Variation and Change in Spanish

by Ralph Penny

• ISBN13: 9780521604505
• ISBN10: 0521604508
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-05-20
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book applies recent theoretical insights to trace the development of Castilian and Latin American Spanish from the Middle Ages onwards, through processes of repeated dialect mixing both within the Iberian Peninsula and in the New World. The author contends that it was this frequent mixing which caused Castilian to evolve more rapidly than other varieties of Hispano-Romance, and which rendered Spanish particularly subject to levelling of its linguistic irregularities and to simplification of its structures. These two processes continued as the language extended into and across the Americas. These processes are viewed in the context of the Hispano-Romance dialect continuum, which includes Galician, Portuguese and Catalan, as well as New World varieties. The book emphasises the subtlety and seamlessness of language variation, both geographical and social, and the impossibility of defining strict boundaries between varieties. Its conclusions will be relevant both to Hispanists and to historical sociolinguists more generally.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Abbreviations and symbols	xi
Introduction: language variation	1	(8)
Synchronic variation	1	(2)
Geographical or diatopical variation	1	(1)
Social variation	2	(1)
Diachronic or historical variation	3	(2)
Variables and variants	5	(1)
Co-variation	6	(1)
Register	6	(1)
Variation in the past	7	(2)
Dialect, language, variety: definitions and relationships	9	(28)
Dialects	10	(2)
Languages	12	(3)
Do languages have temporal limits?	12	(1)
Are languages delimitable?	13	(2)
Relationship between dialects and languages	15	(3)
Varieties and idiolects	18	(1)
Relationship between varieties	19	(18)
The tree model of relationships between varieties	20	(8)
Geographical discontinuity	28	(2)
Diasystems	30	(2)
Diglossia	32	(2)
The neolinguistic model	34	(2)
Other models	36	(1)
Mechanisms of change	37	(37)
Dialect contact	38	(19)
Accommodation	39	(2)
Interdialect	41	(1)
Levelling: early modern Spanish	42	(1)
The Old Spanish sibilants	42	(3)
Old Spanish / h /	45	(1)
The merger of Old Spanish / b / and / β /	46	(2)
Simplification: the result of the territorial expansion of Castilian	48	(2)
The merger of the perfect auxiliaries	50	(1)
The Old Spanish strong preterites	51	(1)
The -er and -ir verb classes	52	(1)
Hyperdialectalism	53	(1)
Reallocation of variants	54	(3)
Waves	57	(6)
Isoglosses	58	(5)
Social networks and speed of change	63	(4)
Direction of change through society	67	(3)
Downward change	68	(1)
Upward change	69	(1)
Lexical diffusion	70	(4)
Variation in Spain	74	(62)
Geographical variation	74	(58)
Mozarabic	75	(5)
The northern Peninsular dialect continuum	80	(1)
Miranda do Douro	80	(2)
Cantabria	82	(8)
Old Castile	90	(3)
The Pyrenees	93	(5)
Metaphony and mass-noun reference	98	(1)
Metaphony	98	(4)
Mass-noun reference	102	(2)
The broken southern Peninsular dialect continuum	104	(4)
The expansion of Castilian features	108	(1)
Eastern innovations	108	(3)
Western innovations	111	(3)
Southward expansion of northern features: the Reconquest and its linguistic effects	114	(2)
Galician and Portuguese	116	(2)
Castilian and Andalusian	118	(1)
Seseo and ceceo	118	(2)
Yeismo	120	(1)
Maintenance and loss of / h /	121	(1)
Weakening of /-s/	122	(3)
Andalusian vowel-systems	125	(1)
Merger of /-r/ and /-l/	126	(1)
Third-person pronoun reference	127	(1)
Modes of address	128	(1)
Catalan and Valencian	128	(1)
The Canaries	129	(3)
Social variation	132	(4)
Yeismo	132	(1)
Loss of /-d-/	133	(1)
Aspiration of syllable-final /s/	133	(1)
Neutralization of atonic vowels	133	(1)
Reinforcement of word-initial /ue/	134	(2)
Variation in Spanish America	136	(38)
Geographical variation	138	(23)
American Spanish and Andalusian Spanish	139	(3)
Seseo	142	(1)
Second-person plural address	143	(1)
Settlement and communication patterns and their linguistic effects	144	(3)
Yeismo	147	(1)
Weakening of syllable-final /-s/	148	(2)
Neutralization of syllable-final /-r/ and /-l/	150	(1)
Treatment of word-final /-n/	151	(1)
Voseo and tuteo	151	(4)
Other effects of migration from the Peninsula	155	(2)
/tr/ and /r/	157	(1)
Past tense values	158	(3)
Social variation	161	(2)
Social variation of /h/ (<F-)	162	(1)
New dialects: fronterizo	163	(3)
Creoles and creolization	166	(8)
Papiamentu	167	(4)
Palenquero	171	(3)
Variation in Judeo-Spanish	174	(20)
The language of the medieval Jewish communities	175	(1)
The expulsion and its linguistic effects	176	(3)
Features of Judeo-Spanish	179	(14)
Innovations	179	(2)
Retentions	181	(4)
Simplifications	185	(2)
Non-Castilian features	187	(3)
Features retained in Judeo-Spanish but rejected by the Peninsular standard	190	(2)
Variation within Judeo-Spanish	192	(1)
Death of Judeo-Spanish	193	(1)
Standardization	194	(27)
Status planning	196	(10)
Selection	196	(4)
Codification	200	(3)
Elaboration of function	203	(1)
Acceptance	204	(2)
Corpus planning	206	(11)
The medieval period	206	(3)
The Renaissance and the Golden Age	209	(4)
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries	213	(2)
The twentieth century	215	(2)
The relationship between standard and non-standard varieties	217	(4)
Notes	221	(19)
References	240	(20)
Indexes	260