Re: Dialects of certain langs

>> 1) European Spanish vs. Latin American Spanish on the issue of
>> the second person plural pronoun and the corresponding verb
>> forms. Spain has "vosotros" with a second person plural verb,
>> while Latin America has "ustedes" with a *third* person plural
>> verb.
>
>A slight clarification, if I may.  European Spanish maintains a
>familiar/polite distinction between "vosotros" (plural of "tú")
>and "ustedes" (plural of "usted"), the former being familiar and
>the latter being polite.  Latin American Spanish has the "tú"/"usted"
>distinction in the singular, but always uses "ustedes" in the plural.
>
>> 2) Various LA dialects on the issue of the second person singular
>> pronoun (and verb forms). There are dialects that use the pronoun
>> "tú" as in Spain, and others (most notably Rioplatense) that use
>> "vos" with a different verb form (resembling the plural form used
>> with "vosotros" in Spain).
>
>Actually, the usual "vos" form of the verb is identical to the "tú" form
>except for the emphasis, at least in the present tense: "tú
hablas" /tu'aBlas/
>vs. "vos hablás" /bosa'Blas/.  The "vosotros" form replaces the plain
vowel
>in these forms with a diphthong: "vosotros hablais" /bosot4osaBlajs/.
Well, in fact the form "vos hablás" is related to the
form "vosotros habláis" (habláis > hablás), rather than
to "tú hablas". The same for the other tenses, e.g. the
imperative "hablá" (< hablad). The form "vos habláis"
from which "vos hablás" derives is nowadays literary or
old-sounding (somehow like thouing in English), having
been the old equivalent of current "usted habla". A
similar form "nos hablamos" is the majestatic plural,
which also has an old/literary feel (not even the king
talks about himself that way nowadays). The Castilian
pronoun "vosotros" is in fact "vos"+"otros" (same for
"nos"+"otros"), having been a repluralization of "vos"
introduced when "vos" was sequestered as polite singular.
Then, "usted" (from "vuestra merced", an even more polite
form of address taking 3rd person agreement) finally
caused "vos" to disappear from Castilian, while in
Rioplatense it was "tú" the one that yielded to "vos"
when this one was displaced from polite to non-polite
by "usted".

1-sg ....... yo ... yo .... yo .......... yo
1-sg-pol ... - .... nos ... nos ......... -

1-pl ....... nos .. nos ... nosotros .... nosotros


2-sg ....... tú ... tú .... tú .......... tú / vos
2-sg-pol ... - .... vos ... vos, usted* . usted* / usted*

2-pl ....... vos .. vos ... vosotros .... vosotros / ustedes*
2-pl-pol ... - .... - ..... ustedes* .... ustedes* / ustedes*

(*) 3rd-person agreement


>> European Spanish also uses the object pronouns "le", "les" for
>> verb objects that refer to male people, reserving "lo", "los" for
>> masculine non-personal objects and "la", "las" for feminine
>> referrents and female people. Latin American Spanish only
>> distinguishes gender, not animacy, so only "lo(s)" and "la(s)"
>> are used for direct objects, while "le(s)" is used for INDIRECT
>> objects of any gender.
>
>Interesting.  Didn't know about that one.
Actually, the Latin American system is the traditional
one (system #1), while the system of "leismo admitido"
(#2) is a middle stage in an ongoing change where a
basic distinction direct/indirect is being replaced
by a basic distinction feminine/masculine (#4 and #5):

------------------ #1 ---- #2 ---- #3 ---- #4 ---- #5

DO-fem ........... la .... la .... la .... la .... la
DO-masc-anim ..... lo .... LE .... LE .... LE .... lo
DO-masc-inanim ... lo .... lo .... lo .... LE .... lo

IO-fem ........... le .... le .... LA .... LA .... LA
IO-masc .......... le .... le .... le .... le .... LO

The Spanish Academy already admits said system #2
("leísmo admitido", use of "le" for masculine animate
direct object). In Madrid it is common to use system
#3 ("leísmo admitido" + "laísmo", the latter being the
use of "la" for feminine indirect object). While the
dialect of Valladolid (in Castile), uses system #4
("leísmo admitido" + "laísmo" + "leísmo no admitido",
the latter being the use of "le" for masculine
inanimate direct object), which combined with other
features of the Vallisoletan dialect (especially the
use of intransitive verbs as transitive) renders some
sentences odd/funny/confusing to speakers of other
dialects even within Spain, e.g. "¿El libro le quedas
aquí?" meaning "¿El libro lo dejas aquí?". There
also exists a usage called "loísmo", i.e. use of
"lo" for masculine indirect object (usually combined
with "laísmo" into system #5), but it is considered
very vulgar.

Cheers,
Javier