What are the thematic vowels

Within the field of linguistic studies, two different things can be understood when we speak of "thematic vowel". On the one hand, we can refer to the vowel that is located right at the end of the stem (also called "theme", hence the name "theme") and on the other hand, which is the most Frequent and used, the term "thematic vowel" refers, as a general rule, to the morpheme that indicates the category of the lexeme or lexical base on which the forms are constituted verbal

In this lesson from a TEACHER we will see what are thematic vowels and how can we identify them in the right way.

As we have said before, the thematic vowel is the morpheme that we place just after the lexical stem from, generally speaking, verbs. The thematic vowel serves to unite the lexeme with the other inflectional morphemes that accompany the verb adding grammatical information, like the person or the number, for example.

For this reason, the thematic vowel is practically present in all tenses of the conjugation of all verbs, although it is true that on some occasions it is not present (as for example, in the first person of the singular of the present indicative of the verbs belonging to the three conjugations: "I love", "as" and "I write") or yes that It is but undergoing small modifications, as is the case of the present subjunctive of the three verbal groups that exist in Spanish ("love"> love; "eat"> comma and "write"> write, respectively).

Although we can also find thematic vowels in other words that are not verbs, this is mainly identified with the different verb forms. The main function of thematic vowels is indicate to which of the three conjugations the verb belongs. We must remember that, in Spanish, verbs are grouped into three different conjugations:

• First conjugation: all the verbs that end in "-ar" belong to it; that is, all the verbs whose thematic vowel is "a": am-ar, mail-ar, traveled-ar, caz-ar, soñ-ar, vol-ar, pens-ar, acab-ar, apag-ar, erase, deliver, annoy-ar, organize-ar, pay-ar, buy-ar, rent-ar, admire-ar, touch-ar, health-ar, miss-ar, avoid, interest-ar, study-ar, draw- ar, breakfast-ar, lunch-ar, mir-ar, etc.
• Second conjugation: all verbs ending in "-er" form part of the second conjugation; or what is the same, all the verbs that have "e" as the thematic vowel: beb-er, have-er, sab-er, know-er, eat-er, suppose-er, establish-er, deb-er, see, learn, run. understand, sew, hide, depend-er, believe, have-er, sell-er, read, weave, etc.
• Third conjugation: in the third and last conjugation we find the verbs that end in "-ir" and, therefore, their thematic vowel is "i": viv-ir, sal-ir, exist-ir, survive-ir, mor -to go, luc-go, suffer-go, coincide-go, part-go, reluc-go, demand-go, compete-go, receive-go, her-go, fund-go, produce-go, predict-go, bless go, clap-go, fun-go, conclude-go, prefer-go, combat-go, etc.

Therefore, knowing how to distinguish and identify which is the thematic vowel is essential when it comes to knowing which conjugation each corresponds to. verb, thus, to be able to conjugate it correctly and not make mistakes with the irregularities and variations of the different vowels thematic.

Thus, we can summarize by stating that, as there are three conjugations in Spanish, there are also three thematic vowels, since each of them identifies a different conjugation: First conjugation (thematic vowel "a", cant-ar), second conjugation (thematic vowel "e", perd-er) and, finally, the third conjugation (thematic vowel "i", choose).

We hope we have helped you to finally know what thematic vowels are in Spanish and what their main function is, which is to indicate whether a verb It belongs to the first, the second or the third conjugation, which directly helps us to know how we have to conjugate it correctly.