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Abstract: In this paper we offer a panoramic overview of the development of Andean Spanish and Andean Linguistics, from a theoretical point of view of language contact and universal grammar. We discuss how the notion of Andean Spanish came into existence, the issues under debate, and the consequences of different theoretical positions. We also introduce the contents of the papers included in this special issue, and highlight their key points, framing them in the context of the research on universal grammar. The following five areas are covered: (1) the convergence of Quechua and Aymara, (2) the impact of bilingualism on intonation, (3) the sharing of suffixes in contact situations, (4) the modification of the present perfect tense in Spanish in contact with Quechua, and (5) the properties of the Quechua case system from the point of view of contact varieties. Finally, we provide some remarks on bilingual education, and some suggestions for further directions for future research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, the long-standing assumption that (External or Internal) Merge is a necessary condition for theta-role assignment is challenged. It is argued, then, that a theory of thematic assignment which allows for long-distance theta-role assignment under conditions of locality and activity is empirically preferable when it comes to some complex interactions between se and causative constructions in Buenos Aires Spanish. It is also shown that recent arguments against long-distance theta-role assignment do not hold in a theory as the one defended here, which conceives of theta-roles as regulated by conditions generally available in the realm of A-dependencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we analyze spontaneous and experimental data involving code-mixed DPs made up of English Determiners+Spanish Nouns (the casa “house”) and Spanish Determiners+English Nouns (la [the/feminine] house) from child English/Spanish simultaneous bilinguals and from L1 speakers of English, French and Spanish with different levels of proficiency in their respective L2s (Spanish in the case of L1 English and French; English in the case of L1 Spanish). We show that early child bilinguals and adult simultaneous bilinguals (production data) and L1 speakers of Spanish (experimental data) favor mixings where Spanish provides the functional category, the Determiner, over mixings where English does. We also show that when confronted with these mixed DPs adult L1 Spanish speakers and non-native speakers share a preference for the English D followed by a preference for the default gender marking in Spanish, the masculine (el [the/masculine] house). In the case of the L1 Spanish speakers, this preference is overridden by the “analogical criterion”, (la [the/feminine] house), which consists of assigning the gender of the Spanish translation equivalent (“casa” is feminine) to the English Noun. We provide a linguistic account of these preferences based on the intrinsic Gender feature of the Spanish Noun and the intrinsic Gender Agreement feature or the Spanish Determiner and argue that the cognitive mechanisms employed by the bilingual, the Spanish L1 speaker and the Spanish L2 speaker in spontaneous production and in the grammaticality judgments task make different use of these linguistic units. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]