Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T11:26:09.511Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Depleted plural marking in two Afro-Hispanic dialects: Separating inheritance from innovation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2010

John M. Lipski
John M. Lipski
Affiliation:
The Pennsylvania State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Spanish is characterized by number concord in determiner phrases (DPs) and predicate nominals; the plural marker /s/ is attached to all relevant elements in a plural DP. Exceptions to this rule usually involve phonetically motivated processes of /s/-weakening in coda position, and do not result in a functionally different system of plural marking. A distinct pattern is found in two isolated dialects of Spanish spoken in ethnically cohesive Afro-descendent communities where Spanish was originally acquired as a second language by speakers of African languages. In both varieties, characterized by the absence of /s/-reducing phenomena, plural /-s/ tends to be marked only on the first element of plural DPs, usually a determiner. In one of the dialects, spoken in Ecuador, these “stripped plurals” alternate with full multiple plural concord, similar to vernacular Brazilian Portuguese. In the other dialect, spoken in Bolivia, stripped plurals appear to be a recent development, emerging from a more restructured traditional variety in which plural /-s/ was not used at all. A variational analysis of both dialects finds little evidence for spontaneous drift away from canonical multiple plural marking, but rather suggests an evolution from earlier contact-induced interlanguages that exhibited even less systematic plural marking. The appearance of Afro-Hispanic stripped plurals is tentatively correlated with the shift from a depleted definite article system to a configuration more closely resembling modern Spanish. A similar set of circumstances may have contributed to the formation of stripped plurals in vernacular Brazilian Portuguese.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 105 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Amaral, Amadeu. (1920). O dialeto caipira. São Paulo: Casa Editorial “O Livro.”Google Scholar
Angola Maconde, Juan. (2000). Raíces de un pueblo: Cultura afroboliviana. La Paz: Producciones CIMA, Embajada de España, Cooperación.Google Scholar
Angola Maconde, Juan. (2008). Nuestra historia: Comunidad Dorado Chico. La Paz: Sindicato Agrario Dorado Chico/Traditions pour Demain.Google Scholar
Aparici, Melina, Díaz, Gloria, & Cortés, Montserrat. (1996). El orden de adquisición de morfemas en catalán y castellano. In Pérez-Pereira, M. (ed.), Estudios sobre la adquisición del castellano, catalán, eusquera y gallego. Santiago de Campostela: Universidade de Santiago de Campostela. 165–174.Google Scholar
Baptista, Marlyse. (2007). On the syntax and semantics of the DP in Cape Verdean Creole. In Baptista, M. & Guéron, J. (eds), Noun phrases in creole languages: A multi-faceted approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 61–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baptista, Marlyse, Mello, Heliana, & Suzuki, Miki. (2007). Kabuverdianu, or Cape Verdean, and Kriyol, or Guinea-Bissau (Creole Portuguese). In Holm, J. & Patrick, P. (eds.), Comparative creole syntax: Parallel outlines of 18 creole grammars. Westminster Creolistics Series 7. Plymouth: Battlebridge. 53–82.Google Scholar
Barnet, Miguel. (1966). Biografía de un cimarrón. Havana: Instituto de Etnología y Folklore.Google Scholar
Berenguer y Sed, Antonio. (1929). Tradiciones villaclareñas, tomo I. Havana: Imprenta y Papalería de Rambla, Bouza y Ca.Google Scholar
Brockington, Lolita Gutiérrez. (2006). Blacks, Indians and Spaniards in the eastern Andes: Reclaiming the forgotten in colonial Mizque, 1550–1782. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Cabrera, Lydia. (1975). Anaforuana: Ritual y símbolos de la iniciación en la sociedad secreta Abakuá. Madrid: Ediciones R.Google Scholar
Cabrera, Lydia. (1979). Reglas de congo. Miami: Editorial C. R.Google Scholar
Carrasco Cantos, Pilar. (1981). Contribución al estudio del habla rural de Baeza (Jaén). Jaén: Instituto de Estudios Giennenses.Google Scholar
Chalá Cruz, José. (2006). Chota profundo: Antropología de los afrochoteños. Chota: CIFANE (Centro de Investigaciones Familia Negra).Google Scholar
Coba Andrade, Carlos Alberto. (1980). Literatura popular afroecuatoriana. Otavalo: Instituto Otavaleño de Antropología.Google Scholar
Coronel Feijóo, Rosario. (1988). Indios y esclavos negros en el valle del Chota colonial. In Savoia, P. Rafael (Ed.), Actas del primer congreso de historia del negro en el Ecuador y sur de Colombia. Quito: Centro Cultural Afro-Ecuatoriano, 171–187.Google Scholar
Coronel Feijóo, Rosario. (1991). El valle sangriento: de los indígenas de la coca y el algodón a la hacienda cañera jesuita, 1580–1700. Quito: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales/Abya-Yala.Google Scholar
Costa, João, & Figueiredo Silva, Maria Cristina. (2006). Nominal and verbal agreement in Portuguese: An argument for distributed morphology. In Silva, J. & Figueiredo Silva, M. C. (eds), Studies on agreement. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 24–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deprez, Viviane. (2005). Morphological number, semantic number and bare nouns. Lingua 115:857–883.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Embick, David, & Noyer, Rolf. (2001). Movement operations after syntax. Linguistic Inquiry 32:555–595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enç, Mürvet. (1991). The semantics of specificity. Linguistic Inquiry 22:1–25.Google Scholar
Ferreira, Carlota da Silveira. (1985). Remanescentes de um falar crioulo brasileiro. Revista Lusitana (nova série), Lisboa, 5:21–34.Google Scholar
Folleco, Alí Omar. (2009). La historia del pueblo negro en La Concepción. Ibarra: Creadores Gráficos.Google Scholar
Gärtner, Eberhard. (1983). Syntaktische Besonderheiten des Portugiesischen in Angola. Wiss. Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universität Berlin, GSR 3:295–298.Google Scholar
Gärtner, Eberhard. (2007). O papel dos falantes afro-brasileiros na formação do diassistema do português brasileiro. In Schrader-Kniffki, M. & García, L. Morgenthaler (eds), La Romania en interacción: Entre historia, contacto y política. Frankfurt: Vervuert/Iberoamericana. 365–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimshaw, Jane. (1997). Projection, heads, and optimality. Linguistic Inquiry 28:373–422.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, Jane. (2005). Words and structure. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory. (1981). Linguistic variation in Brazilian Portuguese: Aspects of the phonology, syntax, and language history. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory. (1989). On the nature and origins of popular Brazilian Portuguese. In Estudios sobre español de América y lingüística afroamericana. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo. 227–245.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory. (2004). Muitas línguas: The linguistic impact of Africans in colonial Brazil. In Curto, J. C. & Lovejoy, E. (eds), Enslaving connections: Changing cultures of Africa and Brazil during the era of slavery. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. 125–137.Google Scholar
Hatherly, Ana. (1990). Poemas em língua de preto dos séculos XVII e XVIII. Lisboa: Quimera.Google Scholar
Holm, John. (1987). Creole influence on popular Brazilian Portuguese. In Gilbert, G. (ed.), Pidgin and creole languages: Essays in memory of John E. Reinecke. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 406–429.Google Scholar
Holm, John. (2004). Languages in contact: The partial restructuring of vernaculars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kester, Ellen-Petra, & Schmitt, Cristina. (2005). Bare nominals in Papiamentu and Brazilian Portuguese. In Gess, R. & Rubin, E. (eds), Theoretical and experimental approaches to Romance Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 237–256.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1994). Principles of linguistic change, volume 1: Internal factors. Oxford, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Laviña, Javier. (ed.). 1989. Doctrina para negros: Explicación de la doctrina cristiana acomodada a la capacidad de los negros bozales, de Nicolás Duque de Estrada. Barcelona: Sendai.Google Scholar
Lipski, John. (1985). The Spanish of Equatorial Guinea. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, John. (1986). Lingüística afroecuatoriana: El valle del Chota. Anuario de Lingüística Hispanica (Valladolid) 2:153–176.Google Scholar
Lipski, John. (1987a). The Chota Valley: Afro-Hispanic language in highland Ecuador. Latin American Research Review 22:155–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, John. (1987b). Contemporary Philippine Spanish: Comments on vestigial usage. Philippine Journal of Linguistics 18:37–48.Google Scholar
Lipski, John. (1987c). El español vestigial de Filipinas. Anuario de Lingüística Hispanica (Valladolid) 3:123–42.Google Scholar
Lipski, John. (1989). El valle del Chota: Enclave lingüístico afroecuatoriano. Boletín de la Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española 10( 2 [1982]):1–36.Google Scholar
Lipski, John. (1994). Latin American Spanish. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Lipski, John. (2005). A history of Afro-Hispanic language: Five centuries and five continents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, John. (2008a). Afro-Bolivian Spanish. Frankfurt: Vervuert/Iberoamericana.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, John. (2008b). Angola e Brasil: Vínculos lingüísticos afrolusitanos. Veredas 9:83–98.Google Scholar
Lipski, John. (2008c). Afro-Choteño speech: Towards the (re)creation of a “Black Spanish.” Negritud 2:99–120.Google Scholar
Lipski, John. (2008d). Afro-Paraguayan Spanish: The negation of non-existence. Journal of Pan-African Studies 2(7):2–32.Google Scholar
Llanos Moscoso, Ramiro, & Soruco Arroyo, Carlos. (2004). Reconocimiento étnico y jurídico de la comunidad afrodescendiente. La Paz: Comunidad de Derechos Humanos, Capítulo Boliviano de Derechos Humanos Democracia y Desarrollo.Google Scholar
Lleó, Conxita. (2001). The interface of phonology and syntax: The emergence of the article in the early acquisition of Spanish and German. In Weissenborn, J. & Höhle, B. (eds), Approaches to bootstrapping: Phonological, lexical, syntactic and neurophysiological aspects of early language acquisition, volume 2. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 23–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lleó, Conxita. (2006). Early acquisition of nominal plural in Spanish. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 5:191–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lobato, Lúcia Maria Pinheiro (2005). Sobre a questão da influência ameríndia na formação do português do Brasil. In Garcia da Silva, D. E. (ed.), Língua, gramática e discurso. Goiânia: Editorial/Grupo de Estudos da Linguagem do Centro-Oeste. 54–86.Google Scholar
Lopes, Ruth Vasconcellos. (2006). Bare nouns and DP number agreement in the acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese. In Sagarra, N. & Toribio, A. Jacqueline (eds), Selected Proceedings of the 9th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. 252–262.Google Scholar
Maldonado Chalá, Olga Lidia. (2006). Vocablos que hacen particular el habla de los afro choteños y que aún se encuentran presentes en las personas mayores. Tesis de Diploma Superior en Estudios de la Cultura, Mención Diáspora Andina, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Sede Ecuador.Google Scholar
Mariscal, Sonia. (2009). Early acquisition of gender agreement in the Spanish noun phrase: Starting small. Journal of Child Language 36:143–171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marrero, Vicente, & Aguirre, Carmen. (2003). Plural acquisition and development in Spanish. In Montrul, S. and Ordóñez, F. (eds), Linguistic theory and language development in Hispanic languages: Papers from the 5th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium and the 4th Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. 275–296.Google Scholar
Medina Vallejo, Henry. (1996). Comunidad negra y cambio cultural: El caso de Concepción en la sierra ecuatoriana. Quito: Ediciones Afroamérica, Centro Cultural Afroecuatoriano.Google Scholar
Megenney, William. (1989). An etiology of /-s/ deletion in the Hispanic Caribbean: Internal process or substratum influence? In Estudios sobre el español de América y lingüística Afroamericana. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo. 300–327.Google Scholar
Morton, Thomas. (2005). Sociolinguistic variation and language change in El Palenque de San Basilio (Colombia). Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Moya Corral, Juan Antonio. (1979). La pronunciación del español en Jaén. Granada: Universidad de Granada.Google Scholar
Müller, Ana, & Oliveira, Fátima. (2004). Bare nominals and number in Brazilian and European Portuguese. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 3(1):9–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munn, Alan, & Schmitt, Cristina. (2001). Bare nouns and the morphosyntax of number. In Satterfield, T., Tortora, C., & Cresti, D. (eds), Current issues in Romance languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 217–231.Google Scholar
Munn, Alan, & Schmitt, Cristina. (2005). Numbers and indefinites. Lingua 115:821–855.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naro, Anthony, & Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira. (2000). Variable concord in Portuguese: The situation in Brazil and Portugal. In McWhorter, J. (ed.), Language change and language contact in pidgins and creoles. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 235–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naro, Anthony, & Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira. (2007). Origens do português brasileiro. São Paulo: Parábola.Google Scholar
Pabón, Iván. (2007). Identidad afro: Procesos de construcción en las comunidades negras de la Cuenca Chota-Mira. Quito: Abya-Yala.Google Scholar
Peñaherrera de Costales, Piedad, & Costales Samaniego, Alfredo. (1959). Coangue o historia cultural y social de los negros del Chota y Salinas. Quito: Llacta.Google Scholar
Pérez-Pereira, Miguel. (1989). The acquisition of morphemes: Some evidence from Spanish. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 18:289–312.Google ScholarPubMed
Poplack, Shana. (1980a). The notion of the plural in Puerto Rican Spanish: Competing constraints on /s/ deletion. In Labov, W. (ed.), Locating language in time and space. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 55–67.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana. (1980b). Deletion and disambiguation in Puerto Rican Spanish. Language 56:371–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodríguez, Lourdes. (1994). Estamos como un puño: Estrategias de reproducción y conflicto en Caldera. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala and Concejo Municipal del Cantón Bolívar, Provincia del Carchi.Google Scholar
Rodríguez, Luis Felipe. (1969). Ciénaga. Miami: Mnemosyne Publishing Inc.Google Scholar
Salvador Plans, Antonio. (1987). Principales características morfosintácticas. In Camarasa, A. V., Viguera, M. A., & Plans, A. S. (eds.), El habla en Extremadura. Cáceres: Editorial Regional de Extremadura, Junta de Extremadura. 39–47.Google Scholar
Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira. (1991). A concordância de número nos predicativos e particípios passivos. In Chaves, F. L. & Tarallo, F. L. (eds.), A Variação no Português do Brasil. Rio Grande do Sul: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Special number of Organon 5(18):52–70.Google Scholar
Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira. (1998a). Sobre a influência de três variáveis relacionadas na concordância nominal em português. In de Oliveira e Silva, G. M. & Scherre, M. M. P. (eds.), Padrões sociolingüisticos: Análise de fenômenos variáveis no português falado na cidade de Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Departamento de Lingüística e Filologia. 85–117.Google Scholar
Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira. (1998b). Sobre a influência de variáveis sociais na concordância nominal. In de Oliveira e Silva, G. M. & Scherre, M. M. P. (eds.), Padrões sociolingüisticos: Análise de fenômenos variáveis no português falado na cidade de Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Departamento de Lingüística e Filologia. 239–264.Google Scholar
Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira. (1998c). Variação da concordância nominal no português do Brasil: Influência das variáveis posição, classe gramatical e marcas precedentes. In Grosse, S. & Zimmermann, K. (eds.), «Substandard» e mudança no português do Brasil. Frankfurt am Main: Teo Ferrer de Mesquita 153–188.Google Scholar
Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira. (2001). Phrase-level parallelism effect on noun phrase number agreement. Language Variation and Change 13:91–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira, & Macedo, Alzira Verthein Tavares de (2000). Restrições fonético-fonológicas e lexicais: O -S pós-vocálico no Rio de Janeiro In Mollica, M. C. and Martelotta, M. E. (eds.), Análises lingüísticas: A contribuição de Alzira Macedo. Rio de Janeiro: Serviço de Publicações—Facultade de Letras,/ Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. 52–64.Google Scholar
Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira, & Naro, Anthony. (1991). Marking in discourse: “Birds of a feather.” Language Variation and Change 3:23–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira, & Naro, Anthony. (1992). The serial effect on internal and external variables. Language Variation and Change 4:1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira, & Naro, Anthony. (1998). Sobre a concordância de número no português falado do Brasil. In Ruffino, G. (ed.), Atti del XXI congresso internazionales di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza, sezione 5: Dialettologia, geolinguistica, sociolinguistica. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. 509–523.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Cristina, & Munn, Alan. (1999). Against the nominal mapping parameter: Bare nouns in Brazilian Portuguese. In Tamanji, P., Hirotani, M., & Hall, N. (eds.), NELS 29, vol. 1, pp. 339–353. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts, Graduate Linguistic Student Association (GLSA).Google Scholar
Schmitt, Cristina, & Munn, Alan. (2002). The syntax and semantics of bare nominals in Brazilian Portuguese. Language Variation Yearbook 2:185–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwegler, Armin. (1994). Black Spanish of highland Ecuador: New data and fuel for controversy about the origin(s) of Caribbean Spanish. Presented at the XXIV Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, University of California Los Angeles and University of Southern California, March 1994.Google Scholar
Schwegler, Armin. (1996). “Chi ma nkongo”: lengua y rito ancestrales en El Palenque de San Basilio (Colombia). Frankfurt: Vervuert. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Schwegler, Armin. (2007). A fresh consensus in the marking: Plural ma and bare nouns in Palenquero. In Mihatsch, W. & Sokol, M. (eds.), Language contact and language change in the Caribbean and beyond/Lenguas en contacto y cambio lingüístico en el Caribe y más allá. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 59–75.Google Scholar
Schwegler, Armin, & Morton, Thomas. (2003). Vernacular Spanish in a microcosm: Kateyano in El Palenque de San Basilio (Colombia). Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana 1:97–159.Google Scholar
Tinhorão, José Ramos. (1988). Os negros em Portugal. Lisbon: Editorial Caminho.Google Scholar
Ulloa Enríquez, Francisco. (1995). Historia y geografía del Cantón Mira. Ibarra: Gráficas H. Available at http://www.franciscoulloa.com/DOCPORTALUTC/historiademira2006.pdf. Accessed February 14, 2010.Google Scholar
Veado, Rosa Maria Assis. (1982). Comportamento lingüístico do dialeto rural-MG. Belo Horizonte: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais/ Programa de Estímulo à Editoração Universitária (UMFG/PROED).Google Scholar