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12. La negación en la frontera domínico-haitiana

Variantes y usos (socio)lingüísticos
  • Luis A. Ortiz López
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Spanish in Contact
This chapter is in the book Spanish in Contact

Abstract

We investigate pragmatic and sociolinguistic factors that condition the use of double negation along the Haitian-Dominican Republic border in the speech of Spanish monolinguals and in that of Haitian Creole/Spanish bilinguals. In Dominican Spanish, researchers have proposed two basic syntactic configurations for negation: a single pre-verbal negative marker of no + verb and a set of configurations that entail double negation. Double negation may involve simultaneous pre- and post-verbal negative markers, preverbal and sentence final negative markers, and a preverbal negative marker plus a negative polarity item such asnada‘nothing’, tampoco ‘neither/either’, ornadie ‘nobody’. With respect to social groups, two points emerge. First, monolingual speakers of Dominican Spanish show a higher frequency of double negation than do the bilingual Haitian Creole-Spanish speakers. Second, Haitian learners of Dominican Spanish, independent of their degree of proficiency in Spanish, predominantly acquire and use the pattern of single pre-verbal negation. They display very few cases of double negation. Those Haitian speakers who do display some double negation show certain patterns of negation that maybe interpreted as transfer from Haitian Creole. However, as these speakers increase in proficiency, they progressively diminish such transfer. Therefore, the relative absence of double negation in the Spanish of the Haitian Creole-Spanish bilinguals and the presence of double negation in the monolingual Dominican Spanish speakers does not provide support for claims that double negation in Dominican Spanish results from contact with Haitian Creole.

Abstract

We investigate pragmatic and sociolinguistic factors that condition the use of double negation along the Haitian-Dominican Republic border in the speech of Spanish monolinguals and in that of Haitian Creole/Spanish bilinguals. In Dominican Spanish, researchers have proposed two basic syntactic configurations for negation: a single pre-verbal negative marker of no + verb and a set of configurations that entail double negation. Double negation may involve simultaneous pre- and post-verbal negative markers, preverbal and sentence final negative markers, and a preverbal negative marker plus a negative polarity item such asnada‘nothing’, tampoco ‘neither/either’, ornadie ‘nobody’. With respect to social groups, two points emerge. First, monolingual speakers of Dominican Spanish show a higher frequency of double negation than do the bilingual Haitian Creole-Spanish speakers. Second, Haitian learners of Dominican Spanish, independent of their degree of proficiency in Spanish, predominantly acquire and use the pattern of single pre-verbal negation. They display very few cases of double negation. Those Haitian speakers who do display some double negation show certain patterns of negation that maybe interpreted as transfer from Haitian Creole. However, as these speakers increase in proficiency, they progressively diminish such transfer. Therefore, the relative absence of double negation in the Spanish of the Haitian Creole-Spanish bilinguals and the presence of double negation in the monolingual Dominican Spanish speakers does not provide support for claims that double negation in Dominican Spanish results from contact with Haitian Creole.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction ix
  4. Part I. Heritage Spanish in the United States
  5. 1. Subjects in early dual language development 3
  6. 2. Interpreting mood distinctions in Spanish as a heritage language 23
  7. 3. Anglicismos en el léxico disponible de los adolescentes hispanos de Chicago 41
  8. Part II. Education and policy issues
  9. 4. Teaching Spanish in the U.S. 61
  10. 5. The politics of English and Spanish aquí y allá 81
  11. 6. Language attitudes and the lexical de-Castilianization of Valencian 101
  12. 7. Are Galicians bound to diglossia? 119
  13. Part III. Pragmatics and contact
  14. 8. Addressing peers in a Spanish-English bilingual classroom 135
  15. 9. Style variation in Spanish as a heritage language 153
  16. 10. “Baby I'm Sorry, te juro, I'm Sorry” 173
  17. 11. Cross-linguistic influence of the Cuzco Quechua epistemic system on Andean Spanish 191
  18. 12. La negación en la frontera domínico-haitiana 211
  19. Part IV. Variation and contact
  20. 13. On the development of contact varieties 237
  21. 14. Linguistic and social predictors of copula use in Galician Spanish 253
  22. 15. Apuntes preliminares sobre el contacto lingüístico y dialectal en el uso pronominal del español en Nueva York 275
  23. 16. Is the past really the past in narrative discourse? 297
  24. 17. The impact of linguistic constraints on the expression of futurity in the Spanish of New York Colombians 311
  25. 18. Quantitative evidence for contact-induced accommodation 329
  26. 19. Está muy diferente a como era antes 345
  27. Part V. Bozal Spanish
  28. 20. Where and how does bozal Spanish survive? 359
  29. 21. The appearance and use of bozal language in Cuban and Brazilian neo-African literature 377
  30. Index 395
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.22.16ort

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction ix
  4. Part I. Heritage Spanish in the United States
  5. 1. Subjects in early dual language development 3
  6. 2. Interpreting mood distinctions in Spanish as a heritage language 23
  7. 3. Anglicismos en el léxico disponible de los adolescentes hispanos de Chicago 41
  8. Part II. Education and policy issues
  9. 4. Teaching Spanish in the U.S. 61
  10. 5. The politics of English and Spanish aquí y allá 81
  11. 6. Language attitudes and the lexical de-Castilianization of Valencian 101
  12. 7. Are Galicians bound to diglossia? 119
  13. Part III. Pragmatics and contact
  14. 8. Addressing peers in a Spanish-English bilingual classroom 135
  15. 9. Style variation in Spanish as a heritage language 153
  16. 10. “Baby I'm Sorry, te juro, I'm Sorry” 173
  17. 11. Cross-linguistic influence of the Cuzco Quechua epistemic system on Andean Spanish 191
  18. 12. La negación en la frontera domínico-haitiana 211
  19. Part IV. Variation and contact
  20. 13. On the development of contact varieties 237
  21. 14. Linguistic and social predictors of copula use in Galician Spanish 253
  22. 15. Apuntes preliminares sobre el contacto lingüístico y dialectal en el uso pronominal del español en Nueva York 275
  23. 16. Is the past really the past in narrative discourse? 297
  24. 17. The impact of linguistic constraints on the expression of futurity in the Spanish of New York Colombians 311
  25. 18. Quantitative evidence for contact-induced accommodation 329
  26. 19. Está muy diferente a como era antes 345
  27. Part V. Bozal Spanish
  28. 20. Where and how does bozal Spanish survive? 359
  29. 21. The appearance and use of bozal language in Cuban and Brazilian neo-African literature 377
  30. Index 395
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