Download or read book A Diachronic Variationist Approach to the Study of Subject Pronoun Expression in Spanish written by Miguel Ramos Riquelme and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present dissertation examines first-person singular (1sg) subject pronoun expressionthe alternation between yo I and the unexpressed variant based on data (N=6,450) drawn from 13th- 20th century Spanish literary texts. Our results reveal no increase in expression rates over time and that, in general, the linguistic conditioning of variable 1sg subject expression has largely remained constant over time.First, effects of subject continuity are found, with pronominal expression disfavored in contexts of continuity (more accessible referents) and favored in discontinuous contexts (less accessible referents). Three measures of subject continuityswitch reference, human switch reference, and distanceare shown to be applicable. However, subtle signs of change arise by comparing their applicability over time. In particular, the measure of distance from the previous mention of the same referent in the preceding discourse shows a graded effect: as distance increases, assessed in the number of intervening clauses, so progressively does use of pronoun yo. Interestingly, evidence suggests that the graded effect of distance may be developing over time into a more local effect of switch reference with respect to the immediately preceding clause, with pronominal expression especially favored when the subject of the intervening clause has a specific, human referent. Further, the results of this study support the view that an approach merely focused on verb form ambiguity does not provide conclusive answers regarding tense effects on subject expression. Although I found a general favoring effect of morphologically ambiguous verb tenses (with syncretism between first and third person), this is only marginal in contexts of subject continuity. Thus, a synergetic dynamic operates between ambiguity in verb morphology and switch reference: ambiguous verb forms significantly increase subject expression with discontinuous referents. In addition, a mechanical priming effect is shown to be present in all the periods. Thus, the presence of a 1sg pronominal subject enhances the likelihood that the subsequent 1sg coreferential subject is also pronominal. Conversely, when the previous coreferential subject is unexpressed, the likelihood of subject expression diminishes, favoring a subsequent unexpressed 1sg subject.Finally, the widely reported effect of cognition verbs, strongly favoring 1sg subject expression in present day varieties, is absent in these data. A usage-based construction grammar approach allows analysis that considers particular lexical items and forms, which reveals the role of prefabs in explaining idiosyncratic usage patterns of yo with specific verb forms and their impact on broad categories (semantic classes). This analysis provides evidence that the cognition verb forms creo and s have undergone changes that can explain present-day usage patterns. The use of yo I with creo think, originally believe, has increased steadily across time as its meaning has bleached. In parallel, increasing grammaticalization of s I know with a complement clause is observed. The diachronic patterns suggest that the [yo + cognition verb] construction emerged gradually and was consolidated fairly recently. In sum, where change is observed is in particular expressions, while general discourse-cognitive effects on subject expression have been operative since very early in the history of our language.

Download or read book Subject Pronoun Expression in Spanish written by Ana M. Carvalho and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-26 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much recent scholarship has sought to identify the linguistic and social factors that favor the expression or omission of subject pronouns in Spanish. This volume brings together leading experts on the topic of language variation in Spanish to provide a panoramic view of research trends, develop probabilistic models of grammar, and investigate the impact of language contact on pronoun expression. The book consists of three sections. The first studies the distributional patterns and conditioning forces on subject pronoun expression in four monolingual varieties—Dominican, Colombian, Mexican, and Peninsular—and makes cross-dialectal comparisons. In the second section, experts explore Spanish in contact with English, Maya, Catalan, and Portuguese to determine the extent to which each language influences this syntactic variable. The final section examines the acquisition of variable subject pronoun expression among monolingual and bilingual children as well as adult second language learners.

Download or read book Pronominal and Null Subject Variation in Spanish written by Richard Riley Cameron and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Subject Pronoun Expression in Spanish written by Ana M. Carvalho and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much recent scholarship has sought to identify the linguistic and social factors that favor the expression or omission of subject pronouns in Spanish. This volume brings together leading experts on the topic of language variation in Spanish to provide a panoramic view of research trends, develop probabilistic models of grammar, and investigate the impact of language contact on pronoun expression. The book consists of three sections. The first studies the distributional patterns and conditioning forces on subject pronoun expression in four monolingual varieties—Dominican, Colombian, Mexican, and Peninsular—and makes cross-dialectal comparisons. In the second section, experts explore Spanish in contact with English, Maya, Catalan, and Portuguese to determine the extent to which each language influences this syntactic variable. The final section examines the acquisition of variable subject pronoun expression among monolingual and bilingual children as well as adult second language learners.

Download or read book The Acquisition of Subject Pronouns in Second Language Spanish written by Bret Gene Linford and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Linguists have proposed that language learner behavior does not reflect a single system, but is a complex of quite different [linguistic modules] each obeying different principles (Sharwood Smith 1994). When different linguistic modules interact in language, there is an interface. Second language acquisition (SLA) researchers have proposed the Interface Hypothesis, which states that second language (L2) learners are able to acquire narrow syntax, but may experience delay with the interface of syntax and other modules (Sorace & Filiaci 2006). Additional research has proposed that syntaxsemantic features are acquired sooner than syntax-discourse features in SLA (Tsimpli & Sorace 2006). One way researchers have tested this hypothesis is by studying L2 learners of pro-drop languages like Spanish. Pro-drop languages allow subject pronouns to be expressed overtly, as in the Spanish phrase Yo veo (I see), or null, as in Veo. Studies show that native speaker distribution of subject pronouns deals with the interface of narrow syntax and features of discourse, semantics, etc. Although subject pronouns in Spanish are grammatically variable (i.e. either a null or overt subject pronoun is grammatically acceptable in many contexts), the actual distribution of null and overt subject pronouns in Spanish is predicted by variables such as the person and number of the subject, continuity of reference (i.e. whether the verb retains the same subject as the previous verb or not), clause type, and so on. Previous studies have found that L2 learners of null subject languages learn the narrow syntax of subject pronouns early (Rothman 2008), but their distribution of subject pronouns does not become more native-like until a late stage in their development. The current study analyzes 17 interviews in Spanish with English-speaking L2 learners of Spanish who have obtained varying degrees of proficiency: beginner, intermediate, advanced. The results support the Interface Hypothesis given that all interviewees produced null and overt subject pronouns, but the L2 learners differed greatly from native speakers with respect to sensitivity to interface features. The results do not confirm that syntax-semantic features are acquired before syntax-discourse features but do suggest that syntax-morphology features are acquired before other interface features.

Download or read book Variation and Change in Spanish written by Ralph Penny and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-05-20 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book applies recent theoretical insights to trace the development of Castilian and Latin American Spanish from the Middle Ages onwards, through processes of repeated dialect mixing both within the Iberian Peninsula and in the New World. The author contends that it was this frequent mixing which caused Castilian to evolve more rapidly than other varieties of Hispano-Romance, and which rendered Spanish particularly subject to levelling of its linguistic irregularities and to simplification of its structures. These two processes continued as the language extended into and across the Americas. These processes are viewed in the context of the Hispano-Romance dialect continuum, which includes Galician, Portuguese and Catalan, as well as New World varieties. The book emphasises the subtlety and seamlessness of language variation, both geographical and social, and the impossibility of defining strict boundaries between varieties. Its conclusions will be relevant both to Hispanists and to historical sociolinguists more generally.

Download or read book Address in Portuguese and Spanish written by Martin Hummel and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-07-20 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume provides the first systematic comparative approach to the history of forms of address in Portuguese and Spanish, in their European and American varieties. Both languages share a common history—e.g., the personal union of Philipp II of Spain and Philipp I of Portugal; the parallel colonization of the Americas by Portugal and Spain; the long-term transformation from a feudal to a democratic system—in which crucial moments in the diachrony of address took place. To give one example, empirical data show that the puzzling late spread of Sp. usted ‘you (formal, polite)’ and Pt. você ‘you’ across America can be explained for both languages by the role of the political and military colonial administration. To explore these new insights, the volume relies on an innovative methodology, as it links traditional downstream diachrony with upstream diachronic reconstruction based on synchronic variation. Including theoretical reflections as well as fine-grained empirical studies, it brings together the most relevant authors in the field.

Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Spanish Linguistics written by Kimberly L. Geeslin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 1098 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written for both researchers and advanced students, this Handbook provides a state-of-the-art survey of the field of Spanish linguistics. Balancing different theoretical perspectives among expert scholars, it provides an in-depth examination of all sub-fields of research in Hispanic linguistics, with a focus on recent advances.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Variationist Approaches to Spanish written by Manuel Díaz-Campos and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 631 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Variationist Approaches to Spanish provides an up-to-date overview of the latest research examining sociolinguistic approaches to analyzing variation in Spanish. Divided into three sections, the book includes the most current research conducted in Spanish variationist sociolinguistics. This comprehensive volume covers phonological, morphosyntactic, social, and lexical variation in Spanish. Each section is further divided into subsections focusing on specific areas of language variation, highlighting the most salient and current developments in each subfield of Hispanic sociolinguistics. As such, this Handbook delves further into the details of topics relating to variation and change in Spanish than previous publications, with a focus on the symbolic sociolinguistic value of specific phenomena in the field. Encouraging readers to think critically about language variation, this book will be of interest to advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as well as researchers seeking to explore lesser-known areas of Hispanic sociolinguistics. The Routledge Handbook of Variationist Approaches to Spanish will be a welcome addition to specialists and students in the fields of linguistics, Hispanic linguistics, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology.

Download or read book Referring to discourse participants in Ibero Romance languages written by Pekka Posio and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on 2023-09-29 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together contributions by researchers focusing on personal pronouns in Ibero-Romance languages, going beyond the well-established variable of expressed vs. non-expressed subjects. While factors such as agreement morphology, topic shift and contrast or emphasis have been argued to account for variable subject expression, several corpus studies on Ibero-Romance languages have shown that the expression of subject pronouns goes beyond these traditionally established factors and is also subject to considerable dialectal variation. One of the factors affecting choice and expression of personal pronouns or other referential devices is whether the construction is used personally or impersonally. The use and emergence of new impersonal constructions, eventually also new (im)personal pronouns, as well as the variation found in the expression of human impersonality in different Ibero-Romance language varieties is another interesting research area that has gained ground in the recent years. In addition to variable subject expression, similar methods and theoretical approaches have been applied to study the expression of objects. Finally, the reference to the addressee(s) using different address pronouns and other address forms is an important field of study that is closely connected to the variable expression of pronouns. The present book sheds light on all these aspects of reference to discourse participants. The volume contains contributions with a strong empirical background and various methods and both written and spoken corpus data from Ibero-Romance languages. The focus on discourse participants highlights the special properties of first and second person referents and the factors affecting them that are often different from the anaphoric third person. The chapters are organized into three thematic sections: (i) Variable expression of subjects and objects, (ii) Between personal and impersonal, and (iii) Reference to the addressee.

Download or read book The Role of Theory in Linguistic Analysis written by Erica C. Garcia and published by North-Holland. This book was released on 1975 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of English Historical Linguistics written by Merja Kytö and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 1092 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English historical linguistics is a subfield of linguistics which has developed theories and methods for exploring the history of the English language. This Handbook provides an account of state-of-the-art research on this history. It offers an in-depth survey of materials, methods, and language-theoretical models used to study the long diachrony of English. The frameworks covered include corpus linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, historical pragmatics and manuscript studies, among others. The chapters, by leading experts, examine the interplay of language theory and empirical data throughout, critically assessing the work in the field. Of particular importance are the diverse data sources which have become increasingly available in electronic form, allowing the discipline to develop in new directions. The Handbook offers access to the rich and many-faceted spectrum of work in English historical linguistics, past and present, and will be useful for researchers and students interested in hands-on research on the history of English.

Download or read book First and Second person Singular Subject Pronoun Expression in Dominican Spanish written by Christopher Champi and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present dissertation analyzes first- and second-person singular subject pronoun expression in Dominican Spanish in adult-to-adult, caregiver, and child speech. Overall, despite the high rates of subject pronoun expression seen in this variety, the conditioning factors that govern subject pronoun expression in all dialects are found to be operative in Dominican Spanish. In addition, children were found to have acquired several of the constraints that govern first- and second-person singular subject pronoun expression in adult-to-adult speech. However, caregivers pronoun expression was shown to not be constrained by certain factors while others showed different patterns in comparison to adult-to-adult speech.First, adult-to-adult Dominican Spanish displays many of the same constraints on subject pronoun expression found in other varieties. However, the well-known effect of verb class operates differently in this variety. Nevertheless, when analyzing the most frequent verbs found in each category, several verb-particular constructions showing distinct patterns are revealed. Additionally, turn position in first-person singular pronoun expression shows more broad effects than what has been found for other varieties such that it is operative with all verb classes. Moreover, certain factors found to condition first-person singular pronoun expression do not extend to second-person singular pronoun expression, which suggests that pronouns of different grammatical person/number pattern in distinct ways. Nevertheless, Dominican Spanish does show slight differences in how and in which contexts certain conditioning factors operate, which are thought to be more revealing in determining dialectal differences than overall rates.With respect to child speech, the children showed to have already acquired many of the adult-like factors that constrain pronoun use in adult-to-adult speech. However, the well-known switch referent constraint was found to be inoperative in first-person singular pronoun expression in child speech. Despite this, a second measure of switch reference, that of intervening human subjects, did contribute to childrens first-person singular pronoun expression. Thus, the data presented here suggest this well-known constraint is acquired on the basis of the presence or absence of intervening human subjects between coreferential mentions. Outside of the result for switch reference, children showed to closely follow the patterns seen in caregivers, showing they are sensitive to the frequency and distributional patterns found in their input. Similarly, children produced adult-like usage patterns with certain lexically-specific constructions found in their input, demonstrating that these community-based items are an important locus of childrens acquisition of the dialect to which they are exposed.Finally, caregivers showed some differences with respect to which constraints are operative in their use of first-person singular subject pronouns in comparison to adult-to-adult speech. In particular, the constraint of turn position, while operative in adult-to-adult speech, does not significantly constrain caregivers first-person singular subject pronoun expression. Further analysis revealed this is due to the nature of child-caregiver interaction such that caregivers frequently refer to their children in order to hand the floor over to them and develop subsequent discourse. In fact, caregivers use of second person singular forms in child-caregiver interaction greatly exceeded their use of the same forms in their adult-to-adult interactions. This, together with their infrequent use of first-person singular forms, impedes a turn-position effect from emerging. Caregivers also showed to favor second-person singular pronoun expression with Wh-questions in the speech to their children, which differs from the pattern found in adult-to-adult speech with these same elements. Overall, the results show that caregivers adjust certain aspects of their speech when interacting with their children while at the same time they provide adult-like usage patterns for certain community-based lexically-specific constructions.

Download or read book Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis written by Sandro Sessarego and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2016-05-25 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the current state of Spanish sociolinguistics and its contribution to theories of language variation and change, from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. It offers original analyses on a variety of topics across a wide spectrum of linguistic subfields from different formal, experimental, and corpus-based standpoints. The volume is organized around six thematic sections: (i) Cutting-edge Methodologies in Sociolinguistics; (ii) Bilingualism; (iii) Language Acquisition; (iv) Phonological Variation; (v) Morpho-Syntactic Variation; and (vi) Lexical Variation. As a whole, this collection reflects an array of approaches and analyses that show how in its variation across speakers, speech communities, linguistic contexts, communicative situations, dialects, and time, the Spanish language provides an immense wealth of data to challenge accepted linguistic views and shape new theoretical proposals in the field of language variation and change. Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis represents a significant contribution to the growing field of Spanish sociolinguistics.

Download or read book Subject Pronoun Expression in the Spoken Spanish of Four Spanish English Bilingual Children in a Los Angeles Community written by George Demuyakor and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Subject Pronominal Expression in Uwa Spanish written by Leonardo Moreno and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The issue of subject pronominal expression (SPE) in language contact situations, as illustrated in Nosotros somos muy buenos estudiantes ['We are very good students'] vs. Ø somos muy buenos estudiantes ['(we) are very good students'], has been the focus of decades of research in both variationist and generative studies (Bentivoglio, 1987; Cameron, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996; Chomsky, 1981, 1986; Huang, 1984; Orozco & Guy, 2008; Travis, 2005a, 2005b; Otheguy & Zentella, 2007, 2012; Rizzi, 1982; Morales, 1980; Silva-Corvalán, 1982, 1994, 1997; inter alios). While generative studies have shown that null subject languages (NSLs) can either be licensed by rich verbal paradigms or by discursive mechanisms, variationist studies have shown that there are predictors that condition SPE in NSLs. Furthermore, they have argued that the rates of SPE reflect uniformity across different varieties of Spanish (Orozco, 2015). In spite of this significant body of evidence in monolingual varieties of Spanish, studies involving bilingual groups and indigenous languages are relatively sparse, as most studies have studied Spanish in contact with other Indo-European languages. This dissertation investigates the SPE in the Spanish of a group of highly proficient bilingual speakers of Uwa and Spanish in a language contact situation. The research reported in this dissertation also studies the nature of cross-linguistic influence between the two languages of the bilinguals. Specifically, the idiosyncratic morphosyntactic traces in SPE resulting from the contact between Uwa and Spanish and whether those traces evidence patterns of variation, and, if so, how they can be accounted for. Spanish and Uwa are both NSLs and thus both allow for referential null subject pronouns (SPs). However, each language has specific syntactic and discursive predictors responsible for null subjects. For instance, Uwa relies heavily on discursive clues whereas Spanish is a sentence-oriented language. This means that while in Uwa the subject reference is understood from context and discursive clues governed by chains of topics, the rich verbal paradigm of Spanish is responsible for licensing null subjects. The fact that Spanish and Uwa are both NLs but still have dissimilar typological status provides a rich testing ground for the mechanisms involved in SPE as well as for investigating the effects of bilingualism. This dissertation aims at enhancing our linguistic knowledge in relation to the principles and mechanisms involved in SPE in bilingual communities and at providing a better understanding of the nature of cross-linguistic influence in highly proficient bilinguals.

Download or read book A Corpus based Sociolinguistic Study of Subject Pronoun Placement in Spanish in New York written by Rocio Rana Risso and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lastly, the study demonstrates that the linguistic variables constraining pronoun placement in the speech of newcomers begin to change in significance and hierarchy in the first generation with more exposure to the City, and become insignificant for the second generation of speakers.