Un fenómeno bien curioso: New methods for analyzing variable intensification across four dialects of Spain and Argentina

Abstract

AbstractEmpirical study of variation between the Spanish intensifiersbien‘very’ andmuy‘very’ has received little attention. A recent exception is (Brown, Esther L. & Mayra Cortés-Torres. 2013. Puerto Rican intensifiers:Bien/muyvariables. In Ana Maria Carvalho & Sara Beaudrie (eds.),Selected proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics, 11–19. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project), who considered the conditioning factors of the intensifiers, although the study’s interview data included low use of the variants in certain linguistic contexts. Accordingly, our contextualized preference task elicits greater token counts across contexts and extends intensifier research across dialects. In our analysis of the four dialects of Tarragona and Madrid, Spain, and Tucumán and Buenos Aires, Argentina, we test the descriptive claims thatbienis selected at higher rates in Latin America than Spain and that monolingual speakers from Madrid selectbienat lower rates than Spanish-Catalan bilinguals from Tarragona, as predicted by descriptive literature. Furthermore, we investigate whether possible differences in rates and predictors between one capital city variety and that of a smaller city are mirrored across our two capital city contexts. We surveyed 205 native speakers of Spanish via a 24-item contextualized preference task. Participants chose their preferred intensifier or indicated that both were acceptable. We manipulated three independent linguistic variables: adjective quality, verb type, and animacy, and we consider the social variables age, gender, and, in the case of Tarragona, home language. Overall, we extend research on intensifier variation through a more controlled experimental design and cross-dialectal comparison.