From A YouTube Video

From A YouTube Video
 

On a YouTube channel called “Explorando,” the narrator, upon request, tours and makes videos of pueblos/aldeas in Galicia for the descendants of families who had emigrated to Latin America many years ago.

In this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0GWazTaK-U
between 11:10 – 11:33, he says:

Aquí creo que si hay vacas. Aquí en este establo que se ve por aquí, gris. Aquí creo que sí hay vacas, así que seguramente abonen con el estierco de esas vacas. Estos prados, ¿Veis? Aquí está el estiercol, el estiercol de las vacas. Por aquí abonan estas fincas, por eso salen esas calabazas enormísimas. Madre mía, son muy muy grandes.

Why was abonar conjugated in the subjunctive. After así que seguramente, I was expecting to hear abonan. I’m pretty sure I heard it correctly and the closed-captions also heard it as abonen.

Any grammer input and/or clarifications are appreciated.

The narrator is using the subjunctive mood the first time because there is a high possibility that he won't find evidence to support what he's saying. 'Surely' is not a proper translation of «seguramente» in this case; it should be translated as 'probably'. Then, when he turns and sees evidence, he switches to the indicative mood.

Speaking of the captions, they are laced with horrific punctuation (you fixed one of the problems while posting). They also contain misspelled words: the affirmation «sí» is written incorrectly twice (but you corrected the second occurrence while writing your post). Did you notice that he says 'muy, muy, muy grandes' at the end of segment? He said it just prior to the segment, as well. In both cases, the captions indicate that the adverb was said twice, and written without proper punctuation. The captions have failed you.

There are no grammar issues there but cultural ones.

I've heard lots of familiar uses in that video, first because of the strong Galician immigration in Argentina (in 1960, Buenos Aires was said to be the most populated city in Galicia -and the second most populated city of Israel, after New York), and second, because many tens on thousands of those immigrants got rich and went back, becoming "los americanos" who brought back mate and new turns of speech.

You should take into account that most Galicians are at best bilinguals, if not having Spanish as a second language. There are many peculiar verbal uses in the Spanish of Galicia, Asturias and Leon. One that was fought against is the use of imperfect subjunctive as indicative. It happens that sucediera in Galician means sucedió in Spanish.

I miss my best friend who was born in Galicia and died from COVID in 2020. I could have asked him, or his mother, who passed around 2010 and talked to me in Galician (she would said "¿marchas ya?" meaning "¿ya te vas?"), but sadly I can't.

Finally, Galician males, and other Spaniards in some degree, feel they have to show themselves reassured of what they talk and never hesitate. The Dunning-Krugger effect was patented in Galicia. "Seguramente abonen" falls in that cultural frame.

With Galicians, you never know. When they are educated and cultured, they are the salt of the Earth, pero cuando son brutos, ¡a brutos no les gana nadie!

Thank you, Rusty. Yes, I was thinking seguramente meant surely; hence, the confusion.

I agree. The closed-captions on YouTube are machine-generated, and they are usually quite bad. They only give you a hint as to what is being said, and the punctuation is usually totally absent.

Thanks for the added input, aleCcowaN.

Thank you for the link. It was very emotive to me. The kind of things I was told year after year suddenly came alive. In the final moments, the presenter said "una pena no poder ver, porque el campo está allí ... una carballera ... una carballera grande". A Spanish speaker wouldn't normally understand, but I did, "un gran robledal", a large oak grove blocking the view of those acres.

With víctims of COVID there were no wake nor funeral. I never realized how much that affected me ... Godspeed, Paco, my brother from other parents!

Moving may be a better choice than emotive in this case. Also, no wakes nor funerals