A community-based test of a linguistic hypothesis

Abstract

The 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. tti where variably deleted word-final -s marks 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 Specific tii, not in that of Non-specific tii. However, Non-specific tii is the key to frequency differences between -s-deleting PRS and -s-conserving Madrid; hence the Functional Compensation Hypothesis should be discarded.

The limits of named language varieties and the role of social salience in dialectal contact: The case of Spanish in the United States

“…A less common but increasingly frequent method for describing /s/ variation relies on measurements of the acoustic properties of fricative moments, leaving aside the question of segmental categories (Minnick Fox 2006, Erker 2010, File-Muriel and Brown 2011. Despite this methodological variability in the description of /s/ weakening, the research literature converges in demonstrating that it is systematically constrained by a range of linguistic factors, 5 including preceding and following segments (Ma and Hirashimchuk 1975, Alba 2000, File Muriel 2007, Lynch 2009), word-position and speech rate (Hammond 1980), prosodic context (Poplack 1981, Alfaraz 2000, Brown and Cacoullos 2003, lexical frequency (Bybee et al 2016, Erker andOtheguy 2016), and morphemic status and other functional considerations (Terrell 1975a1979, Poplack 1980b, Uber 1981, 1989, Hochberg 1986, Hundley 1987, Ranson 1992, Cameron 1996.…”

Perseveration of subject expression across regional dialects of Spanish

“…With this working definition, we can show how Switch Reference statistically constrains pronominal expression in interview data from ten speakers from San Juan and ten from Madrid. See Cameron (1996) for details on speaker demographics. For our purposes, we focus only on singular subjects because in earlier work Cameron assumed that the perseverative effect would not occur in plural subjects given the relative infrequency of plural subject pronouns.…”

Uso impersonal de tú y uno en el habla de Caracas y otras ciudades

“…clac 47/2011, 3-27 (Barrenechea, 1977;Cifuentes, 1980;Enríquez, 1984;Ávila-Jiménez, 1995;Cameron, 1996) para obtener las frecuencias absolutas, puesto que, como pudo observarse en el cuadro 2, los investigadores utilizan para sus análisis las frecuencias relativas calculadas dentro del paradigma global de número y persona, es decir, reportan los porcentajes de empleo en relación con el universo de todos los usos pronominales de sujeto. Aunque Olza no da ejemplos claros de esta evolución, se puede interpretar el proce Por consiguiente, si el pronombre tú no forma parte de la norma cultural de tratam 6.…”

“…En el cuadro 2 se presentan los porcentajes de usos no específicos de los dialectos comparados por Cameron (1993), en el que se incluyen los datos de Cameron (1996) Hurtado (2001) Los porcentajes del cuadro 2 parecerían confirmar la hipótesis de Cameron (1993), ya que hay una diferencia en el empleo expreso de tú no específico entre las variedades no peninsulares y las peninsulares. Sin embargo, en cuanto a uno, los porcentajes confirman la oposición entre las variedades peninsulares vs. no peninsulares solo en el caso de la variedad madrileña (38%), ya que el sevillano registra el mayor empleo de uno indefinido (92%).…”