Spanish: verbal morphology and phonology

[kite_head]

1. What makes the nosotros form so special? For example, in the imperfect, it always has an accent. There are also the so-called "boot verbs" because the nosotros form is, well, different (i.e. it does not observe stem changes), and by excluding it, the other 5 forms form, well,a boot. How did this form evolve to be so unique

Comments

[draculas_bride]

Concerning question 3, I feel like in a good portion of the US vosotros is rarely taught in schools.

For me at least (taught at the high school level in Northern Virginia and the college level in Central Pennsylvania) vosotros was only vaguely referenced in high school in a manner that was something like, "This is used in some places, but let's stick with ustedes." So we weren't really taught the vosotros forms in depth, just the bare basics for them. In order to reference "you all" we always used ustedes in high school.

In college, pretty much the same has applied. Very few people use vosotros where I've learned Spanish in the States. It wasn't until I studied for a few months in Spain that I started using vosotros casually when speaking, because I just wasn't taught how to use it in high school or college. Even my university professor, who specializes in Peninsular studies rather than Latin American, uses ustedes in the classroom, probably because it's what we're more accustomed to hearing/it's what we're more familiar with.

Personally, I like using vosotros. After spending time in Spain, using "ustedes" to talk to my classmates during a presentation sounds awkward and formal. Vosotros just sounds more companionable to me now, I guess :)