In:Spanish Sociolinguistics in the 21st Century: Current trends and methodologies
Edited by Cecilia Montes-Alcalá and Miguel García
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 42] 2025
► pp. 92–110
Chapter 4Clitic placement in New York City Spanish
Published online: 15 May 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.42.04vin
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.42.04vin
Abstract
This variationist-sociolinguistic study analyzes
the clitic position of all Spanish clitics (me, te, se, nos,
lo, los, la, las, le, les) in the spoken Spanish of 52
New York City (NYC) participants. We address the following question:
what, if any, external and internal variables influence clitic
placement in this cohort of NYC Spanish speakers? A multiple linear
regression revealed that, of the eight external variables identified
for this study (generation, national origin, region, age, sex,
socioeconomic status (SES), Spanish skill, English skill), only SES
influenced clitic placement: participants with a lower SES employed
proclisis (e.g., te voy a llamar ‘I’m
going to call you’) significantly more (79%) than did participants
with a higher SES (70%). Regarding conditioning linguistic factors,
of nine internal variables (clause type, tense, person, number,
pronominality, grammatical mood, negation, clitic type, finite
verb), four reached statistical significance for proclisis. A
logistic regression ranked them thusly: pronominality, specifically
non-reflexivity; person (2nd > 1st > 3rd); clitic type
(me, te, nos > se >
lo/s, la/s, le/s); and clause type (gerund >
infinitive). In its broadest sense, this study contributes to
research surrounding languages in contact and subordinate languages.
Its narrower implications involve the study of Spanish in the U.S.
as both an immigrant and heritage language.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Previous research
- 1.2The corpus
- 1.3The participants
- 2.Methodology
- 3.Findings and discussion
- 3.1Descriptive results
- 3.2External variables
- 3.3Linear regression
- 3.4Internal variables
- 3.5Logistic regression
- 4.Conclusion
Notes References
References (31)
Bookhamer, K. M. (2013). The
Variable Grammar of the Spanish Subjunctive in Second-
Generation Bilinguals in New York
City. [Doctoral
dissertation, The City University of New York].
Darwich, B. (2007). Los
clíticos lo, la, los y las
en situación de contacto: datos sobre el español en Nueva
York. LLJournal, 2(2).
Davies, M. (1995). Analyzing
syntactic variation with computer-based corpora: e case of
modern Spanish clitic
climbing. Hispania, 78, 370–380.
Erker, D., & Otheguy, R. (2016). Contact
and coherence: Dialectal leveling and structural convergence
in NYC
Spanish. Lingua, 172–173, 131–146.
Giles, H., & Ogay, T. (2006). Communication
accommodation
theory. In B. B. Whaley & W. Samter (Eds.), Explaining
communication: Contemporary theories and
exemplars (pp. 293–310). Routledge.
Gudmestad, A. (2006). Clitic
climbing in Caracas Spanish: A sociolinguistic study of
ir and
querer. IULC
Working Papers
Online, 06–03.
Gutiérrez, M. J. (2008). Restringiendo
la subida de clíticos: Reflexividad, modalidad verbal y
contacto lingüístico en el español de
Houston. Hispanic Research
Journal, 9(4), 299–313.
Lantolf, J. (1978). The
variable constraints on mood in Puerto Rican-American
Spanish. In M. Suñer (Ed.), Contemporary
Studies in Romance
Linguistics (pp. 193–217). Georgetown University Press.
Limerick, P. (2018). Variable
clitic placement in US
Spanish. In J. MacDonald (Ed.), Contemporary
Trends in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics: Selected
papers from the Hispanic Linguistic Symposium
2015 (pp. 49–70). John Benjamins.
(2022). New considerations for variable clitic placement in Spanish: Findings from Atlanta, Georgia. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada, 35(2), 650-674.
Lynch, A. (1999). The
subjunctive in Miami Cuban Spanish: Bilingualism, contact,
and language
variability. [Doctoral
dissertation, University of Minnesota].
Montrul, S. (2009). Knowledge
of tense-aspect and mood in Spanish heritage
speakers. International
Journal of
Bilingualism 13(2), 239–69.
Myhill, J. (1988). Variation
in Spanish clitic
climbing. Georgetown
University Round Table on Language and
Linguistics, 227–250.
Otheguy, R., & Zentella, A. C. (2012). Spanish
in New York: Language contact, dialectal leveling and
structural
continuity. Oxford University Press.
Peace, M.M. (2012). ¿Lo puedo subir o puedo subirlo? La subida del clítico en el español del oeste de Massachusetts. International Journal Lasso, 31(1), 131-160.
Requena, P. E. (2015). Direct
object clitic placement preferences in Argentine child
Spanish. [Doctoral
dissertation, State College: Pennsylvania State University].
Requena, P. E., & Miller, K. (2014). Constraining
Spanish clitic placement variation: Evidence from child
language. Paper presented at
the Hispanic Linguistic
Symposium 2014, Purdue
University. West Lafayette,
Indiana.
Schwenter, S. A., & Torres Cacoullos, R. (2014). Competing
constraints on the variable placement of direct object
clitics in Mexico City
Spanish. Revista Española de
Lingüística
Aplicada, 27(2), 514–536.
Shin, N. L., & Erker, D. (2015). The
emergence of structured variability in morphosyntax:
childhood acquisition of Spanish subject
pronouns. In A. Carvalho, R. Orozco, & N. L. Shin (Eds.), Subject
pronoun expression in Spanish: a cross-dialectal
perspective (pp. 169–190). Georgetown University Press.
Shin, N. L. & Otheguy, O. (2013). Social
class and gender impacting change in bilingual settings:
Spanish subject pronoun use in New
York. Language in
Society, 42, 429–452.
Shin, N. L., Requena, P. E., & Kemp, A. (2017). Bilingual
and Monolingual Children’s Patterns of Syntactic Variation:
Variable Clitic Placement in
Spanish. In A. Benavides & R. Schwartz (Eds.), Language
Development and Disorders in Spanish-speaking Children.
Literacy
Studies (pp. 63–88). Springer International Publishing/Springer Nature.
Shin, N. L., Rodriguez, B., Armijo, A., & Perara-Lunde, M. (2019). Child
heritage speakers’ production and comprehension of direct
object clitic gender in
Spanish. Linguistic
Approaches to
Bilingualism, 9, 659–686.
Silva-Corvalán, C., & Gutiérrez, M. J. (1995). On
transfer and simplification: Verbal clitics in
Mexican-American
Spanish. In P. Hashemipour, R. Maldonado, & M. van Naerssen (Eds.), Studies
in language learning and Spanish linguistics in honor of
Tracy D.
Terrell (pp. 302–312). McGraw-Hill.
Torres Cacoullos, R. (1999). Construction
frequency and reductive change: Diachronic and register
variation in Spanish clitic
climbing. Language Variation
and
Change, 14, 143–170.
Viner, K. M. (2021). Generational
Differences in the Placement of Clitic se
in New York City
Spanish. International
Journal of
Bilingualism, 25(5), 1460–1472.
(2020). Comment
Clauses and Mood Choice in New York City Spanish:
Generational Constraints and
Innovations. Linguistic
Approaches to
Bilingualism, 10(5), 728–744.
(2018). The
Optional Spanish Subjunctive Mood Grammar of New York City
Heritage
Bilinguals. Lingua, 210–211, 79–94.
(2017). Subjunctive
Use in the Speech of New York City Spanish Heritage Language
Bilinguals: A Variationist
Analysis. Heritage Language
Journal, 14(3), 307–333.
(2016). Second-Generation
NYC Bilinguals’ Use of the Spanish Subjunctive in Obligatory
Contexts. Spanish in
Context, 13(3), 343–370.