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En español, cual de las dos siguiente es la forma correcta para hacer la pregunta:

¿A caso estuviste ahí?

o se debe de decir:

¿Acaso estuviste ahí?

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1 Answer

up vote 5 down vote accepted

The adverb expressing doubt should always be a single word: acaso. Here is the DRAE definition:

acaso.

(De caso).

  1. m. Casualidad, suceso imprevisto.

  2. adv. m. desus. Por casualidad, accidentalmente.

  3. adv. duda Quizá, tal vez.

  4. adv. neg. Ec. no (‖ indica la falta de lo significado por el verbo). Acaso he podido dormir.

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Are there any sentences where a caso would be correct? – jrdioko Jan 9 '12 at 3:23
1  
@jrdioko: no; the adverb expressing doubt always should be a single word (I've updated my answer to suppress any possible ambiguity). There's, however, an adverbial locution a caso hecho which means intencionadamente, but clearly this locution has a complete different meaning from the adverb acaso. – Gonzalo Medina Jan 9 '12 at 3:46
GonzaloMedina: I think this is what @jrdioko was asking. – hippietrail Jan 9 '12 at 8:49
There are very few cases where you will find "a caso", but it is perfectly possible, for example when talking about a "judicial case". You could say "ganamos nuestra buena reputación caso a caso / we won our good reputation case by case". Or you could say, "resulta que tenemos que trabajar a caso por persona / turns out we must work on a case per person". – user1025 Oct 3 '12 at 10:32
Por favor, quien haya votado negativamente mi respuesta, ¿podría indicar la razón que motivó el voto negativo? – Gonzalo Medina Dec 1 '12 at 23:33

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