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Word order in wh-interrogatives. A contrastive analysis of caribbean Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

© 2018 Vervuert Verlag. All Rights Reserved. It is well known that Caribbean Spanish (EC) frequently places the subject (S) between the interrogative pronoun or adverb (Q) and the verb (V) partial interrogatives such as ¿qué tú quieres? 'what you want.PRS.2SG?'. In this EC resembles Brazilian Portuguese (PB). Previous research defends the hypothesis that the emergence of SV word order in EC is due to contact with the Spanish or Portuguese spoken by African slaves. However, the (assumed) pragmatic motivation for the use of SV word order in the Spanish or Portuguese spoken by African slaves differs substantially from the pragmatic motivation for the use of SV word order in Present-Day EC and PB. This study proposes a scenario that might reconcile these apparently contradictory results, on the basis of a quantitative analysis of the word order in spoken Present-day EC and PB. The analysis demonstrates that QSV interrogatives have a comparable pragmatic function in EC and PB. I propose that speakers of standard EC and PB "abused" the QSV word order from the respective contact varieties in order to achieve these communicative effects. I interpret this process as a case of contact-induced change.
Journal: Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana
ISSN: 1579-9425
Issue: 2
Volume: 16
Pages: 135 - 148
Publication year:2018
Accessibility:Open