The gradual loss of mood distinctions in Los Angeles Spanish

Abstract

This article focuses on a change affecting Spanish in contact with English in the United States: namely, simplification and loss of Subjunctive (Sub) mood morphology. Conversational data from 17 Mexican-American bilinguals living in the eastern section of Los Angeles are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The speakers represent three different immigrant groups, according to length of family stay in the United States. The variation between Indicative (Ind) and Sub usage attested in the Spanish-speaking world results from the continuing modifications which have affected the distribution of Ind and Sub forms through the diachronic development of Spanish: previously obligatory contexts for the use of Sub are now categorically Ind or allow both Sub and Ind to different degrees across social and geographic parameters. In the Spanish of Los Angeles, the internal tendencies toward a reduction of the obligatory use of the Sub are strengthened, as may be expected in a situation of language contact in which obligatory contexts for the use of a form are more resistant to change than those that allow a selection between two or more forms with closely related meanings.

Preliminary Research on Discourse Markers and Politeness in the Spanish of the United States

“…En cuanto al estudio de los marcadores de habla bilingüe en los EE.UU. hay estudios hecho con hablantes puertorriqueños en Nueva York (Torres, 2002); con suramericanos en Miami (Lynch, 1999) y en Los Ángeles (Silva-Corvalán, 1994); con nuevomexicanos (Aaron, 2004); con caribeños y centroamericanos en Florida (Said-Mohand, 2008, 2008a, 2008b; y con hablantes mexicanos, puertorriqueños y méxico-puertorriqueños en el área de Chicago (Torres y Potowski, 2008), entre otras zonas geográficas.…”

Frequency of Subjunctive Use in Oral Production in Two Varieties of Spanish

“…While maintenance of subjunctive use has been observed in several regional varieties (Fernández-Ulloa & Portillo Mayorga, 2000;Gallego & Alonso Marks, 2014;Gudmestad, 2006Gudmestad, , 2010Gudmestad, , 2012Geeslin & Gudmestad, 2010;Kowal, 2007;Lastra & Butragueño, 2012), the predominance of nonsubjunctive forms in subjunctive-triggering contexts appears to be more prevalent in varieties of Spanish spoken in the U.S. (Lynch, 2000;Martínez Mira, 2009;Mikulski, 2010;Montrul, 2009;Silva-Corvalán, 1991, 1994, 2001.…”

Degrees of subjunctive vitality among monolingual speakers of Peninsular and Argentinian Spanish

“…Variation has been reported to be readily evident in linguistic features such as mood and modality among monolingual speakers (Fernández Ulloa & Portillo Mayorga 2000;Lastra & Butragueño 2012) and heritage speakers (Lynch 2000;Mikulski 2010;Montrul 2009;Silva-Corvalán 1994a, 1994b, 2001.…”

“…The process of simplification has been described by Silva Corvalán (1994) as the occurrence of a given form in contexts in which another form is expected. Silva Corvalán (1994aCorvalán ( , 1994bCorvalán ( , 2001 claims that if the simplification process is completed, certain forms are lost, resulting in a simplified system, which may or may not render meaning loss.…”