Much recent scholarship has sought to identify the linguistic and social factors that favor the expression or omission of subject pronouns in Spanish. This volume brings together leading experts on the topic of language variation in Spanish to provide a panoramic view of research trends, develop probabilistic models of grammar, and investigate the impact of language contact on pronoun expression. The book consists of three sections. The first studies the distributional patterns and conditioning forces on subject pronoun expression in four monolingual varieties—Dominican, Colombian, Mexican, and Peninsular—and makes cross-dialectal comparisons. In the second section, experts explore Spanish in contact with English, Maya, Catalan, and Portuguese to determine the extent to which each language influences this syntactic variable. The final section examines the acquisition of variable subject pronoun expression among monolingual and bilingual children as well as adult second language learners.

The present dissertation analyzes first- and second-person singular subject pronoun expression in Dominican Spanish in adult-to-adult, caregiver, and child speech. Overall, despite the high rates of subject pronoun expression seen in this variety, the conditioning factors that govern subject pronoun expression in all dialects are found to be operative in Dominican Spanish. In addition, children were found to have acquired several of the constraints that govern first- and second-person singular subject pronoun expression in adult-to-adult speech. However, caregivers pronoun expression was shown to not be constrained by certain factors while others showed different patterns in comparison to adult-to-adult speech.First, adult-to-adult Dominican Spanish displays many of the same constraints on subject pronoun expression found in other varieties. However, the well-known effect of verb class operates differently in this variety. Nevertheless, when analyzing the most frequent verbs found in each category, several verb-particular constructions showing distinct patterns are revealed. Additionally, turn position in first-person singular pronoun expression shows more broad effects than what has been found for other varieties such that it is operative with all verb classes. Moreover, certain factors found to condition first-person singular pronoun expression do not extend to second-person singular pronoun expression, which suggests that pronouns of different grammatical person/number pattern in distinct ways. Nevertheless, Dominican Spanish does show slight differences in how and in which contexts certain conditioning factors operate, which are thought to be more revealing in determining dialectal differences than overall rates.With respect to child speech, the children showed to have already acquired many of the adult-like factors that constrain pronoun use in adult-to-adult speech. However, the well-known switch referent constraint was found to be inoperative in first-person singular pronoun expression in child speech. Despite this, a second measure of switch reference, that of intervening human subjects, did contribute to childrens first-person singular pronoun expression. Thus, the data presented here suggest this well-known constraint is acquired on the basis of the presence or absence of intervening human subjects between coreferential mentions. Outside of the result for switch reference, children showed to closely follow the patterns seen in caregivers, showing they are sensitive to the frequency and distributional patterns found in their input. Similarly, children produced adult-like usage patterns with certain lexically-specific constructions found in their input, demonstrating that these community-based items are an important locus of childrens acquisition of the dialect to which they are exposed.Finally, caregivers showed some differences with respect to which constraints are operative in their use of first-person singular subject pronouns in comparison to adult-to-adult speech. In particular, the constraint of turn position, while operative in adult-to-adult speech, does not significantly constrain caregivers first-person singular subject pronoun expression. Further analysis revealed this is due to the nature of child-caregiver interaction such that caregivers frequently refer to their children in order to hand the floor over to them and develop subsequent discourse. In fact, caregivers use of second person singular forms in child-caregiver interaction greatly exceeded their use of the same forms in their adult-to-adult interactions. This, together with their infrequent use of first-person singular forms, impedes a turn-position effect from emerging. Caregivers also showed to favor second-person singular pronoun expression with Wh-questions in the speech to their children, which differs from the pattern found in adult-to-adult speech with these same elements. Overall, the results show that caregivers adjust certain aspects of their speech when interacting with their children while at the same time they provide adult-like usage patterns for certain community-based lexically-specific constructions.

The present dissertation examines first-person singular (1sg) subject pronoun expressionthe alternation between yo I and the unexpressed variant based on data (N=6,450) drawn from 13th- 20th century Spanish literary texts. Our results reveal no increase in expression rates over time and that, in general, the linguistic conditioning of variable 1sg subject expression has largely remained constant over time.First, effects of subject continuity are found, with pronominal expression disfavored in contexts of continuity (more accessible referents) and favored in discontinuous contexts (less accessible referents). Three measures of subject continuityswitch reference, human switch reference, and distanceare shown to be applicable. However, subtle signs of change arise by comparing their applicability over time. In particular, the measure of distance from the previous mention of the same referent in the preceding discourse shows a graded effect: as distance increases, assessed in the number of intervening clauses, so progressively does use of pronoun yo. Interestingly, evidence suggests that the graded effect of distance may be developing over time into a more local effect of switch reference with respect to the immediately preceding clause, with pronominal expression especially favored when the subject of the intervening clause has a specific, human referent. Further, the results of this study support the view that an approach merely focused on verb form ambiguity does not provide conclusive answers regarding tense effects on subject expression. Although I found a general favoring effect of morphologically ambiguous verb tenses (with syncretism between first and third person), this is only marginal in contexts of subject continuity. Thus, a synergetic dynamic operates between ambiguity in verb morphology and switch reference: ambiguous verb forms significantly increase subject expression with discontinuous referents. In addition, a mechanical priming effect is shown to be present in all the periods. Thus, the presence of a 1sg pronominal subject enhances the likelihood that the subsequent 1sg coreferential subject is also pronominal. Conversely, when the previous coreferential subject is unexpressed, the likelihood of subject expression diminishes, favoring a subsequent unexpressed 1sg subject.Finally, the widely reported effect of cognition verbs, strongly favoring 1sg subject expression in present day varieties, is absent in these data. A usage-based construction grammar approach allows analysis that considers particular lexical items and forms, which reveals the role of prefabs in explaining idiosyncratic usage patterns of yo with specific verb forms and their impact on broad categories (semantic classes). This analysis provides evidence that the cognition verb forms creo and s have undergone changes that can explain present-day usage patterns. The use of yo I with creo think, originally believe, has increased steadily across time as its meaning has bleached. In parallel, increasing grammaticalization of s I know with a complement clause is observed. The diachronic patterns suggest that the [yo + cognition verb] construction emerged gradually and was consolidated fairly recently. In sum, where change is observed is in particular expressions, while general discourse-cognitive effects on subject expression have been operative since very early in the history of our language.