17. The impact of linguistic constraints on the expression of futurity in the Spanish of New York Colombians
-
Rafael Orozco
Abstract
Language contact often acts as a catalyst of language change. However, according to Guy's (2000) theory, the linguistic factors constraining language change and variation are consistent within different segments of a speech community. In this study, after determining the distribution of the morphological future, the periphrastic future, and the simple present as they are used to express futurity by New York Colombians, I identify the statistically significant linguistic factors most strongly affecting this distribution and explain their impact. Additionally, I test Guy's (2000) theory by contrasting these results to those from a comparable monolingual population based in Colombia. The data explored in this study was extracted from sociolinguistic interviews with twenty (ten men and ten women) Colombian residents of the New York City area. At the time of the data collection, their ages ranged from 16 to 70 years old, and the length of their stay in the United Stated ranged from five to thirty years. The distribution of forms found is congruent with the reports of the prevalence of the periphrastic future in all varieties of Spanish, including situations where Spanish is in contact with other languages, as well as those regarding the drastic reduction of use of the morphological future as a marker of futurity. The results of this study also revealed the same eight factor groups which significantly constrain the expression of futurity in Colombia. These findings lend validity to Guy's theory. That is, the similarity of constraint effects found in New York and in Colombia suggests that, despite the influence of language contact, the two populations are still members of the same speech community. Additionally, the results of this study indicate that the change in progress from the preferential use of the morphological future to that of the periphrastic future seems to have been accelerated in the immigrant setting. These results help explain other instances of morphosyntactic variation, especially those involving analytic and synthetic variants. Furthermore, these findings augment our knowledge of language variation and change in Spanish as well as in all Romance languages.
Abstract
Language contact often acts as a catalyst of language change. However, according to Guy's (2000) theory, the linguistic factors constraining language change and variation are consistent within different segments of a speech community. In this study, after determining the distribution of the morphological future, the periphrastic future, and the simple present as they are used to express futurity by New York Colombians, I identify the statistically significant linguistic factors most strongly affecting this distribution and explain their impact. Additionally, I test Guy's (2000) theory by contrasting these results to those from a comparable monolingual population based in Colombia. The data explored in this study was extracted from sociolinguistic interviews with twenty (ten men and ten women) Colombian residents of the New York City area. At the time of the data collection, their ages ranged from 16 to 70 years old, and the length of their stay in the United Stated ranged from five to thirty years. The distribution of forms found is congruent with the reports of the prevalence of the periphrastic future in all varieties of Spanish, including situations where Spanish is in contact with other languages, as well as those regarding the drastic reduction of use of the morphological future as a marker of futurity. The results of this study also revealed the same eight factor groups which significantly constrain the expression of futurity in Colombia. These findings lend validity to Guy's theory. That is, the similarity of constraint effects found in New York and in Colombia suggests that, despite the influence of language contact, the two populations are still members of the same speech community. Additionally, the results of this study indicate that the change in progress from the preferential use of the morphological future to that of the periphrastic future seems to have been accelerated in the immigrant setting. These results help explain other instances of morphosyntactic variation, especially those involving analytic and synthetic variants. Furthermore, these findings augment our knowledge of language variation and change in Spanish as well as in all Romance languages.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction ix
-
Part I. Heritage Spanish in the United States
- 1. Subjects in early dual language development 3
- 2. Interpreting mood distinctions in Spanish as a heritage language 23
- 3. Anglicismos en el léxico disponible de los adolescentes hispanos de Chicago 41
-
Part II. Education and policy issues
- 4. Teaching Spanish in the U.S. 61
- 5. The politics of English and Spanish aquí y allá 81
- 6. Language attitudes and the lexical de-Castilianization of Valencian 101
- 7. Are Galicians bound to diglossia? 119
-
Part III. Pragmatics and contact
- 8. Addressing peers in a Spanish-English bilingual classroom 135
- 9. Style variation in Spanish as a heritage language 153
- 10. “Baby I'm Sorry, te juro, I'm Sorry” 173
- 11. Cross-linguistic influence of the Cuzco Quechua epistemic system on Andean Spanish 191
- 12. La negación en la frontera domínico-haitiana 211
-
Part IV. Variation and contact
- 13. On the development of contact varieties 237
- 14. Linguistic and social predictors of copula use in Galician Spanish 253
- 15. Apuntes preliminares sobre el contacto lingüístico y dialectal en el uso pronominal del español en Nueva York 275
- 16. Is the past really the past in narrative discourse? 297
- 17. The impact of linguistic constraints on the expression of futurity in the Spanish of New York Colombians 311
- 18. Quantitative evidence for contact-induced accommodation 329
- 19. Está muy diferente a como era antes 345
-
Part V. Bozal Spanish
- 20. Where and how does bozal Spanish survive? 359
- 21. The appearance and use of bozal language in Cuban and Brazilian neo-African literature 377
- Index 395
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction ix
-
Part I. Heritage Spanish in the United States
- 1. Subjects in early dual language development 3
- 2. Interpreting mood distinctions in Spanish as a heritage language 23
- 3. Anglicismos en el léxico disponible de los adolescentes hispanos de Chicago 41
-
Part II. Education and policy issues
- 4. Teaching Spanish in the U.S. 61
- 5. The politics of English and Spanish aquí y allá 81
- 6. Language attitudes and the lexical de-Castilianization of Valencian 101
- 7. Are Galicians bound to diglossia? 119
-
Part III. Pragmatics and contact
- 8. Addressing peers in a Spanish-English bilingual classroom 135
- 9. Style variation in Spanish as a heritage language 153
- 10. “Baby I'm Sorry, te juro, I'm Sorry” 173
- 11. Cross-linguistic influence of the Cuzco Quechua epistemic system on Andean Spanish 191
- 12. La negación en la frontera domínico-haitiana 211
-
Part IV. Variation and contact
- 13. On the development of contact varieties 237
- 14. Linguistic and social predictors of copula use in Galician Spanish 253
- 15. Apuntes preliminares sobre el contacto lingüístico y dialectal en el uso pronominal del español en Nueva York 275
- 16. Is the past really the past in narrative discourse? 297
- 17. The impact of linguistic constraints on the expression of futurity in the Spanish of New York Colombians 311
- 18. Quantitative evidence for contact-induced accommodation 329
- 19. Está muy diferente a como era antes 345
-
Part V. Bozal Spanish
- 20. Where and how does bozal Spanish survive? 359
- 21. The appearance and use of bozal language in Cuban and Brazilian neo-African literature 377
- Index 395
