 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.Luizete Guimarães Barros. 1990. Lengua y nación en la Gramática de Bello. Anuario brasileño de estudios hispánicos.
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 .
Nominative Oblique Reflexive subject direct object indirect object prepositional object fused with direct/indirect object prepositional object fused with
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 .
2nd person singular (common/informal) (familiar) (formal) (common) (familiar) (formal) (common/informal) (formal) (formal) (informal)2nd person plural (common) (familiar) (formal)
2nd person singular (common) (familiar) (familiar) (familiar) (formal)2nd person plural (common) (familiar) (formal)
Papiamento Papiamento is a creole with Spanish, Portuguese and African influences. Its pronouns (singular) and (singular emphatic) are derived from Spanish , Portuguese and Cape Verdean .
Conjugation with vos All modern conjugations derive from Old Spanish second person plural , , , and (as in , 'you are'). Lapesa Melgar, Rafael. 1970. "Las formas verbales de segunda persona y los orígenes del voseo", in: Carlos H. Magis (ed.), Actas del III Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas (México, D.F., 26–31 Aug 1968). México: Colegio de México, 519–531. The 14th and 15th centuries saw an evolution of these conjugations, with originally giving , giving (or ), García de Diego, Vicente. 1981. Gramática histórica española. (3rd edition; 1st edition 1951, 2nd edition 1961, 3rd edition 1970, 1st reprint 1981.) Madrid: Gredos, 227–229. giving , did not produce because and were already in use as Imperfect forms, cf. García de Diego ( 1981: 228) and Lapesa (1970: 526). 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. Verb 2. Sg. General Chile1 Southeastern Cuba, Northeastern Colombia1, 2, Venezuela3 and Panama4 2. Pl.in Spain general 2.Pl And formal 2.SgLadino 2. Pl Meaning ser eres sos erís/sois sois sosh סוֹש /soʃ/ son you are comer comes comés comís coméis komesh קוֹמֵיש /koˈmeʃ/ comen you eat poder puedes podés podís podéis podesh פּוֹדֵיש /poˈdeʃ/ pueden you can/may hablar hablas hablás habláihabláis favlash פֿאבֿלאשׁ /faˈvlaʃ/ hablan you speak recordar recuerdas recordás recordáirecordáis recordash רֵיקוֹרדאשׁ /rekorˈdaʃ/ recuerdan you remember vivir vives vivís bivish בִּיבִֿיש /biˈviʃ/ viven you live venir vienes venís venish בֵֿינִיש /veˈniʃ/ vienen you come 1 Because of the general aspiration of syllable-final [s], the -s of this ending is usually heard as [h] or not pronounced. 2 In Colombia, the rest of the country that uses vos follows the General Conjugation. 3 In the state of Zulia 4 in Azuero
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).