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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 Spanish, several constituents have their unmarked position after the sentence's main verb (direct objects, locative adjuncts, depictives, etc.). The linearity of linguistic expressions implies that if two such postverbal constituents appear in a given sentence they must be ordered in a certain way. The present paper examines information focus and syntactic weight as possible factors in postverbal constituent order. Based on data from two experimental studies it will be shown that (i) these factors indeed play a role in postverbal constituent order in Spanish and that (ii) postverbal constituent order is characterized at the same time by optionality and preferences (e.g., although a direct object (dO) and a depictive (DEP) can be ordered as DEP-dO or dO-DEP, the order dO-DEP is clearly preferred over DEP-dO). To account for the optionality and preferences, the data will be modeled in a (simplified) Stochastic Optimality Theory grammar without assuming a basic constituent order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Romance languages make use of topicalisation as a grammatical strategy to mark [−focus] constituents, typically under Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD) and Clitic Right Dislocation (CLRD). As a distinctive property, topicalisation involves clitic resumption (CR) of the dislocated constituent in Italian, as well as in other Romance languages (French, Spanish, Catalan). However, a great deal of variation is found in regard to the actual realisation of the resumptive clitic, which is traditionally explained by assuming that CR is optional. In Italian, CR of topic constituents proves to be optional with all phrases, except with direct objects and partitive complements. By contrast, the presence of a resumptive clitic is strictly required in all dislocation structures involving verbal arguments in other Romance varieties, such as Catalan and Sicilian. The aim of this paper is to identify the syntactic properties and the pragmatics characterisation of dislocation constructions lacking CR, and to account for the apparent optionality and the variation found across Romance. We claim that there are no optional nor null clitics, and that non-resumed dislocation actually corresponds to structures other than CLLD/CLRD, as suggested by the fact that the constructions lacking CR exhibit a wide range of syntactic differences with respect to the clitic-resumed counterparts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper investigates the coordination relations between f0 turning points and segmental landmarks in falling pitch accents in Catalan. Ten Central Catalan speakers participated in the production experiment, for a total of 500 target pitch accents. Results indicate that while the beginning of the falling accent gesture (H) is tightly synchronized with the onset of the accented syllable, the end of the falling gesture (L) is more variable. This contrast has also been reported in rising accents between the alignment behavior of f0 valleys and peaks. It has been suggested that the asymmetry between alignment patterns in syllable-initial vs. syllable-final position might be attributable to general properties of intergestural coordination (Gao, 2006; Prieto and Torreira, 2007). Second, the data reveal a clear effect of syllable structure: while in open syllables the end of the fall is aligned roughly with the end of the accented syllable, in closed syllables it is aligned somewhat later but well before the coda consonant. Thus the L turning point is not aligned with the offset of the accented syllable, and coda consonants seem to have a ‘transparent’ behavior. This same effect of coda consonants on alignment has been reported in crosslinguistic studies of rising accents. A potential perceptual explanation for these effects is House''s (1990) idea that in order to produce a perceptually acceptable rising (or falling) tone in a syllable with a final nasal, speakers would have to implement the most dynamic portion of the contour during the production of the vowel. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Agreement lies at the heart of sentence structure in that it usually codifies the formal link between the subject and the predicate. In a way, although not strictly necessary, agreement tends to be what signals that a clause has been created. However, linguists and psycholinguists disagree as to whether this core process is essentially a semantic or a syntactic phenomenon, and there is evidence that suggests that it may be both things at the same time. suggests that in morphologically impoverished languages like English, low frequency of agreement operations makes for a weak morphosyntactic component that is unable to keep semantic interference at bay, at least in production (where meaning comes first). In his completion study, he manages to show that the strong morphosyntactic defences of German do seem to encapsulate number agreement from non-formal forces. In this paper, I examine the psycholinguistic literature on the processing of agreement in English and Spanish in search of fine-grained evidence for encapsulation in all the relevant domains (NP, clausal, supra-clausal). The different grounding of the features of gender and number is also analysed and evidence for their differentiality in the first cycles of processing is ruled out. In general, Berg's hypothesis is confirmed by existing processing measures (Spanish patterns like German due to its rich morphology), but the fine picture of agreement operations in English and Spanish is also sensitive to the different domains tested and to whether production or comprehension is taken into account. Finally, it is argued that gender classes and the agreement systems based on them constitute a major generative device when constructing the clause. This is because gender is less semantically grounded than number and therefore easier to recruit for phrasal packaging, as this merely requires the co-variance of form. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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]

This paper develops a generative analysis for a particular language contact phenomenon familiar in the variationist and language contact literature, namely indirect transfer [F. Klein, A quantitative study of syntactic and pragmatic indications of change in the Spanish of bilinguals in the U.S, in: W. Labov (Ed.), Locating Language in Time and Space, Academic Press, New York, 1980, p. 69; R. Mougeon, E. Beniak, Linguistic Consequences of Language Contact and Restriction: The Case of French in Ontario, OUP, Oxford, 1991; C. Silva-Corvalán, Language Contact and Change: Spanish in Los Angeles, OUP, Oxford, 1994]. This language contact effect, which is preferential rather than categorical, is difficult to deal with in traditional generative approaches, and has received no attention in this literature. My analysis focuses on Klein's study of synthetic/analytic verb forms used for the expression of progressive aspect in Spanish, where contact with English causes a skewing in the distribution of use of analytic forms in a bilingual variety compared to a similar monolingual variety. The analysis is carried out in a stochastic OT [P. Boersma, B. Hayes, Empirical tests of the Gradual Learning Algorithm. Linguistic Inquiry 32 (1) (2001) 45–86] framework, where I show that the indirect transfer effects observed by Klein can be captured by way of different ranking of a small set of OT constraints on a linear ranking scale. In addition to providing a model for the indirect transfer effects in Klein's study, my analysis also makes a typological prediction regarding morphosyntactic expression and Imperfective and Progressive verb forms: no language can have a synthetic Progressive and an analytic Imperfective. This prediction is supported by the absence of any such distribution in the surveys of Bybee et al. [The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994] or Dahl [Tense and Aspect Systems, Blackwell, Oxford, 1985]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• All uses of the Spanish future tense share a common feature: "echoing the ground". • Different uses of the Spanish future tense display different levels of subjectivity. • Evidentiality, tense and modality-related elements can be found in the future tense. The paper examines all uses of the Spanish future tense (the HABLARÉ paradigm) from a cognitive perspective and analyses in detail the level of subjectivity displayed and the relationship to the ground. It is claimed that these uses share a common feature: the echo of the ground (the speaker or the communication situation). The modal, evidential and temporal elements of the ground are presented in a new light, underlining their inherent interconnection. It is proposed that a unified account for all uses of what is traditionally called the "future tense" can be found only when all these elements are taken into account, thus arguing against approaches that associate this paradigm exclusively with temporality, modality or evidentiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]