I recently came across a book listing the imperative tú form of the verb valer as val. I also came across a website that agreed; however, when I checked on RAE.es, Wordreference.com, and Spanishdict.com, the conjugation was listed as vale. Is val a mistake or is it an archaic conjugation.
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1For DRAE "val" is a shortening of "valle". Could you link to the website were you saw "val" as imperative of "valer". If possible cite the book as well. That could help to validate those sources.– DiegoMar 26, 2018 at 2:33
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1Interesting. Val is the Asturian form although it's possible that in the past it was also shortened in Castilian, I know I've seen other -er verbs that were (even in the indicative) but I can't recall if valer was one of them– user0721090601Mar 26, 2018 at 2:51
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1 Answer
This is how the Nueva Gramática describes it:
El verbo valer poseía un imperativo monosilábico (val), usado generalmente en su variante pronominal. La forma antigua valte equivalía, pues, a la actual válete: Aprieta pues bien con ambos braços tu dicha; que es ella revaladiza como culebre: valte del polvo de tu ser para tenerla asida (Garau, Sabio)
So in effect, yes, the form val existed in the past, but it is no longer used. The RAE's conjugation engine sometimes doesn't include irregular forms even when they're correct (plugo shows up for placer, but not plegue), but they don't ever show archaic verb forms that are no longer considered standard.
I would not use it today. The only people who speak Spanish today that would ever say val are bilingual speakers who also speak Asturian or Catalonian because the verb in the indicative/imperative has that form (and really only when speaking those languages).
answered Mar 26, 2018 at 4:35
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2So, the old imperative val could also create a word like "sal·le"? Would "val·le" have any sense?– CharlieMar 26, 2018 at 5:52
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3@Charlie Sure. Consider the common expression and its millions of variations válgame Dios or válganme las orejas or similar. There's nothing to prevent you (person being commanded) from being the one that does the valiendo, and of course you can use le instead of me, hence: válgale Dios, válgale el Diablo, válgale quién pueda, a mí no me importa, joder, val-le tú Mar 26, 2018 at 6:11
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@Charlie Note: in Guifa's example, in written Catalan this orthographic ambiguity is avoided as post-enclitic pronouns are hyphenated when following a consonant e.g. val-li, val-lo, val-la, val-los, val-les etc– jacoboApr 11, 2018 at 20:28