In:Continuity and Change in Grammar
Edited by Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts and David Willis
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 159] 2010
► pp. 97–118
On language contact as an inhibitor of language change
The Spanish of Catalan bilinguals in Majorca
Published online: 29 July 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.159.05enr
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.159.05enr
This study explores the role of language contact as an inhibitor of language change through the historical analysis of several features that are characteristic of the Spanish in contact with Catalan in the island of Majorca. The analysis reveals that (i) these features are attested in Majorcan Spanish at least since the 1700s and (ii) they had some sort of existence in monolingual varieties of Spanish at the time when the language was introduced to the island. The historical data suggest that these features of Majorcan Spanish are not, as traditionally believed, contact-driven innovations, but the result of the preservation of structures that are recessive in monolingual Spanish but in Majorca have been reinforced by the existence of a parallel Catalan structure.
Cited by (18)
Cited by 18 other publications
Amengual, Mark & Maria Assumpció Rost Bagudanch
Enrique-Arias, Andrés & Marina Gomila Albal
2023. Testing Twitter data on a morphosyntactic variable. In Corpus Dialectology [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 110], ► pp. 176 ff.
Miguel Franco, Ruth & David Sánchez
2023. Análisis estadístico del contacto entre lenguas: El caso de las grafías 〈b〉 y 〈v〉 en la documentación en castellano de Mallorca (siglo XVIII). Spanish in Context 20:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Garachana Camarero, Mar, Sandra Montserrat Buendia & Claus D. Pusch
2022. From verbal periphrases to complex predicates. In From Verbal Periphrases to Complex Predicates [IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature, 31], ► pp. 1 ff.
Silva-Domínguez, Carme
Enrique-Arias, Andrés
2021.
Vamos en Palma ‘we are going to Palma’. In Spanish Socio-Historical Linguistics [Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 12], ► pp. 185 ff.
Enrique‐Arias, Andrés
Bagudanch, Assumpció Rost
Rost Bagudanch, Assumpció
Enrique-Arias, Andrés & Beatriz Méndez Guerrero
2020. On the effects of Catalan contact in the variable expression of
Spanish future tense. In Hispanic Contact Linguistics [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 22], ► pp. 315 ff.
Jiménez-Gaspar, Amelia, Acrisio Pires & Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes
Jiménez-Gaspar, Amelia, Acrisio Pires & Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes
2020. Transfer and convergence between Catalan and Spanish in a
bilingual setting. In Hispanic Contact Linguistics [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 22], ► pp. 179 ff.
Kanwit, Matthew & Silvia Pisabarro Sarrió
Kanwit, Matthew & Virginia Terán
2020. Proposing a tripartite intensifier system. In Current Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 27], ► pp. 253 ff.
Khan, Geoffrey
2020. Contact and change in Neo-Aramaic dialects. In Historical Linguistics 2017 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 350], ► pp. 387 ff.
Bouzouita, Miriam, Anne Breitbarth, Lieven Danckaert & Melissa Farasyn
2019. The determinants of diachronic stability. In The determinants of diachronic stability [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 254], ► pp. 1 ff.
McKinnon, Sean
2018. An initial examination of imperfect subjunctive variation in Catalonian Spanish. In Contemporary Trends in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 15], ► pp. 333 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.