sirvanse or sírvanse
Hi everybody,
When I watched the video about formal commands (2.14) I read a sentence at 6.59. It was about the subjunctive of servirse. I understand the way I have to conjugate. What I didn't understand was why it has a tilde on top of the "i". When searched for errors in Paralee's thread about errors (my search ended dramatically in the spanish dictionary) in the video lessons I couldn't find anything. The main question is:
why sírvanse and not sirvanse like in the dictionary.
Maybe it seems almost a ridiculous question but it bugs me that I don't understand it.
4 Answers
I don't think this is the "techincal" way to explain it, but if a word ends in a voul, n or s, the natural stress of the word(the tonic accent) of the word falls on the second to last syllable. This includes conjugated words like "sirvan" in your case where the natural stress is on the first syllable 'sir". If the word ends in any other consonant, the natural stress of the word falls on the last syllable.
Now, notice how when you conjugate "servirse" you end up with sirvanse. When you add "se" the stress of the word changes and now falls on "van" instead of "sir". I can't really explain why, but in Spanish we must add an accent to maintain the original, natural stress of the word. To do this we add an accent on the "i". Your conjugation is now "sírvanse". With the addition of the accent, the stress of the word is now where it naturally was with "sirvan" before you added "se".
I Hope this helps.
In the word "sirvan" the tonic accent falls on the "i". When adding pronouns at the end of commands the original oral accent must be maintained, which in a case like yours requires a written accent.
It is sírvanse
The only thing I could tell you is that it is an "esdrújula" word or that it is a word with an "esdrújula" accent/tilde.
hi! it's SÍRVANSE, with the written accent and the tonic accent falls on the "i". the accent goes on any verb that turns in an order.
