The Interaction of Functional Predictors and the Mechanical Predictor Perseveration in a Variationist Analysis of Caribbean Spanish Heritage Speaker Subject Pronoun Expression

Ana De Prada Pérez

doi:10.3390/languages5040036

Abstract

Subject pronoun expression (SPE) in Spanish has been widely studied across monolingual and bilingual varieties, showing a consistent effect of functional predictors. In recent papers, the role of the mechanical predictor priming, or perseveration, has been the source of debate. Additionally, little is known about the interaction of perseveration and significant functional predictors (e.g., grammatical person). In this paper, we expand on previous research by examining first-person singular (1sg) and third-person singular (3sg) data from sociolinguistic interviews with Spanish–English bilinguals from Florida to explore the possible difference in priming in deictic vs. referential subjects. The results from a mixed-effects variable rule analysis only offered clear evidence of priming in 1sg. We hypothesize that this result could be due to either surprisal (1sg overt pronominal subjects are rarer in the corpus that 3sg overt pronominal subjects) or to 3sg involving reference-tracking and perseveration only being evident in contexts where the subject form does not signal for pragmatic content.

Highlights

In addition to social predictors, previous research on Spanish subject pronoun expression (SPE)has identified mostly functional predictors and one mechanical predictor, namely perseveration or priming, regulating subject form alternation between overt and null pronominal subjects in Spanish, as in (Ella) baila en su oficina “She dances in her office” (e.g., Carvalho et al 2015; Otheguy and Zentella 2012; Orozco 2016, 2018; Travis and Cacoullos 2018)
We examine co-referentiality, or switch reference, to examine the interaction of priming and another functional predictor and include an additional functional predictor that has been shown to have a large effect on subject pronoun expression in previous studies: grammatical person
Rates of overt pronominal subjects can shed some light on the role of perseveration

Summary

Introduction

In addition to social predictors, previous research on Spanish subject pronoun expression (SPE). Has identified mostly functional predictors and one mechanical predictor, namely perseveration or priming, regulating subject form alternation between overt and null pronominal subjects in Spanish, as in (Ella) baila en su oficina “She dances in her office” (e.g., Carvalho et al 2015; Otheguy and Zentella 2012; Orozco 2016, 2018; Travis and Cacoullos 2018). In SPE, some authors have explored priming by including the form of the subject of the previous verb form (with different approaches to what previous verb form should be considered) as a predictor. Several previous studies using variable rule analyses report that pronouns lead to pronouns and null subjects lead to null subjects 2012; Cameron 1994; Cameron and Flores-Ferrán 2004; Flores-Ferrán 2002; Travis 2007; Travis and Cacoullos 2012). Otheguy (2015), presents crosstabulated data from eight interviews from

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