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Article published In:
Spanish in Context
Vol. 14:1 (2017) ► pp.124–143

Unpacking the variable context of quotatives

Evidence from U.S. Southwest Spanish

| University of Arizona

The present study analyzes the use of quotatives in Spanish among twenty-four Spanish-English bilinguals from Southern Arizona and assesses the possible influence of English contact in their use. Cameron (1998) defines the envelope of variation of quotatives in Spanish as verbs of direct report, bare-noun phrases, and null quotatives. This study identifies a fourth strategy of quotative discourse markers. A detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of the linguistic conditioning of these four strategies of direct quotation according to content of the quote and grammatical person points to the fact that quotative discourse markers appear to be conditioned differently than the other three strategies, but contact with English does not play a decisive role in their use. These results contribute to our knowledge of Spanish in the United States and variation in quotative systems by expanding on Cameron’s (1998) study to explore the quotative system of the Spanish of the U.S. Southwest and adding an analysis of quotative discourse markers.

Keywords: quotatives, Spanish, Spanish-English bilinguals
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Direct discourse and strategies of direct quotation
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Circumscribing the variable context
    • 4.1Verbs of direct report
    • 4.2Bare-noun phrases
    • 4.3Null quotatives
    • 4.4Quotative discourse markers
  • 5.Quantitative analysis
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 4 May 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.14.1.06ker
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Kern, Joseph
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