A Cognitive Construction Grammar approach to the pluralization of presentational haber in Puerto Rican Spanish

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Claes
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Conditioning Factors ◽  
Typical Action ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Verb Tense

AbstractIn this paper, I present an analysis of the pluralization of haber ‘there is/are’ in Puerto Rican Spanish (e.g., habían fiestas ‘there were parties’) as an ongoing language change from below in which the impersonal argument-structure construction (<AdvPhaberObj>) is being replaced by a personal variant (<AdvPhaberSubj>). Speakers pluralize presentational haber in about 41% of the cases, and linguistic conditioning factors are ‘typical action chain-position of the noun's referent,’ polarity of the clause, verb tense, comprehension-to-production priming, and production-to-production priming. I argue that the effect of these independent variables can be traced back to three cognitive factors: the preference for unmarked coding, statistical preemption, and structural priming. Social distributions can also be modeled in constructionist frameworks, with results for social class, formality, and gender advocating in favor of considering this variation as an ongoing change from below, which allows speakers to position themselves in terms of gender and social class.

Sociolingüística comparada y gramática de construcciones

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 338-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Claes
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Santo Domingo ◽  
Typical Action ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Verb Tense

In this article, we investigate the pluralization of presentational haber (e.g., Habían fiestas. ‘There were parties.’) in the Spanish of Havana, Santo Domingo, and San Juan. Drawing on Goldberg’s (1995) Cognitive Construction Grammar, we claim that the phenomenon consists in a language change from below: the pluralized variant of the presentational haber construction (<AdvP haber Subject>) is replacing the impersonal variant (<AdvP haber Object>). Using a mixed-effects regression analysis, we show that speakers of the Caribbean dialects pluralize the verb in 41–46% of the cases. The linguistic factors that were investigated in this study (typical action-chain position of the noun’s referent, clause polarity, verb tense, comprehension-to-production priming and production-to-production priming) argue in favor of considering the variation an argument-structure alternation. The comparative sociolinguistic analyses reveal that these factors have the same effects and relative strengths in the three communities. For the three communities, the results for gender and social class support that the phenomenon constitutes an advanced language change from below.

scholarly journals Competing constructions: The pluralization of presentational haber in Dominican Spanish

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Claes
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Conditional Inference ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Cognitive Constraints ◽  
Conditional Inference Tree ◽  
Dominican Spanish ◽  
The Individual

AbstractDrawing on Cognitive Construction Grammar (CCxG), I present an analysis of the pluralization of haber in Dominican Spanish (e.g. Habían fiestas ‘There were parties’) as an ongoing language change from below during which the singular argument-structure construction (<AdvPhaberObj>) is being replaced by a pluralized schema (<AdvPhaberSubj>). Using a mixed-effects regression analysis, in which the individual speakers and the NPs' head nouns were included as random intercepts, I show that speakers pluralize presentational haber in 47% of the cases and that the variation is conditioned by three general cognitive constraints (markedness of coding, structural priming, and statistical pre-emption). Using a conditional inference tree, I show that the former two cognitive constraints work in tandem to promote the pluralized construction for the encoding of conceptualizations that statistical preemption tends to reserve to the singular construction. The results also unveil that the variation is associated with social class membership. These data confirm the main hypothesis, while at the same time corroborating and strengthening the conclusions of an earlier investigation of haber pluralization in Puerto Rican Spanish.

scholarly journals Social class and gender impacting change in bilingual settings: Spanish subject pronoun use in New York

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Lapidus Shin ◽  
Ricardo Otheguy
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
The Us ◽  
Pronoun Use ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
And Gender

AbstractThis study examines the role of social class and gender in an ongoing change in Spanish spoken in New York City (NYC). The change, which has to do with increasing use of Spanish subject pronouns, is correlated with increased exposure to life in NYC and to English. Our investigation of six different national-origin groups shows a connection between affluence and change: the most affluent Latino groups undergo the most increase in pronoun use, while the least affluent undergo no change. This pattern is explained as further indication that resistance to linguistic change is more pronounced in poorer communities as a result of denser social networks. In addition we find a women effect: immigrant women lead men in the increasing use of pronouns. We argue that the women effect in bilingual settings warrants a reevaluation of existing explanations of women as leaders of linguistic change. (Language change, social class, gender, bilingualism, Spanish in the US, pronouns)*

A community-based test of a linguistic hypothesis

1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
San Juan ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Functional Compensation ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Stratified Sample ◽  
Compensation Hypothesis

ABSTRACTThe Functional Compensation Hypothesis (Hochberg 1986a, b) interprets frequent expression of pronominal subjects as compensation for frequent deletion of agreement marking on finite verbs in Puerto Rican Spanish (PRS). Specifically, this applies to 2sg.túwhere variably deleted word-final -smarks agreement. If the hypothesis is correct, finite verbs with agreement deleted in speech should co-occur more frequently with pronominal subjects than finite verbs with agreement intact. Likewise, social dialects which frequently delete agreement should show higher rates of pronominal expression than social dialects which less frequently delete agreement. These auxiliary hypotheses are tested across a socially stratified sample of 62 speakers from San Juan. Functional compensation does show stylistic and social patterning in the category of Specifictú, not in that of Non-specifictú. However, Non-specifictúis the key to frequency differences between -s-deleting PRS and -s-conserving Madrid; hence the Functional Compensation Hypothesis should be discarded. (Functionalism, compensation, null subject, analogy, Spanish, Puerto Rico)

Two Types of Constructionalization Processes in Spanish and Portuguese Clefted wh-interrogatives

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-160
Author(s):  
Malte Rosemeyer
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
Discourse Functions ◽  
Madrid Spanish ◽  
Spanish Dialects

Abstract The present paper analyzes and compares the use of clefted wh-interrogatives in spoken Madrid Spanish, Puerto Rican Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. In a first step, a typology of the discourse functions of clefted wh-interrogatives is established. This typology is partially governed by the strength of the presupposition of the proposition of the wh-interrogative. The results suggest the existence of two distinct constructionalization processes 1 March 2021. First, in the Spanish dialects, clefted wh-interrogatives with copula deletion are specialized in the expression of interactional challenges. Second, both Puerto Rican Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese evidence a change in the use of information-seeking clefted wh-interrogatives towards contexts in which the proposition of the interrogative is not activated. Consequently, in these dialects clefted wh-interrogatives can be used to establish questions not related to the current Question Under Discussion. However, this semantic change can be characterized as a constructionalization process only in Brazilian Portuguese.

Blackface Minstrelsy and the Reception of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-320
Author(s):  
Julia J. Chybowski
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Black Swan ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Blackface Minstrelsy ◽  
And Gender

AbstractThis article explores blackface minstrelsy in the context of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield's singing career of the 1850s–1870s. Although Greenfield performed a version of African American musicality that was distinct from minstrel caricatures, minstrelsy nonetheless impacted her reception. The ubiquity of minstrel tropes greatly influenced audience perceptions of Greenfield's creative and powerful transgressions of expected race and gender roles, as well as the alignment of race with mid-nineteenth-century notions of social class. Minstrel caricatures and stereotypes appeared in both praise and ridicule of Greenfield's performances from her debut onward, and after successful US and transatlantic tours established her notoriety, minstrel companies actually began staging parody versions of Greenfield, using her sobriquet, “Black Swan.” These “Black Swan” acts are evidence that Greenfield's achievements were perceived as threats to established social hierarchies.

Preference as Performance: Doing Social Class and Gender in Three School Libraries

1997 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Dressman
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
School Libraries ◽  
Third Grade ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Reader Preference

This study examines the construct of reader preference along the lines of gender and social class. Data were collected through focused interviews and participant observation from one third-grade class in each of three elementary school libraries that served children from a range of ethnic and social class backgrounds. The study argues that children's expressions of preference are often enactments of what they believe it means to be categorically male or female, whereas their ways of relating to different genres of text, as well as how they choose to read, often enact the “habitus,” or material logic, of their social class. This analysis is complicated by three events in which the doing of gender or class by students is interrupted by stronger desires. The article concludes with a reconsideration of preference as a construct, and questions why educators might want to know what children like to read in the first place.

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