Article published in:
Portuguese-Spanish Interfaces: Diachrony, synchrony, and contactEdited by Patrícia Amaral and Ana Maria Carvalho
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 1] 2014
► pp. 443–464
Variation and change in Latin American Spanish and Portuguese
Gregory R. Guy | New York University
Western hemisphere varieties of Spanish and Portuguese show substantial similarity in the patterning of sociolinguistic variation and change. Caribbean and coastal dialects of Latin American Spanish share several variables with Brazilian Portuguese (e.g., deletion of coda –s, –r). These variables also show similar social distribution in Hispanic and Lusophone communities: formal styles and high status speakers are consonantally conservative, while higher deletion is associated with working class speakers and informal styles. The regions that show these sociolinguistic parallels also share common historical demographic characteristics, notably a significant population of African ancestry and the associated history of extensive contact with African languages into the 19th C. But contemporary changes in progress are also active, further differentiating Latin American language varieties.
Published online: 30 October 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.1.22guy
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.1.22guy
References
References
Alba, O.
(1990) Variación fonética y diversidad social en el español dominicano de Santiago. Santiago, DR: PUCMM.
Bamgbose, A.
(1966) A grammar of Yoruba. Cambridge: CUP.
Barrios, G.
(2008) Etnicidad y lenguaje: La aculturación sociolingüística de los inmigrantes italianos en Montevideo. Montevideo: Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación/ Comisión Sectorial de Investigación Científica de la Universidad de la República.
Cameron, R.
(1993) Ambiguous agreement, functional compensation, and non- specific tú in the Spanish of San Juan, Puerto Rico and Madrid, Spain. Language Variation and Change, 5, 305–334. 
Cedergren, H.
(1973) The interplay of social and linguistic factors in Panama. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Cornell University.
Chatelaine, H.
(1889) Grammatica elementar do Kimbundu. Geneva: Schuchardt.
Curtin, P.C.
(1969) The Atlantic slave trade: A census. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Dillard, J.L.
(1970) Principles in the history of American English: Paradox, virginity, cafeteria. Florida FL Reporter, 7, 32–33.
Donni de Mirande, N.E.
(1992) Sobre el ensordecimiento del žeísmo en Rosario (Argentina). In Vaquero, María & Morales, Amparo (Eds.), Homenaje a Humberto López Morales (pp. 171–183). Madrid: Arco Libros.
Duarte, M.E.L.
(1993) Do pronome nulo ao pronome pleno: A trajetória do sujeito no português do Brasil. In I. Roberts & M. Kato (Eds.), Português brasileiro: Uma viagem diacrônica (pp. 107–128). Campinas: UNICAMP.
(2003) A evolução na representação do sujeito pronominal em dois tempos. In M.C. Paiva & M.E.L. Duarte (Eds.), Mudança lingüística em tempo real (pp. 115–128). Rio de Janeiro: Contra Capa.
Emenanjo, ‘N.
(1976) Elements of modern Igbo grammar. Ibadan: University Press.
Erker, D.
(2012) An acoustically-based sociolinguistic analysis of variable coda /s/ production in the Spanish of New York City. Unpublished PhD. Dissertation. NYU.
Erker, D., & Guy, G.R.
(2012) The role of lexical frequency in syntactic variability: Variable subject personal pronoun expression in Spanish. Language, 88, 526–557.
Ferraz, L.I.
(1979) The creole of São Tomé. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
Ferreira, F.
(2001) Variation in Ibero-Romance: A study of /s/ reduction in Brazilian Portuguese in comparison with Caribbean Spanish. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of New Mexico.
de Friedemann, N.S., & Patiño Roselli, C.
(1983) Lengua y sociedad en El Palenque de San Basílio. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.
Guy, G.R.
(1981) Linguistic variation in Brazilian Portuguese: Aspects of the phonology, syntax, and language history. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania. (Published by University of Sydney).
Guy, G.R., & Zilles, A.M.S.
(2008) Vernacular speech and linguistic standardization in Brazilian Portuguese. In K. King, N. Schilling-Estes,L. Fogle, J. Lou, & B. Soukup (Eds.), Sustaining linguistic diversity: Endangered and minority languages and language varieties (83–102). Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
Hoffman, M.
(2004) Sounding Salvadoran: Phonological variables in the Spanish of Salvadoran youth in Toronto. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Toronto.
Holm, J.A.
(2003) Languages in contact: The partial restructuring of vernaculars. Cambridge: CUP.
(2009) The genesis of the Brazilian vernacular. Papia, 93–122.
Holmquist, J.
(2011) Gender and variation: Word-final /s/ in men’s and women’s speech in Puerto Rico’s western highlands. In M. Diaz-Campos (Ed.), Handbook of Hispanic sociolinguistics (pp. 230–243). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
(2012) Frequency rates and constraints on subject personal pronoun expression: Findings from the Puerto Rican highlands. Language Variation and Change, 24, 203–220.
Klee, C., & Caravedo, R.
(2006) Andean Spanish and the Spanish of Lima: Linguistic variation and change in a contact situation. In C. Mar-Molinero & M. Stewart (Eds), Globalization and language in the Spanish-speaking world (pp. 94–113). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lipski, J.
(1994) Latin American Spanish. London: Longman
(2005) A history of Afro-Hispanic language: Five centuries, five continents. Cambridge: CUP.
(2008) Afro-Bolivian Spanish. Frankfurt: Vervuert & Madrid: Iberoamericana.
López Morales, H.
(1983) Estratificación del español de San Juan de Puerto Rico. México, DF: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Lucchesi, D., Baxter, A., & Ribeirom I.
(2009) O Português Afro-Brasileiro. Salvador: EDUFBA
Mason, K.
(1994) Comerse las eses: A selective bibliographic survey of /s/ aspiration and deletion in dialects of Spanish. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Michigan.
Mendes, R.B., & Oushiro, L.
(2012) O paulistano no mapa sociolinguístico brasileiro. Alfa, 56(3), 973–1001.
Naro, A., & Scherre, M.
(2003) Estabilidade e mudança lingüística em tempo real: A concordância de número. In M.C. Paiva & M.E.L. Duarte (Eds.), Mudança lingüística em tempo (pp. 47–62). Rio de Janeiro: Contra Capa Livraria.
(2007) Origens do português brasileiro. São Paulo: Parábola.
(2013) Remodeling the age variable: Number concord in Brazilian Portuguese. Language Variation and Change, 25,1–16.
Ortiz Lopez, L.
(1998) Huellas etno-sociolingüísticas bozales y afrocubanas. Madrid: Iberoamericana.
Otheguy, R., & Zentella, A.C.
(2012) Spanish in New York: Language contact, dialect leveling, and structural continuity. Oxford: OUP.
Oushiro, L., & Mendes, R.B.
(2013) A pronúncia do /r/ em coda silábica no português paulistano. Revista do GEL, 8(2), 66–95.
Oushiro, L.
(To appear) Identidade na pluralidade: Produção e percepção linguística na cidade de São Paulo. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Universidade de São Paulo.
Poplack, S.
(1979) Function and process in a variable phonology. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania.
(1980) Deletion and disambiguation in Puerto Rican Spanish. Language, 56, 371–86.
(1982) Mortal phonemes as plural morphemes. In D. Sankoff & H. Cedergren, Variation Omnibus, 59–71, Edmonton.
(1984) Variable concord and sentential plural marking in Puerto Rican Spanish. Hispanic Review, 52, 205–222.
Reimann, C.A., & Coutinho Yacovenco, L.
(2011) A dupla negação no português falado em Vitória, ES: Traço da identidade linguística capixaba? Anais do Congresso Nacional de Estudos Linguísticos 1(1). Retreived from <www.periodicos.ufes.br/conel/issue/view/176>
Rohena-Madrazo, M.
(2011) Sociophonetic variation in production and perception of obstruent voicing in Buenos Aires Spanish. Ph.D. Dissertation. New York University.
Roncarati, C.
(1996) A negação no português falado. In A.T. Macedo, C. Roncarati, & M.C. Mollica (Eds.), Variação e discurso (pp. 65–102). Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro.
Roveda, S.D.
(1997) Elevação da vogal média átona final em comunidades bilíngües: português e italiano. M. A. Dissertation. PUCRS, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Samper Padilla, J.A.
(2011) Sociophonological variation and change in Spain. In M. Diaz-Campos (Ed.), Handbook of Hispanic sociolinguistics (pp. 99–120). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Sanchez, T.
(2005) Constraints on structural borrowing in a multilingual contact situation. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania.
Schwegler, A.
(1991a) El español del Chocó. América Negra, 2, 85–119.
(1991b) Negation in Palenquero: Synchrony. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 6,165–214.
(2002) On the (African) origins of Palenquero subject pronouns. Diachronica, 19, 273–332.
Tarallo, F.
(1983) Relativization strategies in Brazilian Portuguese. PhD Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania.
Terrell, T.D.
(1979) Final /s/ in Cuban Spanish. Hispania, 62(4), 599–612.
Whinnom, K.
(1971) Linguistic hybridization and the ‘special case’ of pidgins and creoles. In D. Hymes (Ed.), Pidginization and creolization of languages (pp. 91–115). London: CUP.
Wikipedia, retrieved Nov
Zamora Munné, J.C., & Guitart, J.M.
(1982) Dialectología hispanoamericana. Madrid: Almar.
Zilles, A.M.S.
(2005) The development of a new pronoun: The linguistic and social embedding of ‘a gente’ in Brazilian Portuguese. Language Variation and Change, 17, 19–53.