Las variantes -ra y -se del pretérito imperfecto de subjuntivo. Un estudio de la variabilidad en la preferencia por las variantes -ra y -se realizado con hablantes nativos de Canarias y Chile

Abstract

Spanish verbs conjugated in the preterite tense of subjunctive may take one of two morphologically different endings; -ra and -se. Although these forms traditionally are viewed as grammatically equals, the use of Spanish in today’s world suggests that they do not portray a case of perfect synonyms. This thesis aims to investigate whether a person whose native language is Spanish differs between the employment of these two forms and, in this case, which factors seem to affect the preference for one of the two. The basis for this is a survey conducted in Chile and the Canary Islands consisting in a number of phrases containing verbs with said endings. Participants are asked to read each phrase and indicate how well they think they sound, according to their own manner of speaking. The survey includes ten different semantic contexts, the reason for this being the desire to detect semantic factors that could affect the participant’s choice of ending. In the case of a few contexts the forms are, supposedly, not equals, and some of these have been included in the survey in order to investigate whether the participants reject one of the two forms. The thesis sets out to discuss trends in the data obtained at a general, as well as individual, level and, furthermore, seeks to make a comparison between the two geographical areas.