Cover not available
Part of
Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change: Spanish across space and time
Edited by Jeremy King and Sandro Sessarego
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 340] 2018
► pp. 63–81

Chapter 3
Hard come, easy go

Linguistic interfaces in Istanbulite Judeo-Spanish and Afro-Ecuadorian Spanish

This study analyzes patterns in syntax-pragmatics (subject pronoun use) and syntax-morphology (nominal and verbal phi-agreement) interfaces in two unrelated varieties of Spanish, namely Afro-Ecuadorian Spanish (AES) and Istanbulite Judeo-Spanish (IJS). In spite of their geographical distance, the traditional variety of older AES speakers and the contemporary variety of younger IJS informants share similar patterns in the aforementioned features. We account for this parallel by proposing a model of cross-generational contact-induced language transmission that is grounded in current theoretical assumptions on the architecture of the faculty of language, its modularity and the vulnerability of modular interfaces. This model suggests that patterns in both traditional AES and contemporary IJS are actually nativized traces of advanced second-language acquisition (SLA) strategies or early first-language attrition (FLA).

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sociolinguistic similarities between AES and IJS
  • 3.Data collection
  • 4.Shared grammatical features
  • 5.Data analysis
  • 6.The proposal for AES and IJS features
  • 7. Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 13 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.340.04rom
References (84)
Adger, David & Jennifer Smith
2005 “Variation and the Minimalist Program”. Syntax and Variation. Reconciling the Biological and the Social ed. by Leonie Cornips & Karen P. Corrigan, 149–178. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Álvarez, Alexandra & Enrique Obediente
1998 “El español caribeño: Antecedentes sociohistóricos y lingüísticos”. América negra: Panorámica actual de los estudios lingüísticos sobre variedades hispanas, portuguesas y criollas ed. by Matthias Perl & Armin Schwegler, 40–61. Madrid & Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.Google Scholar
Álvarez Nazario, Manuel,
1974 El elemento afronegroide en el español de Puerto Rico, 2nd ed. San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña.Google Scholar
Benbassa, Esther & Aron Rodrigue
2000 Sephardi Jewry: A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th–20th Centuries. Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bruhn de Garavito, Joyce & Lydia White
2000 “L2 Acquisition of Spanish DPs: The Status of Grammatical Features”. Proceedings of the 24th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development ed. by Catherine Howell, Sarah A. Fish & Thea Keith Lucas, 164–175. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
Burkhardt, Petra
2005 The Syntax-Discourse Interface: Representing and Interpreting Dependency. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L.
1985 Morphology: A Study of the Relation between Meaning and Form. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cabrera-Puche, María J.
2008 Null Subject Patterns in Language Contact: The Case of Dominican Spanish. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Cameron, Richard
1996 “A Community-Based Test of a Linguistic Hypothesis”. Language in Society 25.61–111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Lyle & Martha C. Muntzel
1989 “The Structural Consequences of Language Death”. Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death ed. by Nancy C. Dorian, 181–196. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carvalho, Ana M. & Michael Child
2011 “Subject Pronoun Expression in a Variety of Spanish in Contact with Portuguese”. Selected Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics ed. by Jim Michnowicz & Robin Dodsworth, 14–25. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1981 Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
1995 The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
de Granda, Germán
1970 “Un temprano testimonio sobre las hablas ‘criollas’ en África y América”. Thesaurus 25:1.1–11.Google Scholar
de Prada, Ana
2009 Subject Expression in Minorcan Spanish: Consequences of Contact with Catalan. Ph.D. dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Delicado-Cantero, Manuel & Sandro Sessarego
2011 “Variation and Syntax in Number Expression in Afro-Bolivian Spanish”. Proceedings of the 13th Hispanic Linguistic Symposium ed. by Luis A. Ortiz-López, 42–53. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
Domínguez, Laura
2013 Understanding Interfaces. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Enríquez, Emilia
1984 El pronombre personal sujeto en la lengua española hablada en Madrid. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.Google Scholar
Franceschina, Florencia
2002 “Case and φ-Feature Agreement in Advanced L2 Spanish Grammars”. EUROSLA Yearbook ed. by Susan H. Foster-Cohen, Tanja Ruthenberg & Marie Louise Poschen, 71–86. Herndon, Va.: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
2005 Fossilized Second Language Grammars. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guirao, Ramón
1938 Orbita de la poesía afrocubana, 1928–1937 . Havana: Ucar García.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier & Sandro Sessarego
2014 “Morphosyntactic Variation in Three Afro-Andean Dialects: The Evolution of Gender Agreement in DP”. Lingua. 142–161. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hochberg, Judith
1986 “Functional Compensation for /-s/ Deletion in Puerto Rican Spanish”. Language 62.609–621. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray
1997 The Architecture of the Language Faculty. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
2002 Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
1972 Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
1984 “Field Methods of the Project on Linguistic Change and Variation”. Language in Use ed. by John Baugh & Joel Sherzer, 84–112. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Lipski, John
1985 “Creole Spanish and Vestigial Spanish: Evolutionary Parallels”. Linguistics 23.963–984. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1993a “Creoloid Phenomena in the Spanish of Transitional Bilinguals”. Spanish in the United States: Linguistic Contact and Diversity ed. by John Lipski & Ana Roca, 155–182. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1993b “On the Non-Creole Bases of Afro-Caribbean Spanish”. Research Paper Series No. 24. Albuquerque, New Mex.: University of New Mexico.Google Scholar
2005 A History of Afro-Hispanic Language: Five Centuries, Five Continents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Afro-Bolivian Spanish. Madrid & Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.Google Scholar
2016 “On the Tenacity of Andean Spanish: Intra-Community Recycling”. Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis ed. by Sandro Sessarego & Fernando Tejedo 109–134. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martínez-Sanz, Cristina
2011 Null and Overt Subjects in a Variable System: The Case of Dominican Spanish. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Ottawa.Google Scholar
Mayén, Norma
2007 Afro-Hispanic Linguistic Remnants in Mexico: The Case of the Costa Chica Region of Oaxaca. Ph.D. dissertation, Purdue University.Google Scholar
Megenney, William
1993 “Elementos criollo-portugueses en el español dominicano”. Montalbán 15.3–56.Google Scholar
1999 Aspectos del lenguaje afronegroide en Venezuela. Madrid & Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.Google Scholar
Montrul, Silvina
2004 “Subject and Object Expression in Spanish Heritage Speakers: A Case of Morphosyntactic Convergence”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7:2.125–142. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism. Re-examining the Age Factor.. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, Silvina, Rebecca Foote & Silvia Perpiñán
2008 “Gender Agreement in Adult Second Language Learners and Spanish Heritage Speakers: The Effects of Age and Context of Acquisition”. Language Learning 58:3.503–553. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, Silvina, Rejane Dias & Ana Thomé-Williams
2009 “Subject Expression in the Non-Native Acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese”. Minimalist Inquiries into Child and Adult Language Acquisition: Case Studies across Portuguese ed. by Acrisio Pires & Jason Rothman, 301–325. Berlin: Mouton DeGruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Orozco, Rafael & Gregory Guy
2008 “El uso variable de los pronombres sujetos: ¿Qué pasa en la costa caribe colombiana?” Selected Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics ed. by Maurice Westmoreland & Juan Antonio Thomas, 70–80. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
Ortiz-López, Luis
2010 El español y el criollo dominicano. Madrid & Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.Google Scholar
Otheguy, Ricardo, Ana Celia Zentella & David Livert
2007 “Language and Dialect Contact in Spanish in New York: Towards the Formation of a Speech Community”. Language 83:4.770–802. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perl, Matthias & Armin Schwegler
eds. 1998 América negra: Panorámica actual de los estudios lingüísticos sobre variedades hispanas, portuguesas y criollas. Madrid & Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.Google Scholar
Phinney, Marianne
1987 “The Pro-Drop Parameter in Second Language Acquisition”. Parameter Setting ed. by Thomas Roeper & Edwin Williams, 221–238. Dordrecht: Reidel. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya
2006 Interface Strategies: Reference-Set Computation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi
1982 Issues in Italian Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Romaine, Suzanne
1989 “Pidgins, Creoles, Immigrant and Dying Languages”. Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death ed. by Nancy C. Dorian, 369–383. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Romero, Rey
2009 Corpus of Istanbulite Judeo-Spanish speech. Unpublished raw data.
2011 “Mainland vs. Island: A Comparative Morphological Study on Spanish-Turkish Contact”. Selected Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics ed. by Jim Michnowicz & Robin Dodsworth, 50–56. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
2012 Spanish in the Bosphorus: A Sociolinguistic Study on the Judeo-Spanish Dialect Spoken in Istanbul. Istanbul: Libra.Google Scholar
2013 “Palatal East Meets Velar West: Dialect Contact and Phonological Accommodation in Judeo-Spanish”. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 6:2.279–299. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rothman, Jason & Roumyana Slabakova
2011 “The Mind-Context Divide: On Acquisition at the Linguistic interfaces”. Lingua 121.568–576. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sachar, Howard M.
1994 Farewell España: The World of the Sephardim Remembered. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Sagarra, Nura & Julia Herschensohn
2008 “Processing Gender in L2 Spanish”. Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development ed. by Harvey Chan, Heather Jacob & Enkeleida Kapia, 427–437. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
Sagarra, Nuria & Julia Herschensohn
2011 “Asymmetries in Gender and Number Agreement Processing in Late Bilinguals”. Selected Proceedings of the 13th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium ed. by Luis A. Ortiz-López, 169–177. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
Sankoff, David & Suzanne Laberge
1978 “The Linguistic Market and the Statistical Explanation of Variability”. Linguistic Variation: Models and Methods ed. by David Sankoff, 239–250. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Sessarego, Sandro
2011a Introducción al idioma afroboliviano: Una conversación con el Awicho Manuel Barra. Cochabamba & La Paz: Plural Editores.Google Scholar
2011b “On the Status of Afro-Bolivian Spanish Features: Decreolization or Vernacular Universals?” Selected Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics ed. by Jim Michnowicz & Robin Dodsworth, 125–141. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
2012 “Non-Creole Features in the Verb System of Afro-Hispanic Languages: New Insights from SLA Studies”. International Journal of Linguistics 4:1.146–157. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013a Chota Valley Spanish. Madrid & Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.Google Scholar
2013b “Afro-Hispanic Contact Varieties as Conventionalized Advanced Second Languages”. IBERIA 5:1.96–122.Google Scholar
2013c “Enhancing Dialogue between Quantitative Sociolinguistics and Minimalist Syntax”. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 5:2.79–97.Google Scholar
2014a The Afro-Bolivian Spanish Determiner Phrase: A Microparametric Account. Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
2014b “Afro-Peruvian Spanish in the Context of Spanish Creole Genesis”. Spanish in Context 11:3.381–401. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sessarego, Sandro & Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach
2011 “A Minimalist Approach to Gender Agreement in the Afro-Bolivian DP: Variation and the Specification of Uninterpretable Features”. The Diachronic of Gender Marking (Special Issue of Folia Linguistica ) 45:2 ed. by Gunther de Vogelaer & Mark Janse, 465–488.Google Scholar
2012 “Variation, Universals, and Contact-Induced Change: Language Evolution across Generations and Domains”. Current Formal Aspects of Spanish Syntax and Semantics ed. by Melvin González-Rivera, 251–270. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Sessarego, Sandro & Letania Ferreira
2016 “Spanish and Portuguese Parallels: Impoverished Number Agreement as a Vernacular Feature of Two Rural Dialects”. Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis ed. by Sandro Sessarego & Fernando Tejedo, 283–304. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen
1982 “Subject Expression and Placement in Mexican-American Spanish”. Spanish in the United States: Sociolinguistic Aspects ed. by Jon Amastae & Lucía Elías-Olivares, 93–120. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Slabakova, Roumyana
2008 Meaning in the Second Language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 “What is Easy and What is Hard to Acquire in a Second Language?” Proceedings of the 10th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2009) ed. by Melissa Bowles, Tania Ionin, Silvina Montrul & Annie Tremblay, 280–294. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
Sorace, Antonella
2000 “Syntactic Optionality in Non-Native Grammars”. Second Language Research 16.93–102. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 “Near-Nativeness”. The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition ed. by Catherine J. Doughty & Michael H. Long, 130–153. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 “Native Language Attrition and Developmental Instability at the Syntax-Discourse Interface: Data, Interpretations and Methods”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7.143–145. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 “Selective Optionality in Language Development”. Syntax and Variation: Reconciling the Biological and the Social ed. by Leonie Cornips & Karen P. Corrigan, 55–80. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 “Pinning Down the Concept of ‘Interface’ in Bilingualism”. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 1:1.1–33. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sorace, Antonella & Ludovica Serratrice
2009 “Internal and External Interfaces in Bilingual Language Development: Beyond Structural Overlap”. International Journal of Bilingualism 13:2.195–210. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tsimpli, Ianthi & Antonella Sorace
2006 “Differentiating Interfaces: L2 Performance in Syntax-Semantics and Syntax-Discourse Phenomena”. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 30) ed. by David Bamman, Tatiana Magnitskaia & Colleen Zaller, 653–664. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, Ianthi, Antonella Sorace, Caroline Heycock & Francesca Filiaci
2004 “First Language Attrition and Syntactic Subjects: A Study of Greek and Italian Near-Native Speakers of English”. International Journal of Bilingualism 8.257–277. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
White, Lydia
1985 “The Pro-Drop Parameter in Adult Second Language Acquisition”. Language Learning 35:1.257–277. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1986 “Implications of Parametric Variation for Adult Second Language Acquisition: An Investigation of the ‘Pro-Drop’ Parameter”. Experimental Approaches to Second Language Acquisition ed. by Vivian Cook, 55–72. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
2009 “Grammatical Theory: Interfaces and L2 Knowledge”. The New Handbook of Second Language Acquisition ed. by William C. Ritchie & Tej K. Bhatia, 49–68. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group.Google Scholar
White, Lydia, Elena Valenzuela, Martyna Kozlowska–Macgregor & Yan Kit Ingrid Leung
2004 “Gender and Number Agreement in Nonnative Spanish”. Applied Psycholinguistics 25.105–133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by 5 other publications

Visconte, Piero
2024. El español de Loíza en el Debate de los Criollos del Español: Un análisis sociohistórico y lingüístico. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2024:286 ► pp. 113 ff. DOI logo
Arias-Quintero, Irene, Rafael Jiménez-Baralt, Piero Visconte & Sandro Sessarego
2023. El español del Chocó: una lengua afro-hispánica en la frontera española. Forma y Función 36:1 DOI logo
Gabriel, Christoph & Jonas Grünke
2022. Unmarked use of marked syntactic structures. In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 240 ff. DOI logo
Sessarego, Sandro
2020. Chapter 2. Chocó Spanish. In Hispanic Contact Linguistics [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 22], ► pp. 44 ff. DOI logo
Sessarego, Sandro
2021. A socio-historical perspective on the origin and evolution of two Afro-Andean vernaculars. In Spanish Socio-Historical Linguistics [Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 12], ► pp. 164 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 26 june 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.