Cover not available
Part of
Contemporary Trends in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics: Selected papers from the Hispanic Linguistic Symposium 2015
Edited by Jonathan E. MacDonald
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 15] 2018
► pp. 49–70

Chapter 3
Variable clitic placement in US Spanish

 | University of Georgia
This study examines clitic placement (CP) among US Spanish-speakers using data from two corpora: Corpus del Español en el Sur de Arizona (Carvalho, 2012–) and a corpus of interviews conducted in Roswell, Georgia (Wilson, 2013). Clitics were analyzed and coded for linguistic and social variables (e.g. specific construction, age of arrival). Results indicate an overall proclisis rate of 67%, which is similar to the rate reported for speakers in Mexico City (e.g. Davies, 1995). A subsequent multivariate analysis reveals that CP is significantly influenced by the specific construction used, the non-finite verb form, and the speakers’ age of arrival. This analysis lends support to the argument for the impermeability of CP to contact-induced change in Spanish (Silva-Corvalán & Gutiérrez, 1995).
Keywords: clitics, US Spanish, language contact, morphosyntactic variation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Variable CP in Spanish
    • 2.1Clitic rates and conditioning factors
    • 2.2Linguistic factors
      • 2.2.1Reflexivity
      • 2.2.2Non-finite verb
      • 2.2.3Finite verb and construction
      • 2.2.4Frequency
    • 2.3Social factors
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1The data
    • 3.2Analysis
    • 3.3Coding
      • 3.3.1Reflexivity
      • 3.3.2Non-finite verb form
      • 3.3.3Construction
      • 3.3.4Frequency
      • 3.3.5Social variables
    • 3.4Predictions
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Clitic rates
    • 4.2Conditioning factors of CP
      • 4.2.1Non-finite verb form
      • 4.2.2Construction
      • 4.2.3AOA
      • 4.2.4Comparing constraints between the two varieties
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 February 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.15.04lim
References (20)
References
Bybee, J. (2010). Language, usage, and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carvalho, A. M. (2012-). Corpus del Español en el Sur de Arizona (CESA). University of Arizona. Retrieved from <[URL]>
Davies, M. (1995). Analyzing syntactic variation with computer-based corpora: The case of modern Spanish clitic climbing. Hispania, 78, 370–380. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1998). The evolution of Spanish clitic climbing: A corpus-based approach. Studia Neophilologica, 69, 251–263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gudmestad, A. (2006). Clitic climbing in Caracas Spanish: A sociolinguistic study of ir and querer . IULC Working Papers Online, 06–03.Google Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, D. E. (2009). Getting off the GoldVarb standard: Introducing Rbrul for mixed-effects variable rule analysis. Language and Linguistics Compass, 3(1), 359–383. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lope Blanch, J. M. (Ed.). (1971). El habla de la ciudad de México: materiales para su estudio. Mexico City: UNAM.Google Scholar
(Ed.). (1976). El habla popular de México: Materiales para su estudio. Mexico City: UNAM.Google Scholar
Martín Butragueño, P., & Lastra, Y. (Eds.). (2012). Corpus sociolingüístico de la ciudad de México. Vol. II: Nivel medio. México: El Colegio de México.Google Scholar
Myhill, J. (1988). The grammaticalization of auxiliaries: Spanish clitic climbing. BLS, 14, 352–363. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Otheguy, R., Zentella, A. C., & Livert, D. (2007). Language and dialect contact in Spanish in New York: Toward the formation of a speech community. Language, 83, 770–802. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schwenter, S. A., & Torres Cacoullos, R. (2014a). Competing constraints on the variable placement of direct object clitics in Mexico City Spanish. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada, 27(2), 514–536. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014b). Variability in Spanish clitic placement: Animacy and topicality. Paper presented at the 7th International Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (WSS7), University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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). San Francisco, CA: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, S. A. (2012). Variationist sociolinguistics: Change, observation, interpretation. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Torres Cacoullos, R. (1999). Construction frequency and reductive change: Diachronic and register variation in Spanish clitic climbing. Language Variation and Change, 14, 143–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Torres Cacoullos, R., & Schwenter, S. A. (2009). Variation in Spanish clitic placement: Constructional and pragmatic effects. Paper presented at the 39th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL 39), University of Arizona.
Veltman, C. (2000). The American linguistic mosaic: Understanding language shift in the United States. In S. McKay, & S. C. Wong (Eds.), New immigrants in the United States (pp. 58–95). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, A. (2013). Stories of Roswell, Georgia: A sociolinguistic study of narrative structure. Unpublished Undergraduate honors thesis. University of Georgia, Athens, GA.Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Limerick, Philip P.
2022. New considerations for variable clitic placement in Spanish. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics 35:2 ► pp. 650 ff. DOI logo
Viner, Kevin Martillo
2021. Generational differences in the placement of clitic se in New York City Spanish. International Journal of Bilingualism 25:5 ► pp. 1460 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 july 2024. 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.