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- Title
Y luego se pintan patrás….
- Authors
Beké, Len
- Abstract
The expanded use of <italic>patrás</italic> is among the most salient features of US Spanish and commonly attributed to English influence. For <xref>Lipski (1986)</xref>, it constitutes a syntactic calque from English constructions with <italic>back</italic>; <xref>Otheguy (1999)</xref> maintains it shows cultural but not linguistic influence; Villa (<xref>2005</xref>, <xref>2010</xref>) ascribes <italic>patrás</italic> to grammaticalization processes internal to Spanish. Previous studies lack a detailed account of the semantics of the spatial adverbial in its historical and contemporary usage. Applying <xref>Talmy’s (1983)</xref> typology of motion events to corpus data, this paper traces a grammaticalization path for <italic>patrás</italic> from its historical use to its contemporary use in Nuevomexicano Spanish. <italic>Patrás</italic> has shifted from primarily atelic <italic>backwards motion</italic> meanings to primarily telic <italic>return</italic> meanings. This shift is evident across Germanic languages for adverbs deriving from the noun <italic>back</italic> and in the Romance prefix <italic>re-</italic> from Latin adverb <italic>retro</italic>. This study proposes contact with English led to an increased frequency of satellite-framed constructions in Nuevomexicano Spanish, creating the frequency conditions for innovations in the form and meaning of <italic>para atrás</italic> to conventionalize and lead to systematic linguistic change.
- Subjects
ENGLISH civilization; SPANISH civilization; GRAMMATICALIZATION; CONTEMPORARY (The English word); GERMANIC languages; METAPHOR; LINGUISTIC analysis
- Publication
Spanish in Context, 2018, Vol 15, Issue 1, p127
- ISSN
1571-0718
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1075/sic.00006.bek