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In Spanish grammar,voseo (Spanish pronunciation:[boˈseo]) is the use ofvos as asecond-personsingularpronoun, along with its associated verbal forms, in certain regions where the language is spoken. In those regions it replacestuteo, i.e. the use of the pronountú and its verbal forms.Voseo can also be found in the context of using verb conjugations forvos withtú as the subject pronoun (verbal voseo).^[1]

In all regions withvoseo, the corresponding unstressed object pronoun iste and the corresponding possessive istu/tuyo.^[2]

Vos is used extensively as the second-person singular^[3] inRioplatense Spanish (Argentina andUruguay),Chilean Spanish,Eastern Bolivia,Paraguayan Spanish, and much ofCentral America (El Salvador,Guatemala,Honduras,Nicaragua,Costa Rica); inMexico, in the southern regions ofChiapas and parts ofOaxaca. It is rarely used, if at all, in places such asCuba andPuerto 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 (known as 'Rioplatense'), the usage ofvos 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 usingvoseo.^[4][5]

Vos is present in some regions of other countries, for instance in theMaracucho Spanish ofZulia State,Venezuela (seeVenezuelan Spanish), theAzuero peninsula ofPanama, in a fewdepartments in Colombia,^[6] and in parts ofEcuador (Sierra down toEsmeraldas). InPeru,voseo is present in certainAndean regions andCajamarca, but the younger generations have ceased to use it. It is also present inJudaeo-Spanish, spoken bySephardic Jews, where it is the archaic plural form thatvosotros replaced.

Voseo is seldom taught to students of Spanish as a second language, and its precise usage varies across different regions.^[7] Nevertheless, in recent years, it has become more commonly accepted across theHispanophone world as a valid part of regional dialects.

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Classical Latin, and theVulgar Latin from which Romance languages such as Spanish are descended, had only two second-person pronouns – the singulartu and the pluralvos. Starting in the early Middle Ages, however, languages such as French and Spanishbegan 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.Vos, the second-person plural inherited from Latin, came to be used in this manner.

Already by the late 18th century, however,vos itself was restricted to politeness among one's familiar friends. The following extract from a textbook is illustrative of usage at the time:

We seldom make use in Spanish of the second Person Singular or Plural, but when through a great familiarity among friends, or speaking to God, or a wife and husband to themselves, or a father and mother to their children, or to servants.

Examples.

O Dios, sois vos mi Padre verdadéro, O God, thou art my true Father;Tú eres un buen amígo, Thou art a good friend.

— Raymundo del Pueyo,A New Spanish Grammar, or the Elements of the Spanish Language^[8]

The standard formal way to address a person one was not on familiar terms with was to address such a person asvuestra merced ("your grace", originally abbreviated asv.m.) in the singular andvuestras mercedes 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 includedvuestra excelencia ("your excellence", contracted phonetically toussencia) andvuestra señoría ("your lordship/ladyship", contracted toussía). Today, bothvos andtú are considered to be informal pronouns, withvos being somewhat synonymous withtú in regions where both are used. This was the situation when the Spanish language was brought to theRío de la Plata area (aroundBuenos Aires andMontevideo) and to Chile.

In time,vos 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 asChiapas) in the countries historically best connected with Spain: Mexico, Panama, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru andEquatorial Guinea.Vuestra merced evolved intousted:vuestra merced > usarced > usted; in fact,usted is still abbreviated as eitherVd orUd). Note that the termvosotros is a combined form ofvos otros (meaning literally 'ye/you others'), while the termnosotros comes fromnos otros ("we/us others").

In the first half of the 19th century, the use ofvos was as prevalent in Chile as it was in Argentina. The current limitation of the use ofvos in Chile is attributed to a campaign to eradicate it by theChilean education system. The campaign was initiated byAndrés Bello who considered the use ofvos a manifestation of lack of education.^[9]

The independent disjunctive pronounvos also replacesti, from thetuteo set of forms. That is,vos is bothnominative and the form to use afterprepositions. Therefore,para vos ("for you") corresponds to thetuteo formpara ti, etc.

The preposition-pronoun combinationcon vos ("with you") is used for thetuteo formcontigo.
The direct and indirect object formte is used in bothvoseo andtuteo.^[2]

The possessive pronouns ofvos also coincide withtú <tu(s),tuyo(s),tuya(s)> rather than withvosotros <vuestro(s),vuestra(s)>.^[2]

Chavacano, aSpanish-based creole spoken in thePhilippines, employsvoseo,^[10][11] while thestandard Spanish spoken in the country does not.^[12] The Chavacano language below in comparison of other Chavacano dialects and level of formality withVoseo in both subject and possessive pronouns. Note the mixed and co-existing usages ofvos, tú, usted, andvosotros.

All modernvoseo conjugations derive from Old Spanish second person plural-ades,-edes,-ides, and-odes (as insodes, 'you are').^[13] The 14th and 15th centuries saw an evolution of these conjugations, with-ades originally giving-áis,-edes giving-és (or-ís),^[13][14]-ides giving-ís,^[15] and-odes giving-óis.^[13] Soon analogous forms-ás and-éis appeared.^[13] Hence the variety of forms the contemporary Americanvoseo 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 betweenvoseo forms and respectivetuteo forms is visible exclusively in the present indicative, imperative andsubjunctive, and, most of the time, in thepreterite.^[14] Below is a comparison table of the conjugation of several verbs fortú and forvos, and next to them the one forvosotros, 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 withvos arestressed on the last syllable, causing the loss of the stem diphthong in those verbs, such aspoder andvenir, which arestem-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.^[2]

Some Uruguayan speakers combine the pronountú with thevos conjugation (for example,tú sabés).^[2] Conversely, speakers in some other places where bothtú andvos are used combinevos with thetú conjugation (for example,vos sabes).^[2] This is a frequent occurrence in the Argentine province ofSantiago del Estero.

The verb forms employed withvos are also different in Chilean Spanish: Chileans use-ái andsoi 'you are' instead of-áis or-ás andsois orsos. Chileans never pronounce these conjugations with a final-s. The formserís for 'you are', andhabís andhai for 'you have' are also found in Chilean Spanish.^[16]

In the case of the ending-ís (such as incomís, podís, vivís, erís, venís), the final-s is pronounced like any other final/s/ in Chilean Spanish. It is most often pronounced as anaspiration similar to the 'h' sound in English. It can also be pronounced as a fricative[s], or be dropped completely. Its variable pronunciation is a phonological rather than a morphological phenomenon.^[16]

Venezuelan Maracucho Spanish is notable in that they preserve the diphthongized plural verb forms in all tenses, as still used withvosotros in Spain.^[2] Chilean Spanish also notably uses the diphthong-ái.

InLadino, the-áis,-éis,-ís, &-ois endings are pronounced/aʃ/,/eʃ/,/iʃ/, &/oʃ/.

In Chile, it is much more usual to usetú +vos verb conjugation (tú sabís). The use ofpronominal vos (vos sabís) is reserved for very informal situations and may even be considered vulgar in some cases.^[2]

1. General conjugation: the final-r of the infinitive is replaced by-s; in writing, anacute accent is added to the last vowel (i.e. the one preceding the final-s) to indicate stress position.
2. Chilean:
   1. the-ar ending of the infinitive is replaced by-ái
   2. both-er and-ir are replaced by-ís, which sounds more like-íh.
3. Venezuelan (Zulian): practically the same ending as modern Spanishvosotros, yet with the final -s being aspirated so that:-áis,-éis,-ís sound like-áih,-éih,-íh (phonetically resembling Chilean).

Unliketú, which has many irregular forms, the onlyvoseo verbs that are conjugated irregularly in the indicative present areser,ir andhaber. However,haber is seldom used in the indicative present, since there is a strong tendency to usepreterite instead ofpresent perfect.

Vos also differs in its affirmativeimperative conjugation from bothtú andvosotros. Specifically, thevos imperative is formed by dropping the final-r from the infinitive, but keeping the stress on the last syllable.^[13] The only verb that isirregular in this regard isir; itsvos imperative is not usually used, withandá (thevos imperative ofandar, which is denoted by*) being generally used instead; except for the Argentine province ofTucumán, where the imperativeite is used. For most regular verbs ending in-ir, thevos imperatives use the same conjugations as theyo form in thepreterite; almost all verbs that are irregular in the preterite (which are denoted by‡) retain the regularvos imperative forms.

Again, the conjugation oftú has far more irregularities, whereasvos has only one irregular verb in the affirmative imperative.

In Chile, the generalvos conjugation is not used in the affirmative imperative.

In most places wherevoseo is used, it is applied also in thesubjunctive. In theRío de la Plata region, both thetú-conjugation and thevoseo conjugation are found, thetú-form being more common. In this variety, some studies have shown a pragmatic difference between thetú-form and thevos-form, such that thevos form carries information about the speaker's belief state, and can be stigmatized.^[19][20] For example, in Central America the subjunctive and negative command form isno mintás, and in Chile it isno mintái; however, in Río de la Plata bothno mientas andno mintás are found.Real Academia Española models itsvoseo conjugation tables on the most frequent, unstigmatized Río de la Plata usage and therefore omits the subjunctivevoseo.^[21]

• 'Verbalvoseo' refers to the use of the verb conjugation ofvos regardless of which pronoun is used.^[2]

Verbalvoseo with a pronoun other thanvos is widespread in Chile, in which case one would use the pronountú and the verb conjugation ofvos 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 verbalvoseo in Uruguay where one would say for exampletú podés ortú sabés.

• 'Pronominalvoseo' is the use of the pronounvos regardless of verb conjugation.^[2]

In South America:

1. Argentina – both pronominal and verbalvoseo, the pronountú is not preferred.^[2]
2. Paraguay – both pronominal and verbalvoseo,^[2] the pronountú is uncommon in most of the country.
3. Uruguay – dual-usage of both pronominal and verbalvoseo and a combination of the pronountú + verb conjugated in thevos form,^[2] except near the Brazilian border, where only pronominal and verbaltuteo is common.

In Central America:

1. 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. Pronominaltú is frequent with verbalvoseo.^[2]
2. 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.^[2]
3. Nicaragua – both pronominal and verbal voseo throughout all social classes;tú is mostly used in writing.^[2]
4. Costa Rica –voseo has historically been used, back in the 2000s it was losing ground toustedeo andtuteo, especially among younger speakers.^[22]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.^[23]
5. 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.^[24]

In South America:

1. Bolivia – in the Lowlands of Eastern Bolivia—withmestizo,Criollo andGerman descendants majority—(Santa Cruz,Beni,Pando,Tarija and the Lowlands ofLa Paz)voseo is used universally; while in theHighlands of Western Bolivia—withindigenous peoples majority—(highlands ofLa Paz,Oruro,Potosí,Chuquisaca andCochabamba)tú is predominant, but there is still a strong use ofvoseo, especially in verb forms.
2. Chile – verbalvoseo and pronominaltú is used in informal situations, whereas pronominalvoseo is reserved only for very intimate situations or to offend someone. In every other situation and in writing, the normaltú orusted pronouns are used.

In the following countries,voseo is used only in certain areas:

• Colombia – in the following departments:
  • In the west (along the Pacific coast):
    • Chocó
    • Valle del Cauca
    • Cauca
    • Nariño
  • In the center – primarily thePaisa region (Antioquia,Risaralda,Quindío, andCaldas Departments).
  • In the (north)east:
    • Norte de Santander –Ocaña region
    • La Guajira
    • Cesar
• Cuba – inCamagüey Province, often used alongsidetú.
• Ecuador – in the Sierra, the center, andEsmeraldas.
• Mexico – widely used in the countryside of the state ofChiapas by indigenous populations and becoming rare among the same groups in the state ofTabasco.^[25]
• 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 inFajardo.^[26]
• ThePhilippines – amongChavacano speakers inMindanao andLuzon,^[10][11] but otherwise absent in standard Spanish.^[12]
• Spain – inLa Gomera island, in The Canaries, often used alongsidetú.
• TheUnited States – Found among speakers with origins in countries wherevoseo is predominant—for instance, amongHonduran Americans.^[24] In other circumstances,tú is used by default.
• Venezuela – in the northwest (primarily inZulia State).

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

• Dominican Republic
• PeninsularSpain

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The traditional assumption that the Chilean and River Platevoseo verb forms are derived from those corresponding tovosotros has been challenged as synchronically inadequate in a 2014 article,^[16] 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 Platevoseo verb forms are synchronically derived fromunderlying representations that coincide with those corresponding to the non-honorific second person singulartú. In both Chilean and Rioplatense Spanish, thevoseo form assigns stress to the syllable following the verb's root, or its infinitive in the case of thefuture andconditional conjugations. This alone derives all the Rioplatensevoseo verb conjugations, in all tenses. Chilean verb forms also undergo rules of semi-vocalization, vowel raising, and aspiration. In semi-vocalization,/s/ becomes thesemivowel/j/ when after/a,o/; thus,-ás becomes-ái, andsos becomessoi 'you are'. The vowel raising rule turns stressed/e/ into/i/, sobebés becomesbebís. Aspiration, the norm in both Chilean and Rioplatense Spanish, means that syllable or word-final/s/ becomes pronounced like an[h].^[16]

The proposed theory requires the use of only one special rule in the case of Chileanvoseo. This rule plus other rules that are independently justified in the language make it possible to synchronically derive all the Chilean and River Platevoseo verb forms in a straightforward manner. The article additionally solves the problem posed by the alternate verbal forms of Chileanvoseo like the future indicative (e.g.bailaríh orbailarái 'you will dance'), the present indicative forms ofhaber (habíh andhai 'you have'), and the present indicative ofser (soi,eríh anderéi 'you are'), without resorting to any ad hoc rules. All these different verb forms would come from different underlying representations. The future formsbailarái andbailaríh come from underlying/bailaˈɾas/ and/bailaˈɾes/, the latter related to the historical future form-és, which was documented in Chile in the 17th century.Habíh andhai come from/ˈabes/ and/as/, whilesoi anderíh come from/sos/ and/ˈeɾes/. The formerei also comes from/ˈeɾes/, with additional semi-vocalization. The theoretical framework of the article is that of classic generative phonology.^[16]

In some countries, the pronounvos is used with family and friends (T-form), liketú in other varieties of Spanish, and contrasts with the respectfulusted (V-form used with third person) which is used with strangers, elderly, and people of highersocioeconomic status; appropriate usage varies by dialect. In Central America,vos can be used among those considered equals, whileusted maintains its respectful usage. InLadino, the pronounusted is completely absent, so the use ofvos with strangers and elders is the standard.

Voseo was long considered a backward or uneducated usage byprescriptivist grammarians. Many Central American intellectuals, themselves fromvoseante nations, have condemned the usage ofvos in the past.^[24] 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.

• Similar trends of personal pronouns in Portuguese
• Spanish dialects and varieties
• Spanish verbs
• T–V distinction
• T–V distinction in the world's languages#Romance languages

• (in Spanish) Díaz Collazos, Ana María.Desarrollo sociolingüístico del voseo en la región andina de Colombia (1555–1976)
• (in Spanish)El voseo at Spanish Wikibooks
• (in French)Le Voseo
• (in Spanish)Voseo Spanish Site dedicated to teaching Argentine Voseo usage
• (in Spanish) Carricaburo. Norma Beatriz (2003).El voseo en la historia y en la lengua de hoy – Las fórmulas de tratamiento en el español actual
• (in Spanish) Hotta. Hideo (2000).La estandarización y el regionalismo en el voseo del español argentino
• (in Spanish) Roca, Luis Alberto (2007).Breve historia del habla cruceña y su mestizaje
• (in Spanish) Rosenblat, Ángel (2000).El castellano en Venezuela
• (in Spanish) Toursinov, Antón (2005).Formas pronominales de tratamiento en el español actual de Guatemala

• Spanish grammar
• Personal pronouns
• Second-person pronouns

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