Abstract
This paper discusses two negation types (standard negation (SN), negative doubling (ND)) in Chipileño Spanish, a variety that has emerged as a result of contact between Spanish and Veneto (an Italo-Romance language) in Mexico. In Veneto, negation can be formed in two ways: preverbally (SN) and as a negative doubling (ND). Based on sporadic observation, bilingual speakers of Spanish and Veneto transfer a final no while speaking Spanish, a language that does not allow repetition of the same negator in the postverbal position. Using both a spontaneous and a controlled tasks, the results show two possibilities: preverbal negation only (no vino ‘[S/he] did not come’) and sentence final (no me gusta no ‘I do not like’) in both tasks. This study compares the findings from Chipileño Spanish to the other Romance varieties that exhibit similar cases of negation, while discussing its scope and relevance to discourse-pragmatic factors.
Highlights
According to Zeijlstra (2007), “a universal property of natural language is that every language is able to express negation . . . but it differs to quite a large extent as to how each language expresses this negation” (498)
Given that the preverbal negation is the standard form of negation in both Veneto and Spanish, this result is not surprising
It is possible to conclude that Chipileño Spanish occupies Stage I in the Jespersen
Summary
According to Zeijlstra (2007), “a universal property of natural language is that every language is able to express negation . . . but it differs to quite a large extent as to how each language expresses this negation” (498). Given that Chipilo is a bilingual community of Veneto and Spanish speakers, bilingual speakers seem to transfer the final no from their first language, Veneto, where both negative markers are used: one preverbally and the second one at the end of the utterance, as in (3): Mi no parle. Based on such observations, Chipileño Spanish seems to exhibit two cases of negation and ‘belongs’. The paper is organized as follows: Section 1.1 provides an overview of negation in the Romance languages, focusing on the three stages of the Jespersen cycle; Section 2 describes the methodology of the project, including the two tasks and the participants’ criteria.
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