Voseo

In Spanish grammar, italic=yes is the use of vos 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 tuteo, i.e. the use of the pronoun T-V distinction#Spanish and its verbal forms. Voseo can also be found in the context of using verb conjugations for vos with tú as the subject pronoun.
In all regions with voseo, the corresponding unstressed object pronoun is te and the corresponding possessive is tu/tuyo.
Vos is used extensively as the second-person singular in Rioplatense Spanish, Chilean Spanish, Eastern Bolivia, Paraguayan Spanish, and much of Central America ; 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.
Vos 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, the usage of vos 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 voseo.
Vos is present in some regions of other countries, for instance in the Maracucho Spanish of Zulia State, Venezuela, the Azuero Peninsula of Panama, in a few departments in Colombia, and in parts of Ecuador. In Peru, italic=yes 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 vosotros replaced.
Voseo 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.

History

Classical Latin, and the Vulgar Latin from which Romance languages such as Spanish are descended, had only two second-person pronouns – the singular italic=yes and the plural italic=yes. 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. italic=yes, the second-person plural inherited from Latin, came to be used in this manner.
Already by the late 18th century, however, italic=yes 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 italic=yes in the singular and italic=yes 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 italic=yes and italic=yes. Today, both italic=yes and italic=yes are considered to be informal pronouns, with italic=yes being somewhat synonymous with italic=yes in regions where both are used. This was the situation when the Spanish language was brought to the Río de la Plata area and to Chile.
In time, italic=yes lost currency in Spain but survived in a number of areas in Spanish-speaking America: Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and some smaller areas; it is not found, or found only in internally remote areas. Note that the term italic=yes is a combined form of italic=yes, while the term italic=yes comes from italic=yes.
In the first half of the 19th century, the use of italic=yes was as prevalent in Chile as it was in Argentina. The current limitation of the use of italic=yes 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 italic=yes a manifestation of lack of education.

Usage

''Vos'' in relation to other forms of ''tú''

The independent disjunctive pronoun italic=yes also replaces italic=yes, from the italic=yes set of forms. That is, italic=yes is both nominative and the form to use after prepositions. Therefore, italic=yes corresponds to the italic=yes form italic=yes, etc.
The preposition-pronoun combination italic=yes is used for the italic=yes form italic=yes.

The direct and indirect object form italic=yes is used in both italic=yes and italic=yes.
The possessive pronouns of italic=yes also coincide with italic=yes rather than with italic=yes .

''Voseo'' in Chavacano

Chavacano, a Spanish-based creole spoken in the Philippines, employs italic=yes, 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 italic=yes in both subject and possessive pronouns. Note the mixed and co-existing usages of vos, tú, usted, and vosotros.

	Zamboangueño	Caviteño	Bahra	Davaoeño
2nd person singular	vos/vo/evo/evos tú usted	vo/bo tu usté	vo/bo usté	usted vos
2nd person plural	kamó vosotros ustedes	vusos busos	buhotro bujotro ustedi tedi	ustedes vosotros

	Zamboangueño	Davaoeño
2nd person singular	de vos de tu tuyo de tuyo/di tuyo de usted	de tu
2nd person plural	de iño/di inyo de vosotros de ustedes	vos

Conjugation with ''vos''

All modern italic=yes conjugations derive from Old Spanish second person plural italic=yes, italic=yes, italic=yes, and italic=yes. The 14th and 15th centuries saw an evolution of these conjugations, with italic=yes originally giving italic=yes, italic=yes giving italic=yes, italic=yes giving italic=yes, and italic=yes giving italic=yes. Soon analogous forms italic=yes and italic=yes appeared. Hence the variety of forms the contemporary American italic=yes adopts, some varieties featuring a generalized monophthong, some a generalized diphthong, and some combining monophthongs and diphthongs, depending on the conjugation. In the most general, monophthongized, conjugation paradigm, a difference between italic=yes forms and respective italic=yes 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 italic=yes and for italic=yes, and next to them the one for italic=yes, the informal second person plural currently used orally only in Spain; in oratory or legal language it is used outside of Spain. Verb forms that agree with italic=yes are stressed on the last syllable, causing the loss of the stem diphthong in those verbs, such as italic=yes and italic=yes, 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. Conversely, speakers in some other places where both tú and vos are used combine vos with the tú conjugation. 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 -ái and soi 'you are' instead of -áis or -ás and sois or sos. Chileans never pronounce these conjugations with a final -s. The forms erís for 'you are', and habís and hai for 'you have' are also found in Chilean Spanish.
In the case of the ending -ís, 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 -ái.
In Ladino, the -áis, -éis, -ís, & -ois endings are pronounced,,, &.
In Chile, it is much more usual to use tú + vos verb conjugation. The use of pronominal vos 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 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 : 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.

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 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 retain the regular vos imperative forms.

Verb	Meaning	Tú	Vos	Vosotros
ser	to be	sé	sé	sed
estar	to be	está/estate	está/estate	estad
ir	to go	ve	i/ite *	id
hablar	to speak	habla	hablá	hablad
callar	to become silent	calla	callá	callad
soltar	to release/let go	suelta	soltá	soltad
comer	to eat	come	comé	comed
mover	to move	mueve	mové	moved
venir	to come	ven	vení ‡	venid
poner	to put	pon	poné	poned
salir	to leave	sal	salí	salid
tener	to have	ten	tené	tened
decir	to say	di	decí ‡	decid
pedir	to ask/order	pide	pedí	pedid

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.
'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 not preferred.
Paraguay – both pronominal and verbal voseo, the pronoun tú is uncommon 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 ''voseo'' is extensive, but not predominant

In South America:

Bolivia – in the Lowlands of Eastern Bolivia—with mestizo, Criollo and German descendants majority— voseo is used universally; while in the Highlands of Western Bolivia—with indigenous peoples majority— tú is predominant, but there is still a strong use of voseo, 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 only in certain areas:

Colombia – in the following departments:
*In the west :
**Chocó
**Valle del Cauca
**Cauca
**Nariño
*In the center – primarily the Paisa region.
*In the east:
**Norte de Santander – Ocaña region
**La Guajira
**Cesar
Cuba – in Camagüey Province, often used alongside tú.
Ecuador – in the Sierra, the center, and Esmeraldas.
Mexico – widely used in the countryside of the state of Chiapas by 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.
Puerto Rico – At the eastern end of the island in Fajardo.
The Philippines – among Chavacano speakers in Mindanao and Luzon, but otherwise absent in standard Spanish.
Spain – in La Gomera island, in The Canaries, often used alongside tú.
The United States – Found among speakers with origins in countries where voseo is predominant—for instance, among Honduran Americans. In other circumstances, tú is used by default.
Venezuela – in the northwest.

Countries where ''voseo'' is virtually absent

In the following countries, voseo has disappeared completely among the native population:

Dominican Republic
Peninsular Spain

Synchronic analysis of Chilean and River Plate verbal ''voseo''

The traditional assumption that the 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 lacks 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. In both Chilean and Rioplatense Spanish, the voseo form 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 Rioplatense voseo 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, -ás becomes -ái, and sos becomes soi 'you are'. The vowel raising rule turns stressed into, so bebés becomes bebís. Aspiration, the norm in both Chilean and Rioplatense Spanish, 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, the present indicative forms of haber, and the present indicative of ser, without resorting to any ad hoc rules. All these different verb forms would come from different underlying representations. The future forms bailarái and bailaríh come from underlying and, the latter related to the historical future form -és, which was documented in Chile in the 17th century. Habíh and hai come from and, while soi and eríh come from and. The form erei also comes from, with additional 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, like tú in other varieties of Spanish, and contrasts with the respectful usted 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 voseante nations, have condemned the usage of vos 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.