2013 Modal ya in Basque Spanish Andean

1. i ntroduction . In recent years, many prominent scholars have been concerned with studies that attribute linguistic innovations to language contact

without examining competing alternative explanations such as internal processes (analogy, regularization), language change, or interlanguage phenomena (Mou- geon et al. 2005, Poplack & Levey 2010). To reduce the potentially errant claims

INTErNATIONAL JOUrNAL OF LASSO, VOLUME 32, NUMBEr 1 (2013)

of change through contact, the following four lines of inquiry have been recom- mended: (a) deeper analyses of donor and recipient languages; (b) enrichment through comparisons of corpora from different contact situations and socio-his- torical data; (c) higher quality in descriptions of the speakers who produce the innovation; and (d) increased quantitative analysis of data sets (Silva-Corvalán 1994, Escobar 2000, Van Coetsem 1988, Winford 2003, Mougeon et al. 2005, Poplack & Levey 2010). This trend has led to proposed methodologies to better determine the likelihood that an innovation is related to contact by considering both social and linguistic factors as well as synchronic and diachronic corpora. Studies have shown how corpora-based research can shed light on the differences in which innovations are observed across speakers and communities (Mougeon et al. 2005). Likewise, sociohistorical readings have the potential to explicate the life of a so-called ‘innovative feature’ by clarifying how contact with the recipi- ent language has merely caused a restructuring or overextension of the pragmatic domains in which an existing feature can be used (Silva-Corvalán 1994). All these points of consideration relect the fact that the appearance of innovations is con- ditioned by multiple aspects that act as a threshold for innovative functions of language use (Mougeon et al. 2005).

In this study we focus on the innovative uses of ya in three varieties of Span- ish: Basque Spanish in Bilbao and Bermeo (The Basque Country, Spain); Andean Spanish in Quito and Cotopaxi (Ecuador); and the Judeo-Spanish varieties from Monastir (Macedonia) and Istanbul (Turkey). We have selected these geographi- cally distant varieties in order to better assess whether innovations of ya are actu- ally intrinsic to the linguistic system of Spanish or a result of language contact. We review variants of ya from a methodological perspective by using the frame- work of Mougeon et al. (2005). These authors propose a step-by-step analysis in which both external and internal linguistic phenomena are taken into account for the different Spanish varieties, which will be outlined in section 2.

Although the use of ya can present a wide range of semantic values (e.g. adverbial, discursive, or modal), we analyze solely those innovations found in ya as a modal marker (Urdiales 1973, Girón Alconchel 1991, Garrido 1992, 1993, González 1999). different from the adverbial temporal readings, modal ya bears an emphatic value to express the belief that an event will occur. 1

(1) Ya verás cómo todavía viene. ‘Ya you’ll see how he’ll still come.’ (Garrido 1993:224)

In (1), ya does not convey a temporal value, that is, the speaker is not indicat- ing that the interlocutor ‘will already see’. In this case, ya can be substituted by

1 All translations/glosses are ours unless otherwise noted.

103 the afirmation sí que or sí (sí verás como todavía viene) (González 1999). Ac-

MOdAL YA IN BASQUE SPANISH, ANdEAN SPANISH, ANd JUdEO-SPANISH

cording to Garrido, ya carries an epistemic function as a modalized assertion to contradict the interlocutor’s idea that the event will not take place.

1.1. b AsQue s PAnish ya . Several researchers have observed the frequent

use of ya in Basque Spanish (González 1999, Oñederra 2001, 2004, Camus-Ber- gareche 2013). González (1999) argues that, different from standard Spanish, ya in Basque Spanish occurs with a modal function emphasizing ‘new information’ (i.e. information not previously mentioned in the discourse).

A: ahora han puesto pues un video // pues // allí sale // pues lo que es Lekeitio / y/ y / las costumbres / después las casas que tienen escudo …

B: ya

A: ya (lo) he traído // por- porque no tengo video // he- he com-

prao video pero No tengo video …

A: ‘Now they have prepared a video cassette. There you ind … what is Lekeitio, And the traditions, then the houses that have a coat of arms … ’

B: ‘I see’

A: ‘I have brought (it) . I don’t have a VCR. I have bought a cas- sette, but I don’t have a VCR … ’ (González 1999:164)

Speaker A starts the conversation by explaining the content of the video and how she brought it along, ya (lo) he traído (‘Ya

I have brought (it)’). González argues that ya does not indicate that the speaker ‘has already brought the video’, but rather serves to focus attention on the afirmation that the speaker ‘has actu- ally brought the video’. Thus, ya constitutes new information in the discourse. This usage implies an innovation from modal ya in monolingual varieties where

it is employed to compare or contrast ‘old information’ previously mentioned in the discourse (González 1999). The author attributes the ‘new information’ ya in Basque Spanish to the inluence of the Basque particle ba-.

(3) Jonek

hori Jon-ErG

badakar

that ‘Jon is bringing that’ (Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003:498)

ba.brings

(4) Ba-daukat

egiterik? Ba.have

kexarik

complaint.PrTT

make.NOM.PrTT.n?

INTErNATIONAL JOUrNAL OF LASSO, VOLUME 32, NUMBEr 1 (2013)

‘Can I ile any complaint?’ (Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003:297) (5)

Ba-dira

etxe honetan yes-are

sagu-ak

house this ‘Yes there’s a mouse in this house’ (Laka 1996:58)

mouse-dET.PL

In Basque, the preix ba- is employed: when the verb is the most important piece of information of the sentence (3); in yes/no questions that begin with a synthetic verb (4); and to contradict a negative assertion previously stated (5). Therefore, Basque Spanish ya is similar to Basque ba- as it serves to focalize the afirmative value of the verb. Camus-Bergareche (2013) also observes that similar to Basque ba- , afirmative ya in Basque Spanish cannot be employed postverbally.

(6) —¿Qué tal el plato? —Oye, muy bien, ya me gustan los espaguetis con esta salsa. *—Muy bien, los espaguetis con esta salsa me gustan ya.

—¿How is the dish? —Hey, really good, ya I like the spaghetti with this sauce. *—Very good, the spaghetti with this sauce I like ya. (Camus- Bergareche 2013:2)

In (6) a temporal reading of ya does not apply; conversely, ya serves to em- phasize the fact that the speaker ‘does like spaghetti’ intensifying the reading of the verb gustar (‘to like’). As Camus-Bergareche shows, the same reading does not apply post-verbally.

González analyzes the uses of temporal, discursive, and modal ya in Basque Spanish among 41 informants, each with different linguistic backgrounds (Span- ish monolinguals and Basque bilinguals) and in contact areas (the high contact coastal and inland areas in Bizkaia, and the low contact area of Bilbao). She inds that the higher frequency of modal ya coincides with Basque-speaking commu- nities whereas lower contact regions (i.e. Bilbao) show fewer cases. Similarly, modal ya is more frequent among Basque dominant speakers than among Spanish monolinguals. González concludes that the appearance of ‘new information’ ya in Basque Spanish is mediated by both internal and external causes. Externally, contact with Basque has provoked an extension in the domains in which modal ya can be employed, concretely with new information. Internally, grammaticaliza- tion tendencies show how adverbs are becoming increasingly intersubjective and oriented to index subtle pragmatic nuances about the point of view of the speaker in the discursive context (González 1999, cf. Traugott and könig 1991).

González’s pragmatic analysis of ya in Basque Spanish and in monolingual

105 varieties will serve as a baseline for the study of ya in Andean Spanish and Ju-

MOdAL YA IN BASQUE SPANISH, ANdEAN SPANISH, ANd JUdEO-SPANISH

deo-Spanish. Our contribution to the discussion of the Basque Spanish variety will focus on an analysis of the davies corpus to attest whether a ya with new information is employed in other varieties of Spanish. Moreover, different from González’s study in which both modal afirmative ya with old information (also found in monolingual Spanish varieties), and the modal ya with new information (the Basque Spanish innovation) are counted together in the quantitative analysis, in our data we will only analyze the ya with new information in our data set in order to attest the consistency of the innovation.

1.2. A ndeAn s PAnish ya . In Andean Spanish, an increased use of double

ya constructions has been observed: ya+[constituents/clauses]+ya (Lee 1997, Feke 2004, Shappeck 2013):

Ya me cambió nombre ya

‘Ya s/he changed my name for me ya .’ (Lee 1997:160) Lee (1997) and Feke (2004) consider the use of this double construction a

calque from Quichua -ña which can also be duplicated. (8) a. Ña huambra-ña ca-shpa

‘He’s becoming ña a young man ña.’ (Catta 1994:187)

b. Michi huañu-jun, ña ñuca-ca alli-mi cani-ña ‘Mercedes is sick (dying), ña

I (on the other hand) am ine ña.’ (Catta 1994:187)

Feke (2004) analyzes the duplication of ya with the same temporal meaning as the monolingual Spanish ya ‘already’ and glosses both as ‘already’, ‘anymore’, or ‘as soon as’ without regard to changes in their pragmatic, discursive, or func- tional roles. Although Cerrón-Palomino (1996) does not talk speciically about this double construction, he argues that the meaning of ya in Andean Spanish dif- fers preverbally and postverbally: preverbal ya is employed with temporal and as-

pectual values whereas postverbally it acquires new values. Speciically, he main- tains that postverbal ya is employed for substitution and replacement (1996:113).

Following Cerrón-Palomino, we will also argue that preverbal ya differs from postverbal ya in pragmatic value. Whereas the irst ya positions the event tempo- rally, the second ya serves to emphasize the perfectivity of the event (the fact that the event is viewed as completed by the speaker). In (9), we can observe the two readings of the duplicated ya in Andean Spanish.

INTErNATIONAL JOUrNAL OF LASSO, VOLUME 32, NUMBEr 1 (2013)

(9) Sí, comunicaron pero ya había sido después ya, entonces ya había sido desperdiciado. ‘yes, they communicated (with us), but ya it had been afterwards

ya, so ya it had been wasted.’ (Shappeck 2010) In (9), the irst ya provides an aspectual value (the fact that the communica-

tion has ‘already’ occurred), whereas the second ya acquires a new modalizing value, emphasizing the fact that the event has already taken place. Similar to the preverbal use of ya as a modal marker in monolingual non-contact varieties of Spanish, the use of postverbal ya in Andean Spanish seems to be triggered by the fact that Quechua -ña can also occur postverbally (Shappeck 2013). Another interesting aspect of the behavior of Andean Spanish duplicated ya is the fact that

it can serve to focalize different constituents in the sentence. (10)

después, ya mi hija ya tuvo unos diez años ahí vuelta enfermé yo, ahí estuve yo en Quito

‘Afterwards, ya my daughter ya was around 10 years old, and then I got sic k, and I was in Quito’. (Shappeck 2010)

The informant in (10) narrates a sequence of events that occurred before her sickness which kept her in bed. In this case, the double construction emphasizes the fact that she got sick when her child was ten years old, focalizing the subject, ‘my daughter’, instead of the verb. The appearance of ya with other constituents that are not verbs seems to parallel the fact that in Quechua –ña can also appear with other constituents (Cerrón-Palomino 1996).

Some questions remain unanswered in the duplicated construction of An- dean Spanish ya. For example, does this double construction occur in non-contact Spanish varieties? And if so, can it happen with other non-verbal constituents? An analysis of the double construction in the davies corpus will shed light on these questions and clarify the extent to which we can consider this feature a contact- induced innovation. We will also provide data from two varieties: low contact va- rieties (from Quito and Lima) and a high contact variety (from Cotopaxi in the Ec- uadorean highlands) to examine the distribution of this feature in the community.

1.3. J udeo -s PAnish ya . There are no prior studies that analyze the dis-

tribution of ya in any variety of Judeo-Spanish. However, several studies have investigated the inluence of the dominant language, Turkish, on Judeo-Spanish vocabulary, morphology (Varol Bornes 1996, romero 2011a) and syntax (rome- ro 2008). Altabev (2003) mentions other pragmatic constructions, especially the pragmatic role of code-switching, but does not give any information about modal

107 ya . Varol Bornes (1996:223) identiies a Turkish syllabic process with pragmatic

MOdAL YA IN BASQUE SPANISH, ANdEAN SPANISH, ANd JUdEO-SPANISH

implications transposed into Judeo-Spanish. This mechanism known as MühMele repeats the lexical item, but in the second iteration, replaces the irst onset of the lexical item with /m/, as in Judeo-Spanish: livro mivro or ijo mijo. The mühmele implies that the speaker thinks less of the object in question, or that its importance is minimized, and it may even question the deining qualities of such an object: ‘you call that a book?’ ‘What kind of son is that?’ Although no previous study on Judeo-Spanish ya exists, we can conclude that Turkish bilingualism has affected every linguistic component of the language, including its pragmatics.

In both sets of Judeo-Spanish corpora used in this study, we observe a per- vasive use of ya in combination with two predicates: ya ay and ya ez verdad, as illustrated below in examples (11) from Istanbul and (12) from Monastir. Please note that all Judeo-Spanish examples in this paper have been transcribed using the Aki yerushalayim orthography, a highly phonetic version of the Latin alphabet adopted almost universally by modern publications.

(11) En la sivdad ya ay munchos árvoles. ‘In the city ya there are many trees.’ (Romero 2009)

(12) Ya ez vardad lo kwe dizis. ‘Ya it’s true what you are saying.’ (Luria 1930:76)

These combinations with ya are present in the utterance as a grammatical- ized unit, that is, they always appear together with the verb (ez verdad) and with factual predicates. Additionally, these combinations seem to have the pragmatic function of asserting or afirming the truth of those predicates. The speaker uses ya ay and ya ez vardad to commit to the truth of the proposition, as if to emphasize its factuality. In (11), the speaker is emphasizing that ‘there certainly are many

trees in the city!’ as if s/he had a direct experience with the knowledge source. Similarly, in (12), the speaker knows for a fact that the listener’s comment is true: ‘I am aware that you are speaking truthfully.’

The higher use of ya ay and ya ez verdad in both varieties of Judeo-Spanish may be the result of language contact with Turkish, which has the evidential sufix

-(I)mIş (the capital “I” indicates vocalic alternations according to a four-vowel harmony; the parenthetical vowel indicates it is added when a verbal stem ends in

a vowel). According to Gül (2009:4-5), this verbal sufix indicates several types of evidence as related to its predicate; among them is a synchronic evidential function, through which the speaker asserts the truth of the predicate by empha- sizing it at the time of speech:

Ne de çok elbisem var- mış.

INTErNATIONAL JOUrNAL OF LASSO, VOLUME 32, NUMBEr 1 (2013)

‘Behold! So many dresses I have.’ (Gül 2009:4) Another is a retrospective evidential where the speaker attests to the truth of

the predicate by observing traces or evidence of the action. (14)

Yerler ıslak. Yağmur yağ-mış. ‘It’s wet everywhere. It must have rained.’ (Gül 2009:4)

The combinations ya ay and ya ez verdad therefore parallel the synchronic and retrospective evidential functions of the sufix –(I)mIş, as the speaker evalu- ates and emphasizes the truth of predicates. Because of their similar functions, as well as the grammaticalization of ya ay and ya ez verdad as units, the evidential sufix –(I)mIş appears as a possible trigger for this innovative usage, if indeed it

is due to Turkish contact.

1.4. o utline oF PAPer . Initially, contact appears to be the motivating fac-

tor since all three above-mentioned varieties have discourse markers (including ya ) that seem to mimic the functions of afixes in the source language (Urrutia 1995, Oñaederra 2001 for Basque Spanish; Cerrón-Palomino 1996, Escobar 2000 for Andean Spanish). However, a deeper analysis based on strong empirical data is required to substantiate assertions related to linguistic change through language contact. The ways in which ya functions in monolingual varieties of Spanish would be an example of the type of empirical evidence that is needed (Silva- Corvalán 1994, Hock & Joseph 1996, Mougeon et al. 2005, Poplack & Levey 2010). The structure of this article is as follows: Section 2 presents Mougeon et al.’s (2005) methodology. Section 3 accounts for studies that have analyzed the

different pragmatic contexts in which modal ya occurs in monolingual varieties and presents a corpus analysis of modal ya using the davies corpus (2002-) to ascertain whether these innovations exist in the donor language. In section 4 we provide a general account of the three linguistic communities and the history of the contact with these three agglutinating, though unrelated, languages (Basque, Quechua, and Turkish). In section 5 we present the data that we have collected applying Mougeon et al.’s (2005) four-step approach. Finally, in section 6 we summarize the evidence that clearly accounts for language-contact changes and examine the areas where empirical results are lacking in light of the new functions of modal ya in Basque Spanish, Andean Spanish, and Judeo-Spanish.

2. M ethodology . In the present study, our aim is twofold: (1) to accu- rately depict the new functional roles of ya in three different varieties of Spanish and (2) to evaluate the empirical evidence that would solidify claims that such uses of ya have been generated through language contact. We follow the frame-

109 work proposed by Mougeon et al. (2005) in their analysis of eight innovations in

MOdAL YA IN BASQUE SPANISH, ANdEAN SPANISH, ANd JUdEO-SPANISH

Ontario French. Concerned by how the notion of language contact has been either ‘overused’ or ‘attacked’ in linguistics, these authors propose a methodological

approach with the objective of ‘providing with reasonable conidence that certain innovations attested in the minority language are rooted in contact with the ma- jority one’ (2005:114). This approach has at its core the use of different corpora (including the interlanguage of second language learners of French and informa- tion from genetically related varieties) and a step-by-step approach that analyzes the innovations from the perspective of internal and external factors.

The authors start by distinguishing between overt and covert systemic trans- fers. Overt systemic transfer is deined as a ‘qualitative change in the use of a

feature’ (2005:102). For instance, the case of the adverb just in Ontario French which, different from Standard French, can be used after a subject and a clitic pro- noun (e.g. tu juste mets du sel dedans). According to the authors, this innovation implies a qualitative change from the syntax of French since in English just occurs in that syntactic position. Conversely, a covert transfer is not a qualitative innova- tion, but rather ‘a marked increase in the frequency of a feature at the expense of an alternative feature’ (2005:102). This is a relevant distinction as it helps us clas- sify particular cases of language change (e.g. qualitative or quantitative). What follows is a detail summary of the four steps.

2.1. s uMMAry oF Four - steP MethodologicAl Procedure . In Step

1, the researcher must attest whether the observed phenomenon in the recipient language has an equivalent feature in the source language. For example, Ontario French speakers employ the preposition sur (in sur la television or sur la radio) instead of the standard preposition à. The authors trace the semantics of the use of sur to the English use of preposition on. Step 2 focuses on whether the feature in question can actually be attributed to internally-motivated processes such as regularization or analogy. Mougeon et al. (2005) illustrate internally-motivated change in the use of postverbal object pronouns in declarative sentences (15) in- stead of typical preverbal ones in standard French (16). This innovation parallels the English use of postverbal object pronouns, an aspect that raises the possibility that the change has been triggered by contact.

(15) Ontario French On rentre dans la maison pis elle dit à nous autres <Parler en français> ‘We go into the house and she says to us <Speak in French>’ (Mougeon et al. 2005:105)

INTErNATIONAL JOUrNAL OF LASSO, VOLUME 32, NUMBEr 1 (2013)

(16) Standard French

Elle nous pogne pis elle nous dit de parler français

‘She catches us and she tells us to speak French’ (Mougeon et al. 2005:105)

The authors debunk the contact hypothesis by observing that a similar ten- dency is also present in the case of other pronominal objects of other non-contact varieties of French e.g., celui/-là, tous, certains, aucuns, etc. Therefore, step 2 proves that this feature is the product of an internal reconiguration in the form of syntactic regularization. Conversely, in the case of the preposition sur, the authors argue that it cannot be considered a case of regularization or other internal pro- cesses, but rather complexiication caused by contact.

Step 3 searches for the particular feature in other varieties of the target lan- guage. Mougeon et al. (2005) consider two categories of varieties: (a) those that could provide evidence militating against contact-based explanations of the inno- vation, and (b) those that could include evidence bolstering the case for contact- induced change. For category (a), the authors include varieties of the target lan- guage spoken in settings where there is little or no language contact (or what they call ‘monolingual’ speech communities); in category (b), they examine varieties of the target language that are in contact with the same source language, but in distinct geographic locations. Their indings show that with the exception of clitic pronouns, the rest of the innovations are not attested in the Quebec City variety where there is little or no contact with English, therefore indicating that the in- novations are contact induced changes. In the case of clitic pronouns, the corpus of Montreal French shows how at least two of the preverbal object pronouns of French le/la (him/her/it) have a tendency to appear postverbally, a inding that shows how change may be related to internally motivated processes.

Finally, in Step 4 the appearance of the feature in the data set is corroborated with the intensity of contact and level of speaker’s bilingualism. In their study, the majority of the innovations are considerably more frequent among Francophones who speak English frequently in high contact areas, even though in some cases, especially when the innovation is not radically different from the traditional form, it can also be found in lower contact areas. After applying the four steps to the eight observable variations in Canadian French, the authors conclude that two factors worked against the adoption of these innovations in the community: (1) when the innovation involves a radical departure from the rules of the monolin- gual norm, and (2) low intensity contact with the source language produces fewer instances of the innovative feature.

The approach presented above will be employed in our study of ya in the three contact varieties. This approach will not only give us a complete picture of

111 the distribution of the feature in the community, but it will also show different

MOdAL YA IN BASQUE SPANISH, ANdEAN SPANISH, ANd JUdEO-SPANISH

inluences that are acting against, or reinforcing, the use of the variant.

3. M odAl ya in non - contAct vArieties oF s PAnish : stePs 1-3. Ap-

plying step 1 to the three varieties of Spanish in section 3, we ind that the source languages—Basque, Quechua, and Turkish—bear equivalent features. In Basque Spanish, the modal afirmative ya (‘new information’) serves a similar function as the Basque –ba. In Andean Spanish, the duplication of ya appears to be triggered by the Quechua afix –ña which is also commonly duplicated. Structures such as ya ay and ya ez verdad in Judeo-Spanish may follow the evidential system of

Turkish. Our application of Steps 2 and 3 center on addressing internally motivat-

ed processes and examining the patterns in other target language varieties, in our case, other varieties of Spanish. For Step 2, we summarize studies that have ana- lyzed the pragmatic scope of ya in other vernacular varieties of Spanish, including Castilian Spanish (Urdiales 1973, Bosque 1980, 1990, Girón-Alconchel 1991, Garrido 1992, 1993) and Mexican Spanish (Lope Blanch 1991, koike 1996). We follow the baseline of pragmatic and semantic uses of ya employed by González (1999) in order to better assess whether the innovations already belong to a larger trend of internal change. For Step 3, we consult the davies corpus to determine whether the innovations existed in particular varieties in the past (e.g., Colonial Spanish) and/or emerge in contemporary monolingual varieties—a method ap- plied to the study in order to conirm the indings in step two.

3.1. M odAl ya in non - contAct vArieties . Historically ya developed

from the Latin adverb iam, and although Latin grammarians describe iam ’s func- tions primarily as an adverb with temporal and aspectual values similar to ‘al- ready,’ they also reveal its polysemic functions which diverged from the tradi- tionally ascribed temporal meaning (kroon & risselada 2002). For instance, iam could be used as a discursive particle or ‘as a link or connector in the discourse’, as well as with modal emphatic values ‘to denote that something will certainly … occur’ (Lewis & Short 1969:1011-12). In relation to other Romance Lan- guages, the analysis of Bazzanella et al. (2005) shows a continuum starting with rumanian deja (temporal uses), to Italian già and French déjà (both temporal and aspectual values), and ending with Sardinian già, Portuguese já and Spanish ya (temporal, aspectual, and modal values). According to González (1999) and Bazzanella et al. (2005), the appearance of modal meanings of ya in some ro- mance languages supports Traugott and König’s (1991) proposal that the cline is motivated by universal semantic tendencies in which temporal expressions, such as ya, move in a path from propositional meanings that are independent from the text to discursive meanings that are connected with the text, and inally to modal

INTErNATIONAL JOUrNAL OF LASSO, VOLUME 32, NUMBEr 1 (2013)

values that express the speaker’s attitude and beliefs towards the proposition. This internal, diachronic development of ya must be taken into consideration when

examining contemporary innovations of modal ya in Spanish contact varieties in the current study.

Studies that have focused on synchronic uses of ya have found that the par- ticle can be employed with a range of pragmatic and semantic environments (Bosque 1980, 1990, Urdiales 1973, Lope Blanch 1991, koike 1996, Garrido 1993, González 1999, delbecque & Maldonado 2011, Wilk-racieska 2012). In terms of where ya can occur, Garrido (1993) highlights its itinerant placement in an utterance.

(17) (a) María ya vive aquí. (b) María vive ya aquí. (c) María vive aquí ya.

(d) ya vive aquí María. ‘Mary already lives here.’ (Garrido 1993:358)

We can observe how ya can occur preverbally (17a), postverbally (17b), utterance-inally (17c), and utterance-initially (17d). However, there is no study that has analyzed the frequency of ya in each position, or whether ya can appear duplicated as it does in Andean Spanish. despite the fact that ya is mostly known as a temporal/aspectual marker, studies that have analyzed the modal uses of ya have observed how the particle can be used with an emphatic and afirmative value (Pérez-rioja 1987, Garrido 1993, González 1999, Wilk-racieska 2012). Observe the example below:

(18) Ya se sabe que Muti está acostumbrado a las viejas producciones de la Escala, pero su actitud me sigue pareciendo poco profesional.

‘Ya everybody knows that Muti is used to the old productions from Escala but his attitude still seems unprofessional to me.’ (Wilk- racieska 2012:298)

Following earlier research (Pérez-rioja 1987, Garrido 1993, González 1999), Wilk-racieska (2012) describes the use of ya in (18) as an epistemic conversa- tional marker which could be replaced by utterances such as claro or por supues-

to. The adverb does not contain a temporal, aspectual value, nor can it be analyzed in presuppositional terms. Its nature is afirmative and emphatic. González (1999) observes how modal ya can be used with factual and nonfactual predicates, but its semantic value changes when employed to describe non-factual events. Compare (19) with (20) below:

(19) Ya sé.

113 ‘I know.’ (González 1999:205) (20)

MOdAL YA IN BASQUE SPANISH, ANdEAN SPANISH, ANd JUdEO-SPANISH

Ya iríamos a América. ‘We would also like to go America.’ (González 1999:205)

With factual predicates (19), ya conveys the semantic value [+emphasis] [+afirmation] because the speaker is sure of the information s/he is providing and therefore emphasizes it. With non-factual predicates (20)—such as descriptions of future events, past inferences, and with hypothetical situations—modal ya car- ries only the semantic value of emphasis, but not afirmation ([+emphasis] [-af- irm]) since the speaker cannot conirm that the event actually occurred (González 1999).

González (1999) also analyzes the pragmatic contexts in which modal ya occurs in monolingual varieties, inding that it is used primarily to emphasize old information that has already been activated or evoked in the discourse by either interlocutor in the conversation (see Prince 1981, Silva-Corvalán 1986). Two dif-

ferent contextual distributions are distinguished: -Ya employed with propositions that compare or contrast information previ-

ously mentioned in the discourse (cf. Bosque 1980). -Ya in non-comparative contexts to emphasize information previously stated in the discourse without contrasting or comparing it.

In (21), the author presents modal afirmative ya with comparative predicates in which the speaker identiies himself as an example of the information already presented in the discourse.

A: Claro antes igual era más peligroso ¿no?

B: sí, sí, sí, según, a, a lo mejor te me-, te meten un golpe, un barco, a nosotros ya nos pegó, andando aquí a unas treinta millas

de … San Sebastián, nos vino un barco, nosotros trabajábamos- colocando las cajas se llaman cajas, colocando anchoas, nos pegó uno de Bermeo.

A: ‘I see. Before it was probably more dangerous, right?’

B: ‘yes. yes, yes. It depends. A boat could hit you. We were hit once when we were about thirty miles from … San Sebastian. A boat came towards us, we were working placing boxes, they are called boxes, placing boxes with anchovies. A boat from Bermeo hit us .’ (González 1999:172)

INTErNATIONAL JOUrNAL OF LASSO, VOLUME 32, NUMBEr 1 (2013)

In (21), the speaker explains that one of the problems with ishing during bad weather is that you could get hit by a larger boat. The bolded sentence ya nos pegó (‘ya it hit us’) identiies the speaker and his crew as having experienced a collision. For González, ya highlights the fact that the speaker and his crew ex- perienced the danger once, which illustrates the discourse topic. Furthermore, the

author argues that these contexts allow for the use of an afirmative sí que (sí a nosotros sí que nos pasó) with the same meaning.

Modal afirmative ya can also occur in non-comparative contexts where the speaker emphasizes information without comparing or contrasting it. See the ex-

amples below: (22)

A: … yo estoy aquí, veo el sol, y ahí estoy en la playa, o a … no sé caminar por aquí

B: ya hay paseos aquí bonitos, por ejemplo tienes cerquita, son

paseos peatonales, por ejemplo …

A: … ‘I am here, see the sun and there I go to the beach. Or to walk around.’

B: ‘There are nice paths here. For instance you have very close … these are walking paths. For instance … ’ (González 1999:169)

In (22), speaker A makes the irst explicit reference to the existence of side- walks along the coast. Speaker B restates the information by conirming the ex- istence of these paths in the town. González argues that in this case, modal ya emphasizes and asserts information already activated in the discourse without comparing or contrasting it with information previously mentioned. Graph 1 has been adapted from González’s (1999) research where the semantic and pragmatic uses of ya in monolingual Spanish varieties are diagrammed.

Non-Comparative Comparative/contrastive

g rAPh 1. Semantic and pragmatic functions of ya in monolingual varieties of Spanish.

115 We have chosen the functionalist deinition of modal ya expounded in

MOdAL YA IN BASQUE SPANISH, ANdEAN SPANISH, ANd JUdEO-SPANISH

González (1999) which is based on the semantic features of emphasis [+/- empha- sis] and afirmation [+/-afirm]. With factual predicates, the modal function of ya emphasizes [+emphasis] the belief of the speaker that the event has taken place or will take place, adding a [+ afirm] value to factual predicates. Conversely, with non-factual information, modal ya is used to emphasize [+emphasis] but not af- irm [-afirm], since it is used with past, hypothetical predicates.

3.2. A nAlysis oF the d Avies corPus . Our analysis of the davies (2002-)

corpus will help answer the following questions about the innovative uses of mod- al ya:

1. Can we ind evidence that the Basque Spanish innovation—a modal ya yielding new information—does not appear in other monolingual Spanish varieties?

2. Can we ind evidence that the duplicated ya (ya+[constituent]+ya) in Andean Spanish does not occur in monolingual varieties of Spanish?

3. knowing that the structures ya hay and ya ez verdad exist in Spanish, is there documentation of such combinations before the expulsion of the Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492?

In order to respond to these questions, we will consult the davies (2002-) cor- pus, targeting speciically the oral data from the habla culta (‘educated speech’) of main cities in the Hispanic world (Caracas, San José, La Havana, Quito, Lima, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, etc.) where Spanish is considered to be the most ‘standard’. The fact that the data come from mostly monolingual varieties serves

Adverbial ya

Adverbial

Discursive ya

discursive

Modal ya

New Information 0% Old Information non-comparative

2% (2) Old information comparative/contrast

6% (6) Non-factual information

2% (2) t Able

1. Percentages of ya in the davies Corpus (2002-).

INTErNATIONAL JOUrNAL OF LASSO, VOLUME 32, NUMBEr 1 (2013)

to accomplish step 3 of the analysis which focuses on compiling evidence that can militate against contact-based explanations.

For the Basque Spanish innovation, we applied the baseline of pragmatic uses of ya (González 1999) to 100 cases of modal ya from the davies (2002-) corpus. Of the 100 cases analyzed, most uses of ya in monolingual varieties in the davies Corpus were cases of adverbial ya, followed by discursive and modal ya. For modal ya , we followed the analysis proposed by González (1999), inding that the majority of the cases were cases of old information in comparative/contrastive contexts. There were no cases of modal ya with new information which corrobo- rated that ya with new information is an innovation that only occurs in Basque Spanish. Below are two examples that illustrate the phenomenon:

(23) Se disculpó innecesariamente por las ausencias, ‘Ya ves que no falto cuando me es posible acudir.’ ‘He apologized unnecessarily for his absences, “Ya you know that

I do not fail to attend when it’s possible for me to come”.’ (Entrev- ista ABC: Fernandez Cid Antonio)

(24) Ya me gustaría a mí que los arquitectos hiciesen casas así de - de bonitas. ‘Ya

I would like for the architects to do such beautiful houses.’ (España Oral: CCIE017A)

In the case of the common formulaic construction of ya ves, the ya is em- ployed to assert information and correct a possible inference from the interlocutor. In (23) the speaker is inferring that the interlocutor might think that ‘the speaker is always absent’, to which the speaker ‘brings the interlocutor back to the con- versation’ with ya ves, and subsequently corrects his incorrect inference, in this case the fact that ‘he does not miss when it is possible for him to come’ (Vigara Tauste 1992 quoted in González 1999:195). Another common formulaic use oc- curs before the conditional, in ya me gustaría. In this case, ya does not impart an adverbial value, as without it (ø me gustaría) ya is not pointing to a temporal reading. However, ya me gustaría does not express the same degree of afirmation and probability as ya ves, as the former occurs with a hypothetical, and therefore non-factual predicate.

Only 37 tokens of the ya+[constituent]+ya construction were found in the davies Corpus of a total of 39547 cases of ya (0.09%) in the oral corpus of the

20 th century. 2 Table 2 presents the number of cases of the double ya construction separated by constituent type.

2 The search was carried out using the ‘collocate’ option of the Davies corpus which allows users to search speciic words or phrases.

MOdAL YA IN BASQUE SPANISH, ANdEAN SPANISH, ANd JUdEO-SPANISH

Type of constituent Percentage(Token) Verb Phrase

46% (17) Adverb

19%(7) Whole Clause

19% (7) Noun Phrase

11%(4) Prepositional Phrase

Total 100% (37)

t Able 2. Type of constituent in ya+[constituent]+ya in the davies Corpus (2002-). The majority of the cases occurred with verb phrases (46%) and adverbs

¡No, no! desapareció el libro, porque yo después ya insistí ya, ¿no?, ya hice una cuestión formal, quería saber todo … ‘No, no! The book disappeared, because I later on ya insisted ya, no? I asked a formal question, I wanted to know everything … ’ (Habla Culta: Buenos Aires: M33B)

(26) Ya después ya... de muchos años de … de ejercicio profesional y

de haberme metido en negocios y en cosas, me sentí obligado un poco a meterme en política … ‘Ya after ya… many years of … being a professional and hav-

ing gone into business and things, I felt a little obliged to get into politics … ’ (Habla Culta: Caracas: M6)

(27) Ya muchas de ellas ya se marcharon a la península a seguir la carrera de Farmacia o de Medicina …

‘Ya many of them ya left for the Peninsula to continue studying

pharmacology or medicine … ’ (Habla Culta: Gran Canaria: 13) As we can observe in the examples above, the duplication adds an intensify-

ing effect which focalizes the constituent. At the same time, the double construc- tion has a function on the predicate, emphasizing the perfectivity of the event. For example, in (25) the speaker places the focus on the fact that s/he had already ‘insisted’ that s/he wanted to know how the book disappeared. In (26) the em- phasis is placed on the adverb después intensifying the reading of the events that happened before the informant got into politics and contrasting them with what

happened after. In (27) the speaker reinforces the afirmation that ‘many of them

INTErNATIONAL JOUrNAL OF LASSO, VOLUME 32, NUMBEr 1 (2013)

ya ’ (ya muchas de ellas ya) left to the Peninsula to start a career. As the table shows, about half of the double ya constructions were found in the habla culta (educated speech) of Santiago de Chile (46%). The other cases were dispersed in different varieties around the Spanish-speaking world.

Region or City % of the total and Tokens

Santiago 46% (17) Mexico

10.8% (4) España

10.8% (4) Havana

10.8% (4) Lima

8% (3) Buenos Aires

t Able 3. Percentages of ya+[constituent]+ya in different varieties of Spanish

according to the davies corpus (2002-).

The evidence in the davies corpus suggests that the double construction ya+[constituent]+ya is not a feature that only occurs in Andean Spanish, although we still need a corpus analysis of Andean Spanish to more accurately identify the types of constituents that the double construction tends to focalize.

For the Judeo-Spanish ya ay and ya ez verdad, we analyzed the diachronic distribution of both constructions in Peninsular Spanish (ya hay/ya es verdad) from the 15 th to the 20 th century, seen in Table 4.

Century % ya hay/ya ay/ % ya es verdad/ total tokens of ya

total tokens of ya

20 th 0.40% (159/39457) 0.01% (4/39457) t Able

4. Percentages of ya ay/ya ez verdad in the davies Corpus (2002-).

119 The two Judeo-Spanish constructions produced a relatively low number of

MOdAL YA IN BASQUE SPANISH, ANdEAN SPANISH, ANd JUdEO-SPANISH

tokens. The percentage of ya hay in the 15 th century (0.1%) is lower than the 20 th century (0.4%). The uses of ya es verdad are even less common with only 0.01% appearing in the 20 th century. Examples (28) and (29) are from the 15 th century:

(28) Los puercos, de treze hembras que truxe, ya hay tantos que andan bravos por las montañas … ‘The pigs, out of thirteen sows I brought, ya there are so many that roam wild in the mountains … ’ (Textos y documentos Completos

de Cristóbal Colón, Christopher Columbus) (29)

Leemos que asant benjto fue rreuelado que ya hay diablos que en espeçial son deputados de estoruar los eclesiasticos & de derramar les los coraçones … ‘We read that it was revealed to Saint Benito that ya there are dev- ils that specialize in exploiting the church and spilling their hearts … ’ (Libro de las donas, Fransescs Eiximenis)

According to Bello (1908) and Girón Alconchel (2011), Old Spanish, espe- cially during the 13 th and 14 th centuries, had a tendency to emphasize the afir- mative value of propositions by using a modal ya or sí. This modal ya served to

focalize the following constituent, especially with perfective tenses (Girón Alcon- chel 2011). This is the case for both examples above. In (28) ya hay focalizes the existence of ‘wild pigs’, whereas in (29) it is employed to focalize ‘the devils’. In (30) and (31), which are from the 20 th century, notice how the speaker uses ya hay to focalize the afirmative value of the proposition.

Naturalmente, se ha granjeado enemigos por todas partes y ya hay quien ha pedido su cabeza … ‘Naturally, he has won enemies everywhere and ya there have even been those who have asked for his head … ’(Entrevista ABC: Mataboch, Joan)

(31) Ya hay una serie de artistas que dependen absolutamente de determinados teóricos

‘Ya there is a series of artists who depend completely on certain

theoreticians … ’ (Entrevista ABC: Pedro Corral) In (30), the speaker is talking about an orchestral director who accuses the

artistic agents of micro-managing a music festival. The speaker emphasizes, through the use of ya hay, the fact that there are some people who have asked for

INTErNATIONAL JOUrNAL OF LASSO, VOLUME 32, NUMBEr 1 (2013)

his head for saying those things. Without ya hay in (31), the reading would be neutral, whereas when it is included, it intensiies the speaker’s commitment to the truth value of the statement, ‘There are artists that depend on certain theoreti- cians’.

In conclusion, we can observe, with the exception of Basque Spanish ya with new information, militating evidence against the contact-induced hypothesis. In the case of ya+[constituent]+ya we ind that it is indeed used in other monolin- gual varieties and with a range of different constituents. In the case of ya ay/ya ez verdad we also discover that it was present before the expulsion of the Sephardic Jews in the 15 th century, albeit relatively infrequent (i.e. only 0.10 % of all ya tokens).

4. t he three linguistic coMMunities : steP 4. The last step in the anal-

ysis centers on identifying the correlation between the level of contact and bilin- gualism in the community and the relative frequency of ya-constructions. Before we analyze the distribution of ya in our corpora of the three varieties, we provide a brief overview of the linguistic communities based on four extralinguistic factors: (1) intensity of contact, (2) length of contact, (3) status of the languages in the community, and (4) size of the language community (Thomason 2001, Winford 2003). A sociohistorical description of each linguistic community will help us to situate how extralinguistic factors affect the use of this feature.

4.1. b AsQue And s PAnish in the b AsQue A utonoMous c oMMu - nity . As a pre-Indo-European language, Basque has been in contact with Spanish in the Iberian Peninsula for centuries, dating back to the formative stages of the Spanish language itself (Tovar 1959). According to the most recent data on the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC), 49% of its 2.1 million inhabitants are Spanish monolinguals, 30% are bilinguals, and 21% are passive bilinguals (Eusko Jaurlaritza 2011). The distribution of Basque continues to be spatially marked with a high percentage of bilinguals (between 50% and 70%) in many towns and

a low percentage (4%-11%) in the cities. due to the strong Basque nationalist movement, the majority of the population in the Basque Country supports lan- guage revitalization efforts and has positive attitudes towards those who speak

the language and want to learn it (Eusko Ikaskuntza 2007). 3 The data in this study 3 The Basque Autonomous Community has experienced a relatively recent rise in the

number of euskaldunberris (‘new Basque speakers’) a term commonly employed to name those who are learning Basque as a second language. The rise of second language learners can be attributed to the institutionalization of a Basque-Spanish bilingual education sys- tem. Today, from primary to secondary levels, the vast majority (72%-96%) attend schools with bilingual education models in which all of the instruction is carried out in Basque and Spanish is treated as a different subject. Among the adult population, a web of Basque

121 come from two different oral corpora of semi-structured interviews gathered by

MOdAL YA IN BASQUE SPANISH, ANdEAN SPANISH, ANd JUdEO-SPANISH

Ciriza (2009) in two different locations: Bilbao (10 speakers) and Bermeo (6 speakers). In our corpus from Bilbao, all of the speakers were Spanish dominant, although they had passive academic knowledge of the Basque language. In Ber- meo, all the speakers were balanced bilinguals although they speak Basque more often than Spanish on a daily basis.

According to the latest surveys Bilbao presents 25% bilingualism and 22% passive bilingualism (Eusko Jaurlaritza 2011). Even though the number of euskal- dunberris has grown in the last 20 years in Bilbao, longitudinal studies show that the use of Basque is infrequent in the city despite the fact that a large percentage of the population has academic knowledge of the language. Concretely, studies show that only 3.2% of the population in Bilbao actively uses Basque in their public interactions with their friends, family, and in the streets (Soziolinguistika klusterra 2011). Bermeo is a relatively small community (17,144 inhabitants) 30 kilometers east of Bilbao on the Atlantic coast. In the Busturialdea region where Bermeo is located, bilingualism is high, rising to 76%, passive bilingualism is at 12% and only 13% are Spanish monolinguals (Eusko Jaurlaritza 2011). In relation to the use of Basque on the street, the most recent sociolinguistic census indicates that the use of Basque among speakers 65 and older is at 60% whereas among the 25-64 age group it is at 30% (Bermeoko Udala 2011). These contrasting linguistic landscapes are essential to determine if the level of bilingualism affects the dif-

fusion of the innovative use of modal ya, or whether it has diffused throughout several communities with similar language contact dynamics.

4.2. Q uechuA And A ndeAn s PAnish in e cuAdor . The Quechua lan-

guage is an Amerindian language autochthonous to South America and spoken by an estimated 13 million speakers. It can be found primarily in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia and peripherally in northern Chile and Argentina, southern Colombia, and the Amazonian region of western Brazil (Cerrón-Palomino 1987). Although Que- chua and Spanish are not genetically related, modern-day varieties in the Andean region share a considerable amount of vocabulary and some structural features as

a result of language contact that began during 16 th century Spanish colonialism. Historically, Quechua monolingualism has been conined to the rural regions of the central provinces of the Andes, especially among isolated communities near the páramos ‘high-altitude pastures that are typically not arable’. These commu- nities were characterized by not having access to education or to the commercial markets in the regional cities.

For the past 50-70 years, long-term migration to Spanish-speaking cities has language schools has helped to increase the number of euskaldurnberri speakers in the

low-contact urban areas.

INTErNATIONAL JOUrNAL OF LASSO, VOLUME 32, NUMBEr 1 (2013)