Cover not available
Part of
Variation and Evolution: Aspects of language contact and contrast across the Spanish-speaking world
Edited by Sandro Sessarego, Juan J. Colomina-Almiñana and Adrián Rodríguez-Riccelli
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 29] 2020
► pp. 33–54

Chapter 2
Mood selection in a contact variety

The case of Yucatec Spanish

| New Mexico State University

Researchers have noted unique qualities of Yucatec Spanish with regard to phonetics, syntax, and pragmatics (Bove, 2019; Hoot, 2016; Michnowicz, 2009, 2012; Solomon, 1996, 1999). The objective of this study is twofold: to describe mood in Yucatec Spanish and to identify how bilingual and monolingual speakers’ mood selection differs. Results indicate that volitional predicates categorically license subjunctive while alternation exists under emotive and epistemic predicates. This alternation highlights statistically significant differences between monolingual and bilingual speakers of Yucatec Spanish (p = 0.01 and 0.04 respectively). Emotive predicates pattern with previous accounts of Mexican Spanish (e.g., Lope Blanch, 1989), but unanticipated subjunctive selection in epistemic assertions, interrogatives, and statements with past temporal reference highlight a difference between monolingual and bilingual participants.

Keywords: Yucatec Spanish, mood selection, language contact
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous semantic accounts of mood in Spanish
    • 2.1Mood selection in contact varieties
    • 2.2Yucatec Spanish
    • 2.3Yucatec Maya and the subjunctive
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Forced choice task
    • 3.3Task design
    • 3.4Participants
    • 3.5Data analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Volitional predicates
    • 4.2Emotive predicates
    • 4.3Epistemic predicates
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 11 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.29.02bov
References
Barnes, H.
(2009) A sociolinguistic study of sustained Veneto-Spanish bilingualism in Chipilo, Mexico (Upublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA.Google Scholar
Bell, A.
(1980) Mood in Spanish: A discussion of some recent proposals. Hispania, 63, 377–390. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bohnemeyer, J.
(2012, May). In the mood for status: Subjunctive and irrealis in Yucatec. Paper presented at SULA 7: The semantics of under-represented languages in the Americas. Cornell, NY: Cornell University. [URL]> (13 March 2020).
Bookhammer, K.
(2013) The variable grammar of the Spanish subjunctive in second- generation bilinguals in New York City (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The City University of New York, NY.Google Scholar
Bosque, I., & Demonte, V.
(1999) Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española (Vol. 2). Madrid: Espasa.Google Scholar
Bove, K.
(2019) Pragmatic mood variation in bilingual and monolingual Yucatec Spanish. (Unpublished manuscript).Google Scholar
Buchstaller, I., & Khattab, G.
(2013) Population samples. In D. Sharma & R. Podesva (Eds.), Research methods in linguistics (pp. 44–95). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bull, W.
(1960) Time, tense and the verb: A study in theoretical and applied linguistics with particular attention to Spanish. Berkeley, CA: University of California Publications in Linguistics.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. L.
(2013) Usage-based theory and exemplar representation. In T. Hoffman & G. Trousdale (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of construction grammar (pp. 49–69). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Elizaincín, A.
(2004) Las fronteras del español con el portugués en América. Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana, 4, 105–118.Google Scholar
Fernández Ulloa, T.
(1996) Particularidades del castellano del País Vasco. Revista de Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada, 34, 95–120.Google Scholar
Gallego, M., & Marks, E. A.
(2014) Subjunctive use variation among monolingual native speakers of Spanish: A cross-dialect analysis. Spanish in Context, 11(3), 357–80. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
García, C.
(2011) Distinguishing two “synonyms”: A variationist analysis of quizá and quizás in six Spanish dialects. In J. Michnowicz & R. Dodsworth (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (pp. 103–12). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Garcia, M. E., & Terrell, T.
(1977) Is the use of mood in Spanish subject to variable constraints? In M. Hagiwara (Ed.), Studies in Romance linguistics (pp. 214–226). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Gielau, Elizabeth
2015 Mood distribution and the CP domain of subjunctive clauses in Spanish. Iowa City: University of Iowa Dissertation. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gielau, E.
(2016) On the mistaken identity of negated epistemics. In A. Cuza, L. Czerwionka & D. J. Olson (Eds.), Inquiries in Hispanic linguistics (pp. 112–130). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gili y Gaya, S.
(1969) Curso superior de sintaxis española. Barcelona: Bibliograf.Google Scholar
González Salinas, A.
(2003) The use of present subjunctive and modal variation in three socioeducational groups from Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico: A descriptive and comparative linguistic analysis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). State University of New York, Albany, NY.Google Scholar
Granda, G. de.
(1979) Calcos sintácticos del guaraní en el español de Paraguay. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 28, 267–286. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haverkate, H.
(2002) The syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of Spanish mood. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoot, B.
(2016) Narrow presentational focus in Mexican Spanish: Experimental evidence. Probus, 28(2), 335–365. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kempchinsky, P.
(2009) What can the subjunctive disjoint reference effect tell us about the subjunctive? Lingua, 119(12), 1788–1810. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klee, Carol. A.
(2009) Migration and globalization: Their effects on contact varieties of Latin American Spanish. En M. &. Lacorte (Ed.), Español en los Estados Unidos y en otros contextos (págs. 39–66). Madrid: Verbuert: Iberoamericana. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lipski, J. M.
(1991) In search of the Spanish personal infinitive. In D. Wanner & D. Kibbee (Eds.), New analyses in Romance linguistics: Selected papers from the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages XVIII (pp. 201–220). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lope Blanch, J.
(1989) Estudios de lingüística hispanoamericana. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
Lope Blanch, J.
(1991) Sobre el uso del pretérito en el español hablado en México. Estudios sobre el español de México. Comp. Juan Lope Blanch. Mexico: UNAM, 131–43.Google Scholar
Lunn, P. V.
(1989) Spanish mood and the prototype of assertability. Linguistics, 27, 687–702. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1995) The evaluative function of the Spanish subjunctive. In J. Bybee & S. Fleischman (Eds.), Modality in grammar and discourse (pp. 419–49). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lynch, A.
(1999) The subjunctive in Miami Cuban Spanish: Bilingualism, contact, and language variability (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Minnesota, MN.Google Scholar
Michnowicz, J.
(2009) Intervocalic voiced stops in Yucatán Spanish: A case of contact induced language change? In M. Lacorte & J. Leeman (Eds.), Español en Estados Unidos y en otros contextos de contacto: Sociolingüística, ideología y pedagogía (pp. 67–84). Madrid: Iberoamericana. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011) Dialect standardization in Merida, Yucatán: The case of (b d g). Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana, 18, 191–212.Google Scholar
(2012) The standardization of Yucatán Spanish: Family case studies in Izamal and Mérida. In K. Geeslin & M. Díaz-Campos (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 102–115). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
(2015) Maya-Spanish contact in Yucatán, Mexico: Context and sociolinguistic implications. In S. Sessarego & M. González Rivera (Eds.), New perspectives on Hispanic contact linguistics in the Americas (pp. 21–42). Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quer, Josep
1998 Mood at the interface. Utrecht, Netherlands: Universiteit Utrecht dissertation.Google Scholar
Rivero, M.
(1971) Mood and presupposition in Spanish. Foundations of Language, 7(3), 305–336.Google Scholar
Schütze, Carson T., and Jon Sprouse
2013 Judgement data. Research methods in linguistics, ed. by Devyana Sharma and Robert Podesva. New York: Cambridge University Press, 27–50.Google Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, C.
(1994) Language contact and change: Spanish in Los Angeles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Solomon, J.
(1996) Subject expression in Yucatec Spanish: Accounting for similarities and differences in a contact variety. Paper presented at NWAV XXV , Las Vegas, NV.
(1999) Phonological and syntactic variation in the Spanish of Valladolid, Yucatán (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Stanford University, CA.Google Scholar
Stowell, T.
(1993) Syntax of tense (Unpublished manuscript). University of California, Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar
Studerus, Lenard
1995 Mood variability in border Spanish. Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe 20, 99–113.Google Scholar
Suñer, M.
(1986) Lexical subjects of infinitives in Caribbean Spanish. In O. Jaeggli & C. Silva-Corvalán (Eds.), Studies in Romance linguistics (pp. 189–204). Dordrecht: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Terrell, T., & Hooper, J.
(1974) A semantically based analysis of mood in Spanish. Hispania, 57, 484–494. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Torres, Lourdes
1989 Mood selection among New York Puerto Ricans. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 79, 67–77. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Waltermire, M.
(2014) The social conditioning of mood variation in the Spanish of Albuquerque, New Mexico. In M. Waltermire (Ed.), The Influence of English on U.S. Spanish, Issue 8(1) of Sociolinguistic Studies (pp. 111–137). London: Equinox. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017) Mood variation after expressions of uncertainty in Spanish. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 10(2), 349–372. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Bove, Kathryn P.
2020. Mood selection in Yucatec Spanish: Veridicality as the trigger. Lingua 241 ► pp. 102858 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 june 2023. 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.