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In:Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis
Edited by Sandro Sessarego and Fernando Tejedo-Herrero
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 8] 2016
► pp. 285–304

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Spanish and Portuguese parallels

Impoverished number agreement as a vernacular feature of two rural dialects

ORCiD logo with link | University of Texas at Austin
 | Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco
Published online: 25 May 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.8.12ses
This paper investigates variable number agreement phenomena across the Determiner Phrase (DP) of two non-standard varieties of Spanish and Portuguese spoken in Latin America: Afro-Bolivian Spanish (ABS) and Popular Brazilian Portuguese (PBP). In line with recent studies in the field of minimalist syntax (Adger & Smith, 2005; Sessarego, 2014), this article combines sociolinguistic techniques of data collection with generative models of analysis to obtain more fine-grained, empirically testable generalizations. The presence of an impoverished agreement system in these two varieties is studied in light of recent linguistic proposals on the nature of default values (Harley & Ritter, 2002). These findings are generalized to other grammatical constructions, which systematically occur across a number of vernacular dialects.
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Romero, Rey & Sandro Sessarego
2018. Hard come, easy go. In Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 340], ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo
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2016. A response to Perez. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 31:1 ► pp. 200 ff. DOI logo
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2017. Chocó Spanish and the Missing Spanish Creole debate. Language Ecology 1:2 ► pp. 213 ff. DOI logo
Sessarego, Sandro
2019. Language Contact and the Making of an Afro-Hispanic Vernacular, DOI logo
Sessarego, Sandro
2020. Not all grammatical features are robustly transmitted during the emergence of creoles. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 7:1 DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2015. Afro-Peruvian Spanish [Creole Language Library, 51], DOI logo

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