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This paper revisits the phenomenon of inalienable possession between a dative argument and a body-part noun in Spanish. Specifically, it looks at contexts where the inalienable possession interpretation is obligatory, as in constructions containing monoeventive verbs of perception, and those where the inalienable reading becomes optional, namely with bi-eventive predicates denoting a change of state. I offer a possessor raising and applicative hybrid analysis, whereby the inalienable possessor originates inside the body-part DP and raises to the specifier of an applicative head to license dative case; the position ApplP occupies in the derivation determines the dative's interpretation as a mere possessor (low applicative), or as an affected possessor as well (middle applicative). Alternatively, cases where the dative is not understood as the inalienable possessor but simply as affected occur when this argument is an additional one originating in the specifier of the middle applicative head, and the possessor of the body-part noun is encoded internally via a clitic or strong possessive, or by means of a genitive PP inside the DP. Thus, I propose the existence of two types of affected applicative heads: (i) one whose specifier is available for the possessor inside the possessum DP to move into to be case licensed, and (ii) another introducing an additional argument in its specifier. Additionally, this analysis accounts for the complementary distribution between dative possessors and possessive determiners in Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contact linguists have proposed that core borrowing can indicate language attrition – as the loan replaces its native-origin counterpart – while cultural borrowing expands the lexicon (Campbell, Lyle. 2013. Historical linguistics: An introduction, 3rd edn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; Muysken, Pieter. 2000. Bilingual speech: A typology of code-mixing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). However, Tadmor and Haspelmath (Tadmor, Uri & Martin Haspelmath. 2009. Loanwords in the world's languages: A comparative handbook. Berlin: De Gruyter) found that in core borrowing cases, coexistence of the foreign and the native forms is more common than replacement. In this paper, I explore coexistence and replacement scenarios of Spanish-origin core loan verbs and their native-origin counterparts in Paraguayan Guaraní. These loans have been previously described as instances of code-switching (Estigarribia, Bruno. 2017. Insertion and backflagging as mixing strategies underlying Guaraní-Spanish mixed words. In Bruno Estigarribia & Justin Pinta (eds.), Guaraní linguistics in the 21st century, 315–347. Leiden: Brill; Kallfell, Guido. 2016. ¿Cómo hablan los paraguayos con dos lenguas?: gramática del jopara. Asunción: CEADUC). Tokens of highly frequent native-origin verbs along with their broadly equivalent Spanish-origin loans were extracted from 40 interviews and were correlated with the senses of each verb. Results show that some Spanish verb loans replace its native-origin counterpart to convey only one of its senses, while the native-origin form remains the preferred form to convey the other senses. This specialized use also suggests that these semantically specialized Spanish verb loans are not code-switches but rather integrated lexical items in Guaraní. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish voiced obstruents are traditionally described as having a stop allophone [b, d, g] and a lenited allophone [β, ð, ɣ]. Despite this binary classification, acoustic data has shown that this variation is continuous or gradient depending on the preceding linguistic context. The goal of this paper is to investigate how the following linguistic context affects the degree of Spanish voiced obstruent lenition. Specifically, this paper reports an acoustic investigation of Spanish voiced obstruent lenition in onset cluster contexts. Nine native Spanish speakers were recorded reading Spanish-like nonce words that included a singleton voiced obstruent or an onset cluster consisting of a voiced obstruent plus [ɾ] or [l]. The relative intensity and the duration of these segments were measured and compared with linear mixed-effects regressions. In line with past work, the results show that the voiced obstruents are the most lenited in intervocalic contexts. However, Spanish voiced obstruents are significantly less lenited when followed by [ɾ] in a complex onset; when followed by [l] in a complex onset, the degree of lenition is much more variable. These results provide further support for the gradient lenition of Spanish voiced obstruents, rather than a dichotomous distribution of stops versus lenited variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additionally, the pattern of contrastive juxtapositions between I a lo peor i and I a lo mejor i might be a continuation of a pattern in which two or more possible scenarios are juxtaposed and each scenario is introduced by I a lo mejor i . 5 A lo peor: Variation In this section, we build on the description developed in Sections 2 and 4 by examining variation in the use of I a lo peor i . Keywords: Spanish; apprehensive; modality; adverbial; analogy EN Spanish apprehensive modality adverbial analogy 405 451 47 09/06/22 20220901 NES 220901 1 Introduction 1.1 Subject Matter and Goals The Spanish language possesses a wealth of expressions of epistemic possibility, including well-studied adverbials such as I a lo mejor i , I quizá i ( I s i ), I tal vez i , I acaso i , or I igual i (see, for instance, [7]; [8]; [14], [15], [16]; [24]; [55]; [60]; [65]). These peculiar characteristics can undoubtedly be attributed to the distinctiveness of its analogical source, I a lo mejor i . 8 Summary In this paper we have examined the Spanish construction I a lo peor i "maybe (apprehensive)", a formation by analogy based on the adverbial I a lo mejor i "maybe". What is more, comparing the frequency ratios for I a lo peor i in Table 3 to those for I a lo mejor i in Table 2 shows that the amount by which I a lo peor i is more frequent in Spain than in the Americas is several times higher than that of I a lo mejor i . These are often manner adverbials, such as, for instance, I a lo cubano i "cuban style", but also adverbials of degree, e.g., I a lo sumo i "maximally", or temporals, such as I a lo largo del tiempo i "as time passes (lit: at the length of time)". [Extracted from the article]

The syntactic position of information foci is the most vividly discussed issue in recent literature on focus in Spanish. An interesting aspect of this discussion is that the diverging views typically correlate with diverging methods: Authors who rely on their intuitions as native speakers typically assume that information foci are limited to the final position, while authors using experimental methods typically argue (based on their experimental data) that information foci are not limited to the final position. The present paper contributes to this debate by adding a new data type, namely corpus data. The main empirical finding of our corpus study is that information foci appear most frequently in final position but are not limited to the final position. The latter finding is in line with comparable experimental studies, but the preference for the final position in our corpus data is not found in all experimental studies. Further, our results challenge the common view in the introspection-based literature according to which the information focus needs to be in final position in Spanish. In addition to this empirical contribution we offer a reflection on the merits of corpus data in this domain of linguistic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to account for a host of old and novel syntactic contrasts between the emphatic polarity particle sí 'yes' and its putative counterpart with an instance of the complementizer que –sí que 'yes that' in Spanish. Even though the two constructions appear to be synonymous in certain contexts, closer inspection reveals that the two elements display a number of non-trivial asymmetries in their behavior and distribution and convey different meanings. We thus argue that the two elements should be treated differently. Building on Hernanz (2007 and subsequent work), we propose that sí, which marks focal positive polarity, i.e., verum focus, originates in ΣP and then moves to FocusP. By contrast, sí que is directly merged in a projection below TopicP but higher than FocusP in the left periphery, does not encode polarity, and instead renders the meaning that the speaker is extremely confident about the propositional content, be it positive or negative. We argue that sí que involves more CP structure than sí, which makes a variety of correct empirical predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their addressing nature, vocatives and imperatives have been said in multiple occasions to have the same function and similar phonological characteristics. The aim of this paper is to examine the intonational link between these two kinds of sentences in Peninsular Spanish considering sociopragmatic and situational factors like the level of formality and the degree of insistence. In order to do so, twenty-eight native speakers of Peninsular Spanish produced isolated names and verbs in formal and informal settings followed by insistent productions. The phonetic and phonological analyses of 1232 one-word productions indicate that both speech acts share multiple contours; namely L* H%, L + H* HL%, L + H* !H%, L + H* L%, L + H* H%, L + H* LH%. Nevertheless, L + H* L% was the most used contour for both speech acts regardless of the sociopragmatic and situational factors. Interestingly, speakers modified the phonetic properties of intensity and F0 depending on the situation since informal and insistent productions had a higher F0, wider pitch excursions and more intensity than their formal and non-insistent counterparts. As alternatives, L* L% contours were attested in formal imperatives while L + H* LH% and L + H* HL% were more common in informal ones. After L + H* L% contours, L + H* HL% and L* H% were the preferred options in formal vocatives but the latter was hardly attested in informal ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper overviews what we currently know about the phonetics/phonology of heritage speakers of Spanish based on previous research on this topic, and also provides suggestions for future directions to pursue, as inspired by previous work on heritage Spanish, adult learners of Spanish, native Spanish, and other heritage languages. Specifically, we examine the past and future of heritage Spanish phonetics/phonology at both the segmental (i.e., consonants and vowels) and suprasegmental (i.e., intonation, rhythm, stress) levels in terms of how this part of heritage Spanish grammars differs from that of other Spanish-speaking populations. Finally, we discuss a series of methodological factors to consider as investigators continue to advance this area of linguistic inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Speakers make assumptions regarding the informativeness and saliency of referents in discourse and about their addressee's cognitive status (memory and attention) regarding those referents. These assumptions, in turn, determine the forms (e.g., pronouns, NPs) speakers use when referring to entities. Gundel, Jeanette K., Nancy Hedberg & Ron Zacharski. 1993. Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language 69(2). 274–307 proposed a set of implicationally related cognitive statuses in the Givenness Hierarchy that predict the forms speakers use to refer to entities in discourse. Greater levels of attention and memory predict the use of phonetically minimal referential forms and lesser levels predict more phonetically elaborate forms. Blackwell, Sarah E. & Margaret Lubbers Quesada. 2012. Third-person subjects in native speakers' and L2 learners' narratives: Testing (and revising) the Givenness Hierarchy for Spanish. In Kimberly Geeslin & Manuel Díaz-Campos (eds.), 14th Hispanic linguistics symposium, 142–164. Somerville: Cascadilla tested the predictive power of the Hierarchy for referring expressions in Spanish oral film-retell narratives. Results showed that speakers use the most minimal forms possible (e.g., null pronouns) even when the hierarchy predicts more elaborate forms. Assuming writers make fewer assumptions regarding readers' level of attention and memory, the present study examines whether the revised Hierarchy proposed by Blackwell, Sarah E. & Margaret Lubbers Quesada. 2012. Third-person subjects in native speakers' and L2 learners' narratives: Testing (and revising) the Givenness Hierarchy for Spanish. In Kimberly Geeslin & Manuel Díaz-Campos (eds.), 14th Hispanic linguistics symposium, 142–164. Somerville: Cascadilla is valid for predicting referring forms in Spanish written film retell narrative discourse. The data corroborate that participants select subject forms as predicted, but also reveal an increased use of definite NPs, suggesting that the Hierarchy has a stronger predictive power for oral narratives where attention and memory play a greater role in referent identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the diminutive form of most Spanish words is invariant, a great deal of variation is found in bisyllabic words that either contain /je, we/ in the stem (e. g., viejo 'old'> viejito/viejecito, pueblo 'town' > pueblecito/pueblito), or that end in /e/ (e. g., dulce 'sweet' > dulcecito/dulcito), or that end in /jo, ja/ (e. g., rubio 'blonde' > rubiecito/rubito). Data from the Corpus del Español indicate that in many cases both diminutive forms exist within a single country. This kind of variation has been accounted for in a number of competence-based studies. However, many of these studies, along with the entities and mechanisms they employ, are not designed to explain actual language processing. The purpose of the present study, on the other hand, is to present a performance model of diminutive formation that accounts for the observed variation. The model assumes that highly frequent diminutives have been lexicalized, and as a result, their production is a matter of lexical retrieval. In contrast, low frequency words are diminutivized based on analogy to the diminutive forms of words stored in the mental lexicon. A data set of existing diminutives in each country was extracted from the Corpus del Español. Using these data sets, a series of computational simulations was performed in order to predict the diminutive allomorphs. The model proved to be highly successful in correctly predicting the diminutives in each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to discuss the nature of so-called perfective adjectives in Spanish (desnudo 'naked,' suelto 'loose'). We do so through a discussion of the problem that participles are blocked by perfective adjectives in some contexts (Dejó la habitación {limpia / ∗limpiada} 'He left the room {clean / ∗cleaned}). We will argue that perfective adjectives contain in their internal structure a StateP that can contextually be interpreted as a result state; this head has morphological, syntactic and semantic effects, and makes the structure spelled out by the perfective adjective identical to the one associated with a small participle, with the result that a principle of lexical economy blocks the participial morphology in situations where only the small participle is allowed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish is a dual copula system — ser and estar. According to traditional interpretations of their distribution, estar does not take nominal complements. Instead, this type of complements appears with the copula ser. There are, however, some counterexamples to this rule. On the one hand, we have examples such as Pepe estuvo torero ayer 'Pepe was like a bullfighter yesterday.' In this example, the noun torero does not have its usual interpretation, but rather it refers to the prototypical qualities associated with bullfighters — bravery, unfazed by danger. In this manner, the restriction that Spanish imposes on the copula estar regarding NP complementation does not seem apply in cases where the NP does not provide an identificational interpretation, but rather one associated with the prototypical qualities associated with the noun. A second case in which estar can take nominal complements can be seen in examples such as Esta película está una masa 'This movie is pretty cool.' This type of estar predication has a different interpretation than the ones presented in the previous example. While the former provides a predication denoting the properties associated with the noun, the nouns in the latter are expressing a measure of quality regarding their subject. The subjects película 'movie' is not being identified with the prototypical qualities of a mass but rather are expressions of high quality. In this respect, the estar predication in this example can be ascribed to the evidential uses of estar. Not every dialect of Spanish can produce examples such as the ones found in the está una masa example, while data similar to está torero is common in all the dialectal continuum. The focus of this investigation is to examine these two types of nominal complements with estar and provide an analysis of the differences between them, as well as provide an explanation regarding their acceptability in estar predications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies of native English speakers learning Spanish as a second language (L2) document compromise voice onset time (VOT) values; however, the focus has been predominantly on voiceless stops and has almost exclusively investigated beginning and intermediate learners. This study fills a gap in the literature by considering the acquisition of VOT in both voiceless and voiced Spanish stops by long-time native English-speaking residents of Spain. Overall, the results show that the L2 speakers' VOT values differ from those of native speakers across all stop consonants; yet L2 speakers' productions of voiceless, as opposed to voiced, stops more closely approximate those of native speakers. Considerable individual variation is observed as no speaker achieves native-like performance overall, and no consonant is mastered by more than half of the speakers. Results are considered in light of what they contribute to our understanding of ultimate attainment of Spanish VOT, specifically, and L2 phonology more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish is described as having an /s/ regressive voicing assimilation process by which the sibilant is voiced when followed by a voiced consonant. However, experimental studies documenting the nature of the process – including variation in its realization across speech varieties – are limited. The current study presents an acoustic analysis of the phonetic nature of the process, including an analysis of the linguistic and social factors which influence voicing of the /s/. Using an identical controlled phrase elicitation task, rates and location of voicing within the /s/ segment were compared across three varieties of Spanish: Mexican Spanish (Mexico City) and two Peninsular varieties (León and Vitoria). Different voicing rates and different linguistic voicing predictors were found across dialects. The data suggest that /s/ voicing before a voiced consonant is far from a categorical process in Spanish, with variable rates of application between 43% and 63%. We propose that, based on the data, /s/ voicing in Spanish is, in fact, better understood as a progressive voicing process (i. e. continuation of voicing from the previous vowel), and that the linguistic factors that condition voicing can be explained in part through articulatory and aerodynamic mechanisms. We also discuss the phonetics and phonology of the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since many linguistic structures are variable (i. e. conveyed by multiple forms), building a second-language grammar critically involves developing sociolinguistic competence (Canale and Swain. 1980. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics 1(1). 1–47), including knowledge of contexts in which to use one form over another (Bayley and Langman. 2004. Variation in the group and the individual: Evidence from second language acquisition. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 42(4). 303–318). Consequently, researchers interested in such competence have increasingly analyzed the study-abroad context to gauge learners' ability to approximate local norms following a stay abroad, due to the quality and quantity of input to which learners may gain access (Lafford. 2006. The effects of study abroad vs. classroom contexts on Spanish SLA: Old assumptions, new insights and future research directions. In Carol Klee & Timothy Face (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 7th conference on the acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as first and second languages, 1–25. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project). Nevertheless, the present study is the first to examine native or learner variation between imperative (e. g. ven 'come') and optative Spanish commands (e. g. que vengas 'come'). We first performed a corpus analysis to determine the linguistic factors to manipulate in a contextualized task, which elicited commands from learners before and after four weeks abroad in Alcalá de Henares, Spain. Their overall rates of selection and predictive factors were compared to local native speakers (NSs) and a control group of at-home learners. Results revealed that the abroad learners more closely approached NS rates of selection following the stay abroad. Nonetheless, for both learner groups conditioning by independent variables only partially approximated the NS system, which was more complex than previously suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish locative adverbs may be followed by either a prepositional phrase (PP) (e.g. cerca de mí 'close to/(of) me') or, nonstandardly, a tonic possessive (TP) (e.g. cerca mío 'lit. close mine'). Some also take feminine forms (e.g. cerca mía, detrás mía). Using R, I analyze 16,809 tweets representing 14 locatives from Buenos Aires, Madrid, and Mexico City and demonstrate that, although dialects and individual locatives vary widely in their rates of TP use, the person, number, and animacy of the possessor significantly predict PP/TP selection across varieties. Also, feminine possessives are used almost exclusively in Spain, and the seemingly feminine morphology of locatives ending in –a (e.g. encima) and subsequent extension to other locatives via analogy is the most plausible explanation for their use. Further evidence of analogy is TP use in non-locative contexts (e.g. Arg. pensás mío 'you think of me,' Sp. enamorado tuyo/a 'in love with you'). These findings illuminate the interactions between avoidance of ambiguity, form-based analogy, and speakers' conceptualization of possession. My findings regarding animacy, which find parallels in research on English dative and genitive constructions, highlight the utility of both cross-linguistic and cross-constructional comparisons in analyzing morphosyntactic variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many languages, vowel duration is modulated by syllable structure — a phenomenon known as vowel compression — so that vowels are shorter in syllables with more segments than in syllables with fewer segments. Most instrumental evidence to date has reported an effect, in many languages, of the presence (and complexity) of a coda, and some studies have also documented effects of the presence (and complexity) of an onset. However, no prior studies on Spanish vowel duration have captured any effects of syllable structure. Using data from nine speakers and controlled speech materials, the present study addresses the following research question: Does syllable structure modulate vowel duration? The findings are as follows: (a) Relative to simplex onsets (those with a singleton consonant), complex onsets (those with a consonant cluster) trigger vowel compression; and (b) neither simplex nor complex codas consistently drive vowel compression — i.e. codas do not systematically affect vowel duration. Together with the facts for other languages, our findings support a view according to which syllable structure — in particular, onset complexity — modulates acoustic vowel duration. The study discusses the theoretical implications of this finding, which are argued to be in line with some of the principles of the Articulatory Phonology framework or, alternatively, suggest that codas should not be considered part of the articulatory syllable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study explored development in Spanish vowel production during a short-term study abroad program. The production patterns of a group of learners studying abroad in a 4-week program in the Dominican Republic were compared in terms of overall vowel quality, tendency to diphthongize /e/ and /o/, and vowel duration to those of a similar group of learners studying in the at-home context. Results revealed no significant changes or differences between groups in vowel quality or diphthongization, but a significant improvement (i.e., reduction) in vowel duration for /a/, /o/, and /u/ for the at-home group only. Findings are discussed in relation to previous research, and areas for future research are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although some researchers report the normative production of the rhotics in Traditional New Mexico Spanish, others have reported, including the presence of an English-like vocalized rhotic. In the present study, 29 speakers of Spanish from Taos, a city in northern New Mexico, were interviewed and the rhotics of their speech were categorized, quantified and analyzed using speech analysis and multivariate statistical analysis software. The results show variation and change when compared to previous reports (both recent and of over a century ago). In spontaneous and elicited speech, ten distinct rhotic variants, subsequently recoded into five categories, were observed and quantified. Moreover, approximant and assibilated variants have notable frequencies and conditioning factors. VARBRUL analyses reveal phonological context, stress, word position, age, and sex as significant conditioning factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines measures of prosodic timing (i. e., segment-tosegment durational variability) in Yagua and Spanish spoken in Amazonian Peru. We performed an acoustic analysis of consonantal and vocalic durations from sociolinguistic interviews in Spanish (for Yagua-Spanish bilinguals and Spanish monolinguals) and from oral narratives in Yagua (for Yagua-Spanish bilinguals). Subsequently, we applied variability metrics to the speech of each group to compare their respective timing values. Our results show that, first, Yagua displays more segment-to-segment durational variability than monolingual Spanish. Second, L1-Yagua/L2-Spanish speakers show primarily Yagua-like timing values in Spanish, whereas Yagua-Spanish simultaneous bilinguals show primarily Spanish-like values in Spanish. These results suggest that ethnic Yagua communities are converging toward Spanish-like patterns of prosodic timing. This research contributes to the Spanish contact and prosodic timing literature by offering bilingual and monolingual data from one of the world's most complex and typologically diverse geolinguistic areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research documents the acquisition of a range of progressive constructions and their associated predictors of use by English-speaking learners of Spanish in the United States. The few existing studies on acquisition of the Spanish progressive by adult second language learners analyze only the estar 'be located' + V- ndo form and little is known about the development of other progressive constructions (e.g., andar 'go around' + V- ndo) in interlanguage grammars. At the same time, research on the use and distribution of present progressive constructions by adult native-speakers of Spanish is limited. In order to address these gaps in the literature, the current study provides empirical evidence of native-speaker use of a range of progressive constructions and documents the emergence of these forms in adult-acquired Spanish. Results of the current study indicate that progressive constructions vary by dialect and language type, thus presenting an area of difficulty for learners of Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]