Macroregional sociolinguistics: Uses and preferences on null direct objects in Spanish

Abstract

This article explores two fundamental dimensions in sociolinguistics: the dynamics of linguistic variation and change in international languages and the exploitation of data proceeding from significant countries. These issues will be addressed through examination of a particular syntactic feature and a possible change in progress: the occurrence of null direct objects in Spanish. It is shown that for Spanish, a widely used international language, social factors have not been decisive in explaining the distribution of the phenomenon under investigation. This study shows that while direct object omission is not conditioned by typical social variables such as sex, age, and gender, it is unevenly spread throughout the Spanish-speaking world: Mexico and the continental Caribbean use it more than other countries, such as Spain or Chile. Besides the relevance of geography, some semantic, discourse, and contextual factors are shown as determinant for the direct object omission. Finally, this paper reflects on methodology, specifically the use of a macroregional sociolinguistic method for data analysis as well as the advantages and shortcomings of a specific data collection technique that capitalizes on technological tools with global reach: the internet survey in an international scenario.

Early exposure and input type in the production of Spanish accusative clitics by Chinese-Spanish bilinguals

“…According to Campos (1986), Spanish null objects are variables bound to a null topic. Although null objects are not regarded as a general characteristic of Spanish, they are allowed to different degrees across the monolingual varieties and the varieties in contact with other languages (e.g., Moreno-Fernández 2019). Relevant to the present study, Moreno-Fernández showed that although null objects are productive in the Andean regions where Spanish is in contact with indigenous languages, their acceptance is low in monolingual varieties, such as the Limeño dialect of Peru which is the focus of this study.…”

Guía PRESEEA para la investigación lingüística

“…Los análisis lingüísticos de PRESEEA tienen en el contraste de usos de variedades diferentes una de sus principales características. Son habituales, pues, las comparaciones de datos de diversa procedencia dialectal o sociolectal (Tagliamonte 2013;Moreno Fernández 2019). Las variables geográficas, sociales y situacionales son exploradas como posibles variables explicativas de los fenómenos analizados, en un intento de obtener el máximo aprovechamiento de los materiales del corpus general.…”