Variation in third-person object pronouns in zamoraprovince spanish, according to ALPI data

Unstressed third-person object personal pronouns vary greatly throughout the Hispanic world. Four main systems are found: an etymological system (where the use of the pronouns follows case/gender distinctions) and three referential systems (where the case/gender distinctions are not maintained). The case-gender distinctions not maintained consist of: 1) the use of le for lo or la, termed leísmo; 2) la for le, or laísmo; and 3) lo for le, known as loísmo. This paper determines which of these four systems were used in Zamora province — said to have three dialectal zones — in the 1930s by means of an analysis of the unstressed third-person object personal pronouns used in 24 ALPI Cuaderno I sentences. A detailed examination of apparently divergent uses permits us to show that the use of the etymological system is almost categorical for the whole province and that dialectal morphosyntactic
unity can exist alongside dialectal phonetic variability.