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19. Está muy diferente a como era antes

Ser and Estar + Adjective in New Mexico Spanish
  • Michelle L. Salazar
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Spanish in Contact
This chapter is in the book Spanish in Contact

Abstract

The presence in Spanish and other Romance languages of two copular verbs, both able to form constructions with the same adjectives and participles, has been the cause of competition for semantic space since the 12th century (Vaño-Cerdá 1982). Recent studies (Cortés-Torres 2004; De Jonge 1993; Gutiérrez 1994; and Silva-Corvalán 1986) have shown the struggle continues in bilingual varieties of Spanish as well as in monolingual varieties. The innovative use ofestarin contexts that were prescriptively reserved forserwas examined in New Mexico Spanish using data from the New Mexico Colorado Spanish Survey (Bills & Vigil 1999). Employing a variationist approach, the influence of several sociolinguistic factors on the variable use of the two copulas was evaluated quantitatively using GoldVarb (Rand & Sankoff 1999), a variable rule application program. Results for linguistic factors show the greatest magnitude of effect for type of adjective, followed by grammatical person, the presence of a time adverbial, codeswitching, the presence of an intensifier, and verb tense (which was not selected as significant). Of the three social variables evaluated, level of education was significant while gender was not, and the factor of age of speaker was eliminated due to incoherent results. These results concur with those of the other researchers and show that the same factors effecting the slow, gradual change in the usage ofestarin both educated and uneducated dialects in Mexico City, Caracas, Morelia, Cuernavaca, and Los Angeles are also at work in the archaic and stigmatized northern New Mexico/southern Colorado variety of Spanish.

Abstract

The presence in Spanish and other Romance languages of two copular verbs, both able to form constructions with the same adjectives and participles, has been the cause of competition for semantic space since the 12th century (Vaño-Cerdá 1982). Recent studies (Cortés-Torres 2004; De Jonge 1993; Gutiérrez 1994; and Silva-Corvalán 1986) have shown the struggle continues in bilingual varieties of Spanish as well as in monolingual varieties. The innovative use ofestarin contexts that were prescriptively reserved forserwas examined in New Mexico Spanish using data from the New Mexico Colorado Spanish Survey (Bills & Vigil 1999). Employing a variationist approach, the influence of several sociolinguistic factors on the variable use of the two copulas was evaluated quantitatively using GoldVarb (Rand & Sankoff 1999), a variable rule application program. Results for linguistic factors show the greatest magnitude of effect for type of adjective, followed by grammatical person, the presence of a time adverbial, codeswitching, the presence of an intensifier, and verb tense (which was not selected as significant). Of the three social variables evaluated, level of education was significant while gender was not, and the factor of age of speaker was eliminated due to incoherent results. These results concur with those of the other researchers and show that the same factors effecting the slow, gradual change in the usage ofestarin both educated and uneducated dialects in Mexico City, Caracas, Morelia, Cuernavaca, and Los Angeles are also at work in the archaic and stigmatized northern New Mexico/southern Colorado variety of Spanish.

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.22.24sal

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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