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.

Ambiguous agreement, functional compensation, and nonspecific tú in the Spanish of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Madrid, Spain

1993 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
San Juan ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Functional Compensation ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Constant Rate ◽  
Madrid Spanish

ABSTRACTRichness of subject-verb agreement is implicit in the functional compensation interpretation of variable second person /-s/ in Puerto Rican Spanish (PRS). Because /-s/ is not variable in Madrid Spanish (MS), richer agreement is assumed, and a lower rate of pronominal expression is expected. Central to this interpretation are effects associated with ambiguous marking of person on finite singular verbs. Although an increase of pronominal expression correlates to ambiguous marking for PRS speakers, a similar result has not been reported for MS speakers. Nonetheless, a varbrul analysis yields similar weights for this constraint in both dialects. Moreover, ambiguity effects are best understood as constraints on null subject variation that interact with switch reference. Identity of varbrul weights for constraints on pronominal and null subject variation in PRS and MS also supports the Constant Rate Hypothesis. However, the two dialects do show a diametrically opposed effect associated with nonspecific tú.

The pragmatics of Spanish postposed wh-interrogatives

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malte Rosemeyer
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
Discourse Functions

Abstract This study analyzes the pragmatics of in-situ wh- and complex bare wh-interrogatives such as ¿de qué? ‘of what?’ in spoken Spanish, developing a typology of their discourse functions. The interpretation of such postposed wh-interrogatives depends on inference processes by the hearer that take as cues both the degree to which the interrogative proposition and the referent of the interrogative pronoun/adverb are cognitively accessible. This relationship follows from the fact that on the basis of the combination of the information states of the interlocutors (i.e. the degree of accessibility of the proposition and the referent of wh) with the information structure of this type of wh-interrogatives, the utterer of the wh-interrogative can predict the pragmatic effect of a given postposed wh-interrogative token in the hearer. I establish a hierarchy of the different discourse functions on the basis of their potential to change the current ‘Question under Discussion’ (QuD). In particular, the analysis demonstrates that postposed wh-interrogatives that realize or imply a challenge to a previous utterance by the addressee of the interrogative have weaker pragmatic conditions than other uses. Consequently, I theorize that these uses are crucial for our understanding of the expansion of the use of in-situ wh-interrogatives in languages such as French and Brazilian Portuguese.

Phrase-level parallelism effect on noun phrase number agreement

2001 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Marta Pereira Scherre
Keyword(s):  
Parallel Processing ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Universal Principle ◽  
Vast Number ◽  
Number Agreement ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Level Parallelism

Linguistic parallelism (i.e., the tendency of similar forms to occur together within a stretch of discourse) has been shown to be very strong in many linguistic phenomena and in a vast number of languages. Examining the role of phrase-level parallelism on noun phrase number agreement, this article demonstrates that Puerto Rican Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese exhibit more similarities than differences with regard to this constraint. A detailed analysis of Brazilian Portuguese data is presented, and the results are compared with those found by Poplack (1980a) for Puerto Rican Spanish. Guy's (1981a) and Labov's (1994) hypothesis about missing zeroes in Brazilian Portuguese is also discussed. In conclusion, it is claimed that the phrase-level parallelism effect on noun phrase number agreement is embedded in a universal principle of linguistic use: parallel processing.

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)

Deconstructing Cognitive Heterogeneity in Puerto Rican Spanish-Speaking Children With ADHD

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (7) ◽  
pp. 714-724 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia Nuñez ◽  
Liza San Miguel ◽  
Jennifer Keene ◽  
Bradley Donohue ◽  
Daniel N. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Cognitive Deficits ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster ◽  
Primary Diagnosis ◽  
Cluster Solution ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Children With Adhd ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Cluster Profiles

AbstractObjective:There is limited understanding of the cognitive profiles of Spanish-speaking children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The current study investigated the cognitive cluster profiles of Puerto Rican Spanish-speaking children with ADHD using the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children-Fourth Edition Spanish (WISC-IV Spanish) Index scores and examined the association between cognitive cluster profiles with other potentially relevant factors.Method:Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to identify WISC-IV clusters in a sample of 165 Puerto Rican children who had a primary diagnosis of ADHD. To examine the validity of the ADHD clusters, analysis of variances and chi-square analyses were conducted to compare the clusters across sociodemographics (e.g., age and education), type of ADHD diagnosis (ADHD subtype, Learning Disorder comorbidity), and academic achievement.Results:Clusters were differentiated by level and pattern of performance. A five-cluster solution was identified as optimal that included (C1) multiple cognitive deficits, (C2) processing speed deficits, (C3) generally average performance, (C4) perceptual reasoning strengths, and (C5) working memory deficits. Among the five clusters, the profile with multiple cognitive deficits was characterized by poorer performance on the four WISC-IV Spanish Indexes and was associated with adverse sociodemographic characteristics.Conclusions:Results illustrate that there is substantial heterogeneity in cognitive abilities of Puerto Rican Spanish-speaking children with ADHD, and this heterogeneity is associated with a number of relevant outcomes.

Explicit and Implicit Methods in Quantitative Analyses of Sociophonetic Variation

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Mack
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Implicit Measures ◽  
Implicit Methods ◽  
Phonetic Variation ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Sociophonetic Variation ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Explicit Measures

AbstractThis viewpoint paper provides an overview of explicit and implicit methods in sociophonetic perception studies, illustrates how they can be used to measure the relationship between social factors and phonetic variation, and demonstrates how they can prove useful complements to more traditional sociolinguistic methods. The first section addresses explicit measures and gives an example of an explicit measures task exploring the relationships between phonetic variation and perceptions of speaker sexual orientation, height, age, and social class in Puerto Rican Spanish. Results show that an explicit measures task can provide a window into fine-grained phonetic variation associated with social factors that is not available through traditional impressionistic methods. The second part of the paper provides an overview of implicit measures, including an example of the use of implicit measures in a response time task that quantitatively assesses the relationship between /s/ variation and perceptions of sexual orientation in Puerto Rican Spanish. The paper concludes with a summary of how the results gathered from these types of experiments can further our understanding of theoretical issues in Hispanic Linguistics.

Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), Can threatened languages be saved? Reversing language shift, revisited: A 21st century perspective. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2001. Pp. xvi, 503. Pb $24.95.

2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora C. England
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
New York ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Quebec French ◽  
Original Case

This volume revisits, as its title states, the theory and practice of reversing language shift (RLS) first proposed by Fishman in 1991. A dozen of the original case studies are reanalyzed and several more are added, producing a rich source of detail on some of the specific situations of language shift and efforts to reverse it. Fishman contributes introductory and concluding chapters as well as one of the case studies (Yiddish); other authors cover Navajo, New York Puerto Rican Spanish, Québec French, Otomí, Quechua, Irish, Frisian, Basque, Catalán, Oko, Andamanese, Ainu, Hebrew, immigrant languages in Australia, indigenous languages in Australia, and Maori. The resulting book provides a wealth of information about language shift and public policy directed toward RLS, but its aims are broader than that.

Dame un hamburger plain con ketchup y papitas

English Today ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ileana Cortés ◽  
Jesús Ramírez ◽  
María Rivera ◽  
Marta Viada ◽  
Joan Fayer
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Fast Food ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Lexical Borrowing ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Fast Food Restaurants ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Impact

English/Spanish contact in Puerto Rico.ONE OUTCOME of language contact is lexical borrowing. Borrowing in Puerto Rico (for political, economic, and social reasons) is evident in the influence English has had on Spanish, especially in lexical terms. This paper explores the impact of American English on the lexicon of Puerto Rican Spanish, specifically on vocabulary relating to food. Data were collected through participant observation in selected fast food restaurants from different regions in P.R. An analysis of the corpus provides the basis for five categories useful in understanding the influence of English on Spanish in this domain. The study indicates that English borrowings have had a tremendous influence on the Puerto Rican lexicon, and predicts that, even though Spanish will continue to be the dominant Puerto Rican language, it will continue to change under the influence of English.

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