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In:Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change: Spanish across space and time
Edited by Jeremy King and Sandro Sessarego
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 340] 2018
► pp. 249–277

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Chapter 11
El futuro es perifrástico

Future tense expression in a bilingual U.S. Mexican community

Published online: 13 March 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.340.12kyz
Abstract
In this study of the expression of futurity in the Spanish of Mexicans residing in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, metropolitan area, I explore the distribution of the variants of futurity – the morphological future (MF), the periphrastic future (PF) and the simple present (SP) – and the constraints conditioning their occurrence. The results indicate that the PF registers the highest rate of occurrence with a frequency of 72.0% to the detriment of the MF. In comparison with other studies (cf. Gutiérrez 1995; Orozco 2007a), the PF is the most favored variant at the expense of the others. The type of verb, as reported in previous studies (cf. Orozco 2005, 2007a), is the linguistic constraint that most strongly influences the expression of futurity. Regarding social constraints, level of education conditions the use of the future. The lack of statistical significance for gender suggests that women and men have similar sociolinguistic behaviors. This opens the possibility of exploring other linguistic variables in other bilingual Mexican communities to determine whether the social trends that are found are limited to the expression of futurity or to the communities under study.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1The history of Spanish in Louisiana
    • 1.2The Mexican community in the United States
    • 1.3The expression of futurity
  • 2.Previous studies
    • 2.1The expression of futurity in monolingual communities
    • 2.2Expression of futurity in bilingual communities
    • 2.3Language contact
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Research questions
    • 3.2 Geographic context: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
    • 3.3Participants
    • 3.4Constraints analyzed
  • 4. Results and discussion
    • 4.1Distribution of the variants
    • 4.2Distribution of the variants according to the speaker
    • 4.3Significant linguistic constraints
    • 4.4Significant social constraints
    • 4.5The linguistic innovators
  • 5. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
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