Laísmo

Presence of Leism, Laism and Loism.

The laísmo is, in Spanish, the use of the feminine direct object personal pronouns «la» and «las» as indirect object for feminine referents, instead of the standard forms «le» and "them". The Royal Spanish Academy affirms that secularism is improper and does not correspond to the cultured norm of standard Spanish.

It is quite common in certain Spanish dialects of central and north-central Spain, such as Madrid Castilian.

Origin

The Spanish language maintains in its grammar the old Latin declension and the use of Latin cases in personal pronouns. In the early evolution of Castilian produced during the Middle Ages, a certain tendency appeared that promoted the total elimination of Latin cases. The Laísta variants derive from that tendency, neutralizing the difference between the accusative (direct object) and the dative (indirect object). in favor of gender distinction.

Laísmo, similar to other phenomena related to the non-etymological use of unstressed third-person pronouns, such as leísmo and loísmo, arose in Castile during the Middle Ages. In the 13th century, the reconquest of almost all of Andalusia, but this linguistic phenomenon did not manage to spread in the variety of Andalusian Castilian and, therefore, it could not penetrate the Atlantic Spanish of the Canary Islands and Latin America during the colonization of the New World.

Regulatory use

Laísmo is defined as the use of la and las as an indirect complement (object); when the referent is feminine, instead of le and les used in non-laista varieties. Thus, in lay areas forms such as:

The head hurt. (laist varity) ('[to it] hurt her head') - In this case [to it] is indirect complement and the head is subject.

It hurt her head. (laist) ('[they] hurt their heads')

A more interesting case is the different interpretation that can be made of certain sentences in laista and non-laista varieties, thus in a laista area, a sentence like:

I hit it.

when heard by a speaker of a non-laistic variety the pronoun is interpreted as 'a thing' referred to was glued (with an adhesive); and not "hit", which is what the "laísta" meant.

The indirect le is ambiguous; to disambiguate a second pronoun with a preposition can be used:

Kiss her (him).

Laist varieties

• The area itself laist is basically confined to the central and north-western area of Castile.
• Laism is common in the Madrid dialect and other areas of the peninsular center. The verbs with which Laism appears most are: I mean, give, Like, Put, count, remove, See, write, ask.