Verbs with Stem Vowel Changes

Verbs with Stem Vowel Changes

Conjugation of verbs with vowel changes in the stem.

There really are two different "sets" of stem changing verbs. One set could be defined by the basic vowel "e", and the other by the basic vowel "o". We'll first deal with the "e" group.

Within the "e" group of stem changing verbs we have three patterns. They could be exemplified by the following conjugation models. Notice that in the first group, using the example "perder", we have the vowel "e" alternating with the diphthong "ie". In the second pattern, using the example "pedir" we have the vowel "e" alternating with the vowel "i". In the third pattern, using "sentir" as an example, we have three possible variations, "e", "i", and "ie".

perder pedir sentir
pierd-, perd- ped-, pid- sient-, sent-, sint-
pierdo
pierdes

pierde

perdemos

pierden
pido

pides

pide

pedimos

piden
siento

sientes

siente

sentimos

sienten

perdía

perdías

perdía

perdíamos

perdían
pedía

pedías

pedía

pedíamos

pedían
sentía

sentías

sentía

sentíamos

sentían

perdí

perdiste

perdió

perdimos

perdieron
pedí

pediste

pidió

pedimos

pidieron
sentí

sentiste

sintió

sentimos

sintieron

perderé

perderás

perderá

perderemos

perderán
pediré

pedirás

pedirá

pediremos

pedirán
sentiré

sentirás

sentirá

sentiremos

sentirán

perdería

perderías

perdería

perderíamos

perderían
pediría

pedirías

pediría

pediríamos

pedirían
sentiría

sentirías

sentiría

sentiríamos

sentirían

pierda

pierdas

pierda

perdamos

pierdan
pida

pidas

pida

pidamos

pidan
sienta

sientas

sienta

sintamos

sientan

perdiera

perdieras

perdiera

perdiéramos

perdieran
pidiera

pidieras

pidiera

pidiéramos

pidieran
sintiera

sintieras

sintiera

sintiéramos

sintieran

perdido pedido sentido
perdiendo pidiendo sintiendo

Now the question is, "Can we find any logical patterns operating here which would by following simple rules, relieve us from the mental burden of having to memorize all forms of all verbs which might fall into these categories by rote, which is not an efficient manner of learning anything, although at times it is the only recourse?"

First, in order to see the logical patterns which do exist in Spanish conjugation, we have to lay aside some of the notions which we learned in the beginning years as students. These "rules" which were stated in the grammar books are little more than lists and often include attempts to include some sort of mnemonic device to facilitate learning, simply because the mass of data which has to be mastered in order to be able to use the verb system freely and with ease is just too massive. There are simply too many forms of too many verbs for us to be able to manage them all by rote memory. We would have to carry around that big bulky, "500 Spanish Verbs" book under our arm when we go traveling abroad in order to be able to speak with the natives.

Most of us learned the infinitive first. In the infinitive we see an "e" in the stem of some verbs and we are taught that under certain circumstances, this "e" changes to the diphthong "ie". There are several problems with this approach. The biggest obstacle is that the student must learn a "list" of those verbs whose "e" changes to "ie" and those which don't. Notice that in "comprender" the "e" remains "e" but in "entender" the "e" changes to "ie". We are left with the question, why one but not the other? The historically accurate answer involves the different "e's" in Latin. Those which were short "e" in Latin produced the "ie" diphthong in Spanish, while the long Latin "e" did not produce the diphthong. This answer is about as useful to the high school student (who doesn't know Latin) as no explanation at all. It doesn't help him in a practical way. The only real advice we can give him is to learn a list of those verbs in Spanish which diphthongize, and those which don't. And this is precisely what most textbooks do. Every time the kid learns a new verb with an "e" in the stem he has to memorize which category it belongs to, since some "e's" become "ie" and other "e's" don't.

We take the opposite approach. We don't start with the infinitive. When we learn a new verb, we use the present tense of the verb first, and only then when this is firmly established in the students's mind do we introduce the infinitive. We start by telling the student that in the present tense, the "ie" changes to "e" in the "mos" form. Later we include the "r" form (infinitive). At some point later in the year we will include ALL past tense forms of the verb (including the participle which can be viewed as a past, or completed, form of the action). Now at this point, we really haven't solved all the problems. We still have a list. But the list is much shorter. It is a finite list of forms which change, but we have eliminated the learning of the virtually infinite list of which verbs change. This is because now we have a situation in which we have replaced the old rule with a new one:

Old rule: Some "e's" change to "ie"

New rule: ALL "ie's" change to "e"

Since the student has learned the verb initially as a vocabulary item with the "ie" present, he already knows indirectly which "e's" are going to change to "ie", because he knows the "ie" from the beginning. It is only when we change from "ie" to "e" that the difference gets blurred.

After a sufficient amount of practice, we point out that what REALLY is happening here is a stress shift in the pronunciation of the verb. We put examples on the board, as I have above, and we go through and underline the stressed syllable as we pronounce the verb forms. You will notice that the "ie" diphthong can only occur in the stem of the verb when it is in the STRESSED syllable. If the stress shifts to another syllable, away from the stem, as is the case of the "mos" form, the "ie" simplifies to the vowel "e".

pierde becomes perdemos

Now we have a rational concept for the entire conjugation paradigm of "ie" to "e" verbs. We will change "ie" to "e" anytime that the stress shifts away from the "ie" syllable in the stem. We find that this happens with other words as well, not just verbs. It is a very powerful concept in Spanish and can spare the student a lot of memorization effort.

siete becomes setenta and setecientos ("ie" can no longer be in the "siet" syllable, but can exist in the "cientos" syllable. Two possible stems, "siet" and "set" for 7

fierro becomes ferretería

The loss of stress on the diphthong always results in its simplification to the simple vowel. This is as far as it goes with verbs of the "AR" and "ER" categories (first and second conjugation). This is rule #1.

Next we need to learn about some other stem changing verbs. These are the verbs in which we have a stem vowel variation between "e" and "i". The model verb which we will use is "pedir". Refer to the table above at the beginning of this web page. We have a new problem to face. Short of rote memorization of all the differnet forms, can we find a pattern which is consistent and which will yield a rule by which we can predict those forms in which the stem will use "e" and when we will use "i"? The approach we will use is the rule of "default". We describe the circumstances in which one phenomenon occurs, and by default, others fall into the other category. If we try to define those forms in which "i" occurs consistently in the stem of "pedir" we find that we are faced with chaos. There seems to be no common thread that runs through these forms. Sometimes the "i" is in the stressed syllable, as in "pide", and at others it is in a non-stressed syllable, as in "pidiera". The endings seem to have nothing in common either. On the other hand, we notice that the "e" occurs always in an unstressed syllable in the stem:

pedir pedí pediste pedía, etc. pedido pediré, etc.

The stress always falls on the ending, never on the stem. In addition, if we look closely at those forms which use the "e" in the ending, we see that inevitably, the ending begins with a full syllabic "i" sound, as in "teeth" in English. Notice that I didn't say is spelled with an initial "i" because we find that in "pidiendo" we have a written "i", but it doesn't sound like the vowel of "teeth". It has a "y" sound. It is the initial sound of the ending that is the crucial clue to the proper choice of the stem vowel. The "e" can only occur in the stem, when the ending begins with a full syllabic "i" sound . Check out the forms on the table and you will see that this is true. This is one of the reasons why I believe that it is so important for the students to learn the conjugation endings well. If they know them, they have built-in clues to other things. If they don't, they can't use the clues and they have to use rote memory instead of rules.

In all other cases, where the ending begins in something other than an "i" sound , the stem vowel will be "i".

pide pida pidiendo pidiera etc.

You will see that this rule of the "i" initial sound of the ending governing the "e" stem vowel is true in all verbs in this group, such as:

medir gemir teñir reír repetir servir vestir

Only two stem variations exist in this group. Using "repetir" as an example, we would find that we can only have "repet" or "repit" as stems, and that the choice is dictated by the first sound of the conjugation ending. If the ending begins with the "i" sound, the stem will be "repet", but with any thing else as the initial sound of the ending, the stem will be "repit". You should also notice that this variation between "e" and "i" in the stem happens only in some verbs of the "IR" category, NEVER in the "AR" or "ER" categories. We now have rule #2. The "e" can occur in the stem only when the ending begins with an "i" sound.

Finally we get to the third group. These are verbs like "sentir". These seem to confuse students somewhat. Perhaps because they get mixed up with verbs like "perder" which also have an "ie" in the stem. Actually, all they need to remember is that the "ie" to "e" switch happens with both groups, but with the "AR" and "ER" verbs, it all ends there. With verbs like "sentir" we have another step to follow.

Let's start analysing the verb "sentir" by applying rule #1. Change all the "ie's" to "e" when the stress is on the ending, not the stem. We would see the following:

sentir
siento
sientes

siente

sentimos

sienten

sentía

sentías

sentía

sentíamos

sentían

sentí

sentiste

sEntió

sentimos

sEntieron

sentiré

sentirás

sentirá

sentiremos

sentirán

sentiría

sentirías

sentiría

sentiríamos

sentirían

sienta

sientas

sienta

sEntamos

sientan

sEntiera

sEntieras

sEntiera

sEntiéramos

sEntieran

sentido
sEntiendo

Now we have eliminated all of the "ie's" in those forms where the stem does not have the stressed syllable. The stressed syllable is on the ending, and we have changed the "ie's" to "e" in those forms. Now, let's apply the same rule #2, which we learned when we analyzed the verb "pedir". Remember, "e" can only exist in those verb forms where the ending begins with the "i" sound . I have marked all of the "e's" in the stems where the ending does NOT begin with an "i" sound by using a capital "E". You will notice that in several cases, the ending begins with a written "i", but NOT and "i" sound. In those cases the "i" is pronounced like "y" since it is in a syllable with another vowel which is stronger or accented. We can keep the "e" in the stem, only in those cases when the ending begins with the "i" sound, so the cases where the "e" is capitalized will have to change to "i" in the stem. That will give us the following pattern:

sentir
siento
sientes

siente

sentimos

sienten

sentía

sentías

sentía

sentíamos

sentían

sentí

sentiste

sintió

sentimos

sintieron

sentiré

sentirás

sentirá

sentiremos

sentirán

sentiría

sentirías

sentiría

sentiríamos

sentirían

sienta

sientas

sienta

sintamos

sientan

sintiera

sintieras

sintiera

sintiéramos

sintieran

sentido
sintiendo

By the simple application of two rules, we have eliminated all the confusion. Just remember that when there is an "ie" diphthong in the stem of a verb, if it is in the "AR" or "ER" category, it will only vary between "ie" and "e", and that is governed by the presence or absence of stress on the syllable in the stem. If the verb has an "ie" diphthong and it is in the "IR" category, you have to take three possibilities into account. These can be predicted by first applying rule #1, and then rule #2 ("e" can be in the stem only if the ending begins with the "i" sound, otherwise it changes to "i"). Notice that other attempts to describe where the "i" should be in the stem, by looking for the "y" sound in the ending, etc. fail to take into account several forms, such as the form "sintamos" in the present subjunctive. By describing where the "e" must be, and then by default all others must be "i", we account for all the forms in the paradigm.

Other verbs which work like "sentir" are :

invertir herir hervir mentir advertir divertir

You can see how important it is that the student be very familiar with the conjugational endings for these rules to be workable. This is the reason that we work to get the kids conjugating verbs in ALL tenses during the first year class, including present and past subjunctive, preterite, compound tenses using participles, etc. If they don't know the endings, it's like looking at one tree instead of the seeing the forest. Of course in the first year level we don't get into this stem vowel variation problem, but we do lay the foundation by teaching the full conjugation of regular verbs where there is no stem variation. That's why I have argued on the FLTEACH list that good grammar teaching requires a lot of planning and analysis, and much of what we do is not something that we arbitrarily decide. The right sequence is dictated to us by the language itself and its structure, not something that we just choose by whim. I believe that many of the problems which the kids encounter with grammar in many classes is due to poor sequencing of learning tasks, and this is usually the case because the teacher has little preparation or background in linguistics and depends on books, which are not written by linguists, but by people who know what sells (colorful pictures and games). If we present the grammar in a systematic and logical manner in which one small step builds upon what came before it and is logically connected, kids can master a lot more than is conventionally thought to be the case. There are other little "learning aids" that we can provide to the students if we are aware of them and I'd be glad to share some of them with anyone who is interested.

By the way, I almost omitted the "ue" to "o" business. If we really understand what is happening in the "ie" to "e" patterns, we find that the exact same rules apply in the case of "ue" to "o". We begin with the "ue" forms and learn them as the first vocabulary items, and then learn to change "ue" in the stem to "o" when the stress shifts to the ending, just as we did with "ie". With verbs in the "AR" or "ER" categories, such as "volver", "almorzar", "volar" etc. this is all we need to do. But with verbs like "dormir" and "morir" we have to go one step further. Just like the "e" to "i" switch when the ending does not begin with an "i" sound, the "o" changes to "u" if the ending does not begin with the "i" sound. Therefore we get:

duermo, duermes, duerme, duerma, duermas, duerman (the "ue" is stressed in the stem)

but we get:

dormimos, dormir, dormí, dormiste, dormido (the stress shifts to the ending)

and we get:

durmamos, durmió, durmieron, durmiendo (the stem loses stress, but the ending does NOT begin with the sound of "i".)

Of course, with the participle of "morir" the participle should be "morido" if it were regular, but it is "muerto". However, if you notice, we are still following the rule, since in "muerto" the stress DOES fall on the diphthong in the stem of the verb form, not on the ending.