[-Person] direct object drop : The genetic cause of a syntactic feature in Paraguayan Spanish

Omission of impersonal direct object has been observed in Spanish spoken in Paraguay. This linguistic phenomenon has been previously analyzed as a result of direct transfer from a similar syntactic feature of Guarani, the language with which Spanish has coexisted for more than four centuries in Para...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Hispania 2000-09, Vol.83 (3), p.531-543
Main Author: CHOI, Jinny K
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Languages in contact
Linguistics
Sociolinguistics and ethnolinguistics
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Omission of impersonal direct object has been observed in Spanish spoken in Paraguay. This linguistic phenomenon has been previously analyzed as a result of direct transfer from a similar syntactic feature of Guarani, the language with which Spanish has coexisted for more than four centuries in Paraguay. Nevertheless, the data collected indicated that the omission of [-person] direct object clitics is present in the speech of all socio-educational classes, among both bilinguals & monolingual Spanish speakers. Additionally, the occurrence of the same phenomenon in other regional varieties of Spanish, as well as another Romance language & its dialect, proves that the external explanation, namely Guarani substratum theory, cannot be the only genetic cause behind the origin of this phenomenon. 7 Tables, 1 Figure, 90 References. Adapted from the source document
ISSN:0018-2133
2153-6414
DOI:10.2307/346046