Feature variability in bilingual Quechua, Shipibo and Limeño Spanish contact speakers
What is it about?
In this article we analyse the distribution of direct object pronouns (clitics) and differntial object marking (DOM) in clitic doubling structures among Shipibo-Spanish bilinguals, Quechua-Spanish bilinguals, and monolingual speakers of Spanish in contact with Quechua. We analyze a continuum of clitic forms and DOM as complex cases of feature reassembly (Lardiere 1998, 2005) and functional convergence (Sánchez 2004) that results in new interface rules (Jackendoff 2011) with scalar hierarchies.
Why is it important?
We study both phenomena in Peruvian Quechua-Spanish, Shipibo-Spanish bilinguals and monolingual speakers of Peruvian Spanish in contact with Quechua in order to find a) evidence for differences in the feature configuration of direct object clitics as interface rules in bilinguals and monolinguals in contact situations, and b) if there is a continuum of variability in DOM specification in clitic doubling structures.