Chapter published in:
Syntactic Geolectal Variation: Traditional approaches, current challenges and new tools
Edited by Alba Cerrudo, Ángel J. Gallego and Francesc Roca Urgell
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 34] 2021
► pp. 225–262

Chapter 8
Gerund structures in Ecuadorian Spanish

| Universitat de Girona
| Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
| Escuela Oficial de Idiomas

In this chapter we study non-prototypical values of gerunds in Ecuadorian and Andean Spanish. Apart from the standard aspectual simultaneity reading, gerunds in Andean Spanish encode an anteriority reading that has been associated to contact with Quechua. The chapter focuses on this value and claims that there are two patterns of gerund verbal complexes that exhibit it: an embedding and a periphrastic one. We provide a syntactic analysis to account for both and we draw the connection between Ecuadorian gerunds and converbs in Quechua. Finally, we offer relevant diachronic evidence that the aspectual values of Andean gerunds are also attested in the history of Spanish, which supports our explanation in terms of contact-induced linguistic change.

Keywords: Andean Spanish gerunds, syntax, synchronic and diachronic variation, linguistic change
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodology
    • 2.1Surveys
    • 2.2Corpora analysis
  • 3.Two patterns of gerunds of anteriority
    • 3.1Adverbial gerunds
    • 3.2Pseudo-periphrases
  • 4.Towards an analysis of Ecuadorian gerunds
    • 4.1Adverbial gerunds
    • 4.2Pseudo-periphrases
  • 5.Converbs in Quechua and their Spanish equivalents
    • 5.1Morphemes of simultaneity/progressive tense
    • 5.2Morphemes of adverbial subordination
  • 6.Gerunds in Old Spanish and their interaction with Quechua structures that express anteriority
    • 6.1General overview of the diachronic evolution and the linguistic change
    • 6.2Diachronic evolution of Spanish adverbial gerund constructions
  • 7.Linguistic contact, transfer, second language acquisition, and convergence
    • Contact-induced change
    • Functional convergence hypothesis
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations in glosses
  • References
  • Sources
Published online: 26 November 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.34.08bat
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