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Share Paper 1082

Contact-Induced Language Change in Lima, Peru: The Case of Clitic Pronouns
Carol A. Klee and Rocío Caravedo
12-21 (complete paper or proceedings contents)

Abstract

Over the past 60 years the population of Lima, Peru has expanded ten-fold due to migration from the provinces. Many migrants speak Andean Spanish, a dialect influenced by Quechua and stigmatized in Lima. To determine whether the dialect of Spanish spoken by migrants is being transmitted to their children and whether it has begun to affect Limeño Spanish, 108 sociolinguistic interviews were conducted in Lima in 1999-2000. This article describes the results of a pilot study of 15 speakers from the larger sample, representing Andean migrants, their adult children born in Lima, and native Limeños. The analysis focused on certain characteristics of the clitic system of Andean Spanish: leísmo, loísmo, and the use of the archmorpheme lo. The results indicate that leísmo is passed along to many second generation migrants in Lima. However, it is not used to the same degree by the native Limeños in the pilot study. Loísmo was found very infrequently in the sample, even among first-generation migrants, and is not employed by the children of migrants nor by native Limeños. First-generation Andean migrants tend to maintain the archmorpheme lo, neutralizing gender and number differences in direct object pronouns. Their clitic system can be defined as a partial system based on case alone, while the Limeños have a full clitic system, which includes both case and gender. Second-generation migrants tend to have hybrid clitic systems, which include elements of both. Whether the hybrid system will be transmitted to future generations remains to be explored.

Published in

Selected Proceedings of the 7th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium
edited by David Eddington
Table of contents
Printed edition: $230.00