Spanish in Context - Volume 8, Issue 1, 2011

In Spanish, standard sentences such as Pienso que no vendrá ‘I think s/he will not come’ and No se acordó de que tenía que ir ‘S/he forgot s/he had to go’ can alternate respectively with non-standard sentences as Pienso de que no vendrá (dequeísmo) and No se acordó ø que tenía que ir (queísmo). In order to explain both syntactic processes scholars have proposed different hypotheses: psycholinguistic, functional, social and psychosocial. The aim of this research is to analyse the validity of the functional hypothesis (this is, the possibility that the de/ø alternation conveys a semantic and/or pragmatic meaning) on a corpus recorded in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands). With the purpose of verifying such hypothesis, four variables have been analysed: the verb person of the main clause, the verb tense of the main clause, the source, direction and distance of the information (evidence), and the syntactic structure.

We conduct a quantitative analysis of conversational speech from native speakers of Puerto Rican Spanish to test whether optional non-inversion of subjects in wh-questions (¿qué tú piensas?) is indicative of a movement in Spanish from flexible to rigid word order (Morales 1989; Toribio 2000). We find high rates of subject expression (51%) and a strong preference for SV word order (47%) over VS (4%) in all sentence types, in line with assertions of fixed SVO word order. The usage-based examination of 882 wh-questions shows non-inversion occurs in 14% of the cases (25% of wh-questions containing an overt subject). Variable rule analysis reveals subject, verb and question type significantly constrain interrogative word order, but we find no evidence that word order is predicted by perseveration. SV word order is highest in rhetorical and quotative questions, revealing a pathway of change through which word order is becoming fixed in this variety.

En español, la futuridad se puede expresar mediante cuatro paradigmas verbales: el futuro morfológico, el futuro perifrástico, el presente de indicativo y el presente continuo. La investigación realizada sobre el fenómeno (Iuliano y De Stefano 1979; Van Naerssen 1983; Sedano 1994; Hernández 1999; Becerra 2005; Orozco 2005; Orozco 2007; Méndez-Vallejo 2008) postula que la variación no es libre y que las variantes presentan una distribución diferente debido a su semantismo propio y a factores extralingüísticos. En este trabajo, investigamos, mediante una muestra de 29 entrevistas de PRESEEA de Puerto Rico, si las variantes están condicionadas por factores pragmáticos y sociales. Los factores pragmáticos que ponemos a prueba son la persona gramatical, la distancia temporal y la certidumbre. Concretamente, examinamos cómo las Máximas de Grice (1975) condicionan la aparición de las variantes. Las variables extralingüísticas bajo estudio son el sexo y la edad. El análisis probabilístico de este estudio comprueba que: (i) las variables pragmáticas condicionan la variación, (ii) las personas gramaticales dan cuenta de grados de certidumbre y (iii) el rasgo determinante de las variantes es [± distancia temporal], (iv) los factores sociales condicionan la variación, (v) las mujeres se inclinan por la variante analítica, (vi) los hombres favorecen las otras variantes y (vii) mientras más joven es el hablante más apoya el presente de indicativo.

This investigation extends the research on the use of Spanish copulas ser and estar in Venezuela to all [copula + adjective] contexts (see De Jonge 1993; Malaver 2000 for work on expressions of age). Findings reveal that resultant state, adjective class, predicate type, experience with the referent, susceptibility to change, socioeconomic level, age and frame of reference are included in the statistical model as strong predictors of estar. The analysis of the social factors shows that copula choice in Venezuelan Spanish does not show the typical S-curve pattern to strongly support an analysis of change in progress. The history of copula choice in the language suggests a development with long periods of stability and the strong conditioning of linguistic factors. Copula choice in Venezuelan Spanish shows signs that it is slowly advancing and that younger and older speakers are at different stages in this grammatical change.

La presente investigación busca contribuir al conocimiento del pretérito perfecto compuesto (PPC) he cantado en el español de Lima. Este trabajo da cuenta de funciones innovadoras del PPC en dicha variedad, que prueban su avance en el proceso de gramaticalización iniciado en el latín vulgar, y discute además la superposición de estas funciones con las del pretérito perfecto simple canté (PPS). La primera parte del artículo ofrece un breve recuento diacrónico de los cambios de esta estructura; la segunda introduce la discusión sobre conceptos relativos al análisis (e.g. evidencialidad, relevancia actual); la tercera proporciona información sobre los participantes y el corpus; la cuarta analiza las funciones discursivas del PPC en el español hablado de Lima; la quinta discute estas funciones a la luz de los conceptos introducidos en el marco teórico; finalmente, la última parte presenta las conclusiones de este análisis. Éstas confirman la existencia de diversas instancias en las que el PPC desempeña funciones epistémicas y a la vez asume roles usualmente desempeñados por el PPS. Dichas funciones son las de irrumpir en la narración, ya sea para citar en el discurso reportado, introducir información nueva, formular comentarios, o resumir y evaluar eventos pasados.

Previous research on language mixing has revealed similarities in written and oral production with respect to syntactic and pragmatic patterns (e.g. Callahan 2004). In this study we find, however, that the two modes of expression diverge in loanword gender assignment. English-origin NPs inserted into written Spanish discourse (e.g. un baggie) were analyzed and compared to English-origin NPs in oral Spanish discourse. Results showed that loanwords are assigned feminine gender at significantly higher rates in written than in oral data. Also, our study shows that the reasons for assigning feminine gender are different for written and oral production. Phonological factors appeared to be influential in the oral, but not written, data. The ‘analogical criterion’, according to which the gender of the Spanish translation equivalent determines the gender assigned to the loanword, e.g. una letter (una carta), was a strong predictor of feminine gender in the written data, but had a weaker effect in the oral data.

This paper examines perspectives on language diversity that surfaced prior to, during, and immediately following the implementation of a two-way immersion program in a public school district in Iowa. Using a social constructionist paradigm, combined with Habermas’ understanding of the public sphere, the paper explores local and regional media coverage of the two-way immersion program alongside coverage of emerging language legislation on Official English in Iowa, spanning the last years of the 20th century into the beginning of the 21st. The analysis reveals a variety of postures within the public discourse related to the presence and use of languages other than English in this Midwestern context. The paper argues that it is precisely this interface of varying perspectives that will potentially facilitate a more lasting receptive social environment towards language diversity in the state.