This chapter studies declarative intonation using the Autosegmental-Metrical model of intonational phonology in four Afro-Hispanic varieties: Chinchano, Chocó, Chota Valley, and Yungueño. We analyze the inventory of pitch accents, intermediate phrase boundary tones and intonational phrase boundary tones in declarative utterances extracted from spontaneous-speech corpora. The intonational inventories of these Afro-Hispanic varieties are significantly reduced in comparison with what has been observed in the declaratives of other native varieties of Spanish. Our data imply that speakers’ patterns are the result of a cross-generational transmission of simplified intonational features, stemming from second-language acquisition strategies rather than substrate influences.

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This study traces the semasiological development of the verb afeitar, taking into account probable intervening social and cognitive factors that contributed to several shifts in the verb’s prototypical meaning. Data collected from electronic corpora suggest the existence of three phases in the semantic development of the verb. Literary evidence from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries suggests that the social élite increasingly viewed the act of applying cosmetics in a negative light. The study argues that positive connotations were a conventionalized, requisite component to the meaning suggested by the verb, and that the verb was therefore increasingly viewed as inappropriate for reference to the act of applying cosmetics, while it remained perfectly suitable for reference to the act of shaving.