Tracing the emergence of the voseo/tuteo semantic split in Río de la Plata second person subjunctives

Abstract

This study documents the history of second person singular informal variation in Rioplatense Spanish. It focuses on the competition between voseo and tuteo forms in the subjunctive and proposes that the outcome of this variation can be linked to the acquisition of these forms by children. In contrast with other verb forms in the variety, which eradicated tuteo progressively, in the subjunctive tuteo prevailed in epistemic contexts, while voseo continued to be possible in deontic contexts. By combining data from the historical record (Study 1) with converging data from contemporary children acquiring the same structures (Study 2), we show that the subjunctive forms most likely to select tuteo are acquired later, making them more susceptible to normative influence. Because changes in the second singular present subjunctive coincided with the spread of public education in the region, we argue that the semantic split resulted from the interaction of linguistic, social, and developmental factors, and sketch a sociohistorical account for the actuation of this change.