Spanish pronominal clitics in bilingual speakers of Spanish and Otomi

Abstract

In this study I present a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the morphosyntactic variation of the 3rd person clitic pronouns in Spanish-Otomi bilingual speakers. The results suggest, on the one hand, that grammatical categories of gender, number and case of the clitic undergo a process of neutralization, which is reflected in the election of the clitic lo as the neutral form. On the other hand, the results provide evidence for an ongoing linguistic change triggered by language contact, as well as by social factors like age and gender, which privilege the usage of the clitic lo over the others. In order to explain this phenomenon, I take the Spanish variety of central Mexico as the basis for comparison. Furthermore, I describe and analyze the patterns of variation in the bilingual speakers clitic system starting from some grammatical properties of Otomi, as well as the sociolinguistic characteristics of the speakers.