The Vocalic Formation of the Spanish Verbal Suffixes -áis/-ás, -éis/-és, -ís, -ois/-os: A Case of Phonological or Morphological Change?

Abstract

JOEL RINIThe Vocalic Formation of the Spanish Verbal Suffixes -ais/-as, -eis/-es, -is, -ois/-os\ A Case of Phonological or Morphological Change?It is probably safe to say that any given language offers specialists of the history of that language at least one example of a change which is not easily discernable as being either a case of straightforward sound change, or of a sound change which has been affected or guided by (and in some cases, even actuated by) some morphological factor ΌΓ factors. The case of the vocalic formation after the loss of the intervocalic dental consonant of the Old Spanish second person verbal suffixes -odes, -edes, -ides, (and -odes of sodes), is one example which presents such difficulties. It is well known that the loss of /-d-/ from the Old Spanish second person verbal suffixes -ades, -edes, -ides, and -odes resulted in a dual development in the 1st and 2nd conjugations, i.e. -odes > -ais/-as, -edes > -eis/-es, -odes > -ois/-os, while -ides yielded -is only. It is also well known that, eventually, diphthongal -ais,.-eis, and -ois came to function solely as the second person plural in Standard Castilian (e.g. vosotros hablais, vosotros comeis, vosotros sois), and that monophthongal -as, -es, and -os function only as singulars in some voseante regions of America (e. g. vos hablas, vos comes, vos sos) 1 . While issues surrounding the loss of /-d-/ have received considerable attention from Hispanists in recent years (cf. Blaylock 1986, Dworkin 1988a, 1988b, to date, there is no general consensus among Romance scholars as to how the vocalic development of these verbal suffixes unfolded, especially as regards the formation of diphthongal -eis and monophthongal -as, -os, -os,. and -is.The lack of a consensus regarding the vocalic shaping of these verbal suffixes can be observed in the most recent and authoritative historical grammarsThe suffixes -as, -έε, and -os are those which are considered to be the "standard" voseo forms of the 1st and 2nd conjugations, found primarily in Argentina (though also found in Colombia and parts of Mexico and Central America). Other variants such as -ai, -ei, -oi (and even -is for second conjugation -es) however, have been recorded in other Latin American countries. For a good description, see P ez Urdaneta (1981: 71-110).

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“…Se distinguen diversas etapas en el desarrollo del voseo. Goza de prestigio hasta mediados del siglo xvi, cuando se produce un desbalance en el paradigma pronominal de la segunda persona con recurrentes confusiones entre los sistemas verbales de voseo y tuteo para dirigirse indistintamente a la segunda persona del singular y plural (Pla Cárceles 1923;Garrido 1992;Rini 1996):…”

“…Por su parte, el empleo de vos, que combina morfosintácticamente con formas verbales de voseo diptongado y pronombre átono respectivo (os), se evidencia como trato cortés hacia un interlocutor de menor estatus social. Cabe mencionar que el uso de voseo ya se encuentra estigmatizado en este periodo de tiempo en el español peninsular (Pla Cárceles 1923, Lapesa 1968, Rini 1996, norma que aún no parece propagarse hacia el español americano, pues se evidencia en documentos epistolares de otras regiones colonizadas del siglo xvi (Bentivoglio 2002-2004, Calderón Campos 2003) y xvii (Díaz Collazos 2015.…”