Main grammatical features of the Spanish of El Salvador

This work offers an in-depth description of the main morphosyntactic (and lexical) features found in present Salvadoran Spanish, a lesser-known Central American variety. Text corpora and sociolinguistic surveys help us to provide an updated grammatical overview, which takes into account most categories: nouns and adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions and locutions, and illustrates with examples taken both from formal and informal settings. By comparing these features with previous grammatical descriptions, this study helps in identifying some common American features -such as the use of hasta (que) and una mi amiga- as well as some specific patterns -such as the prominence of -ado and -oso suffixes, utualito adverb, algotro pronoun and old expletive lo- in present-day Salvadoran Spanish, some of which remain to be incorporated in the Academy grammar (simasito adverb, al no mas + infinitive locution).

Automated summary

This work provides a detailed description of the main morphosyntactic and lexical features of present Salvadoran Spanish, a lesser-known Central American variety. Utilizing text corpora and sociolinguistic surveys, the study presents an updated grammatical overview that includes various categories, such as nouns and adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions and locutions. By comparing these features with previous descriptions, the study identifies common American features and specific patterns found in present-day Salvadoran Spanish.