Abstract
This article deals with the problem of different distributions of the Spanish pronouns le and lo ‘him, her, polite you’ (and their morphological variants les, los, la and las) that may be observed in different realms of the Spanish speaking world (geography, sociologically etc.). In this paper, as a starting point, the more established and traditional case theory will be compared with the Control System Hypothesis in a particular corpus of a non-standard, Peninsular variant of Spanish. The hypothesis that will then be tested is that the use of the pronouns under focus in this particular variant, as well as in all variants, is based on one and the same semantic substance, but that (groups of) speakers may apply this substance for different communicative needs, resulting in different distributions of the forms in different language samples of the respective (groups of) speakers. These differences, then, are not representative of different meanings, but may be representing cultural differences of the respective speech group. The case in focus is middle-class Spanish of the 60s as represented in a novel by Miguel Delibes, and particularly how men and women are addressed. This corpus was chosen because of its particular, non-standard distribution of the pronouns in question, being therefore of particular interest to test the hypothesis.
About the author
Bob de Jonge (1958) is Associate Professor in Spanish linguistics at the University of Groningen. He wrote his PhD dissertation on uses of ser and estar in age expressions in Mexico and Venezuela in 1990 at the University of Leiden. He has published on various topics, mainly on Spanish linguistics, always from a highly functionalist perspective.
References
Contini-Morava, Ellen. 1995. Introduction: On linguistic sign theory. In Ellen Contini-Morava & Barbara Sussman Goldberg (eds.), Meaning as Explanation. Advances in Linguistic Sign Theory, 1–39. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110907575Search in Google Scholar
Davis, Joseph. 2002. Rethinking the Place of Statistics in Columbia School Analysis. In Wallis Reid, Ricardo Otheguy & Nancy Stern (eds.), Signal, meaning, and message, 65–91. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/sfsl.48.05davSearch in Google Scholar
De Jonge, Bob. 2000. Introducción. In Bob de Jonge (ed.), Estudio analítico del signo lingüístico. Teoría y descripción, Foro Hispánico 17. 7–14.10.1163/9789004485358_002Search in Google Scholar
De Jonge, Bob. 2022. El uso de los pronombres le y lo/la en español: ¿cuestión gramatical o sociocultural? Cuadernos de la ALFAL 14(1). 45–57. Available at: http://www.mundoalfal.org/sites/default/files/revista/14_1_cuaderno_005.pdf (accessed October 2nd 2022).Search in Google Scholar
De Jonge, Bob & Betty di Lollo. 2000. Actividad en Salamanca: le, lo y el sistema de casos. In Bob de Jonge (ed.), Estudio analítico del signo lingüístico. Teoría y descripción, Foro Hispánico 17. 41–60.10.1163/9789004485358_005Search in Google Scholar
Delibes, Miguel. 1966. Cinco horas con Mario. Epulibre, based on the first version published by Polifemo7. Available at www.epulibre.org (accessed August 29th 2016).Search in Google Scholar
Delibes, Miguel. 1988. Five Hours With Mario. Trans. Frances M. López-Morillas. New York, Guilford, Surrey: Columbia University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Diver, William. 2012a. Dual. In Alan Huffman & Joseph Davis (eds.), Language: Communication and Human Behavior. The Linguistic Essays of William Diver, 86–99. Leiden: Brill. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004208582.i-566.10.1163/ej.9789004208582.i-566Search in Google Scholar
Diver, William. 2012b. Theory. In Alan Huffman & Joseph Davis (eds.), Language: Communication and Human Behavior. The Linguistic Essays of William Diver, 444–519. Leiden: Brill. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004208582.i-566.10.1163/ej.9789004208582.i-566Search in Google Scholar
Fernández-Ordóñez, Inés. 1999. Leísmo, laísmo y loísmo. In Igniacio Bosque y Violeta Demonte (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, 1317–1398. Madrid: Espasa Libros.Search in Google Scholar
Flores Cervantes, Marcela 2006. Leísmo, laísmo y loísmo. Concepción Company Company (ed.), Sintaxis histórica de la lengua española. Primera parte: La frase verbal. Vol. I., 671–740. México: UNAM/Fondo de Cultura Económica.Search in Google Scholar
García, Érica C. 1975. The role of theory in linguistic analysis. The Spanish pronoun system. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.Search in Google Scholar
García, Érica C. 2009. The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs. Cognitive constraints on Spanish clitic clustering. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.10.1075/sfsl.61Search in Google Scholar
García, Érica C. & Ricardo Otheguy. 1983. Being polite in Ecuador: Strategy reversal under language contact. Lingua 61. 103–132.10.1016/0024-3841(83)90029-3Search in Google Scholar
Lapesa, Rafael 1968. Sobre los orígenes y evolución del leísmo, laísmo y loísmo. In Kurt Baldinger (ed.), Festschrift Walther von Wartburg zum 80. Geburtstag, 523-551. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
Lapesa, Rafael. 1981. Historia de la lengua española. Madrid: Gredos.Search in Google Scholar
Larraz, Fernando. 2009. Aspectos ideológicos en Cinco horas con Mario de Miguel Delibes. Revista Chilena de Literatura April 74. 213–223. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-22952009000100010 (accessed October 2nd 2022)10.4067/S0718-22952009000100010Search in Google Scholar
Martínez, Angelita. 2000. Estrategias etnopragmáticas en el uso de los pronombres clíticos lo, la y le, en la Argentina, en zonas de contacto con lenguas aborígenes. PhD dissertation, Leiden University, The Netherlands.Search in Google Scholar
Martínez, Angelita. 2019. El “juego” intraparadigmático: Una mirada al uso actual de los clíticos en Buenos Aires. In Nancy Stern, Ricardo Otheguy, Wallis Reid & Jaseleen Sackler (eds), Columbia School Linguistics in the 21st Century, 199–216. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.10.1075/sfsl.77.07marSearch in Google Scholar
Mauder, Elisabeth. 2008. Pronoun variation in Latin American Spanish. A data engineer’s view on le and lo. Utrecht: LOT.Search in Google Scholar
RAE. 2010. Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Manual. 2nd version. Madrid: Espasa Libros.Search in Google Scholar
Reid, Wallis. 1991. Verb and Noun Number in English: A functional explanation. London/New York: Longman.Search in Google Scholar
Tobin, Yishai. 1997. Phonology as Human Behavior. Durham/London: Duke University Press.Search in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
