26.3025, Review: Sociolinguistics: Ignacio Hualde, Olarrea, O'Rourke (2013)

[The LINGUIST List via LINGUIST]

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-3025. Wed Jun 24 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.3025, Review: Sociolinguistics: Ignacio Hualde, Olarrea, O'Rourke (2013)

Moderators: linguist at linguistlist.org (Damir Cavar, Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Anthony Aristar, Helen Aristar-Dry, Sara Couture)
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
              http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Sara  Couture <sara at linguistlist.org>
================================================================


Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:01:29
From: Meghan Dabkowski [meghan.dabkowski at gmail.com]
Subject: The Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=32717779


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-5087.html

EDITOR: José Ignacio  Hualde
EDITOR: Antxon  Olarrea
EDITOR: Erin  O'Rourke
TITLE: The Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics
SERIES TITLE: Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics
PUBLISHER: Wiley-Blackwell
YEAR: 2013

REVIEWER: Meghan Dabkowski, Ohio State University

Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

The Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics, edited by José Ignacio Hualde, Antxon
Olarrea, and Erin O’Rourke, includes forty peer-reviewed chapters by
forty-eight contributing authors. The volume presents the state of research on
linguistic topics spanning the major areas of linguistic structure: phonology,
morphology, syntax, and semantics; as well as sociolinguistics,
psycholinguistics, and acquisition. 

The first chapter, “Geographic and Social Varieties of Spanish: An Overview”
by John M. Lipski, provides a summary of some of the major ways in which
regional and social variation are manifested in Spanish. Lipski addresses
dialect divisions in Spain and Latin America, while recognizing issues with
delimiting varieties, and goes on to discuss the major variation patterns
found in Spanish, including phonetic and phonological, intonational,
morphosyntactic, and lexical differences. Lipski concludes with a summary that
looks to the future of Spanish, and wonders about possible effects of
technology and migration on dialect leveling on the one hand, and on awareness
and maintenance of varietal features on the other hand. 

“The Spanish-based Creoles”, by J. Clancy Clements, presents an overview of
the creole languages with Spanish-based lexicons: Palenquero in Colombia,
Papiamentu in Curação, and Zamboangueño in the Philippines. The author first
discusses the lack of Spanish-based creoles, as compared to those based on
English, Portuguese, or French, in light of McWhorter’s Afro-Genesis
Hypothesis (2000). The chapter further addresses creole formation as an
evolutionary process related to language acquisition, processing, and
production, before giving brief sketches of the sociohistorical background for
each of the three creoles. Next, Clements provides a comparison of some
linguistic features in the noun phrase and the verb phrase. He concludes with
a discussion of the role of the Principle of Uniformity in the formation of
these creoles, but argues that frequency and perceptual salience also play a
role, as does the Principle of Economy. Finally, he notes some promising
developments for the future of creole studies, such as the abundance of new
historical information and DNA testing. 

Chapter 3, “Spanish Among the Ibero-Romance Languages”, by Christopher J.
Pountain, addresses the historical development of Castilian Spanish, and the
extent of the role played by contact with other language. First, Pountain
considers the origins and expansion of Castilian, particularly with regard to
“secondary” dialectalization in the Reconquest, and offers an overview of
early standardization efforts both on the Iberian Peninsula and in the speech
communities that made up the Spanish-speaking world. The author then focuses
on the influence of other Ibero-Romance languages on Castilian, mostly by way
of noting phonological and morphosyntactic influences on the Spanish spoken in
areas with other languages, especially Catalan and Galician. Pountain also
notes substantial influence of Castilian on Portuguese (both in Iberia and
South America) and on Catalan. 

Anna María Escobar’s “Spanish in Contact with Amerindian Languages” highlights
the rich linguistic diversity present in the Americas. After noting some of
the most common lexical borrowings from Amerindian languages into Spanish, the
author separately discusses grammatical features of Spanish in contact with
Quechua, Mayan languages, Guarani, Nahuatl, and Mapudungun, followed by a
brief section in which she addresses the commonalities found across these
varieties, especially the borrowing of grammatical markers, and certain
phonological and morphosyntactic characteristics. Escobar closes with a
sociolinguistic sketch focusing on indigenous movements and literacy rates of
the areas in which these Amerindian languages are spoken, and some final
remarks that consider the effects of migration and urbanization on the future
of these contact varieties. 

The fifth chapter, by Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza, “The Phonemes of Spanish”,
describes the phonemes of Spanish and their distribution, with attention to
the major dialectal variants. Traditional accounts are presented, along with
recent research in laboratory phonology. First, the author addresses the
vocalic inventory, noting that while traditional accounts have described
stability across dialects, there is variation in vowel production across and
within geographic varieties of Spanish. The consonantal inventory is described
next, with two main sections on obstruents and sonorant. Campos-Astorkiza then
discusses evidence for two quasi-phonemic contrasts: glides vs. high vowels
and the phonemic status of [ʝ~ɟ]. She concludes by noting some areas in which
laboratory phonology has made recent advances, and mentions some topics
currently attracting attention, such as inter- and intra-dialectal rhotic
variation.

Chapter 6, “Main Phonological Processes” by Fernando Martínez-Gil, presents
four types of assimilatory processes found in Spanish, three partial: nasal
and lateral assimilation, spirantization of voiced obstruents, and voicing
assimilation of coda obstruents; and one complete: consonant assimilation in
Andalusian and Cuban varieties. For each of these processes, he critically
reviews the most influential derivational approaches as well as
constraints-based optimality theoretic analyses. 

Next, Sonia Colina’s “Syllable Structure” addresses the significance of the
syllable as a unit of phonological organization. This chapter examines
previous and current research on the role of sonority, syllabic constituency,
syllabic restrictions on segmental content in onsets, nuclei, and codas,
syllabification across word boundaries, and the interaction between
syllabification and morphology. Colina discusses the contributions of
rule-based accounts, but also shows that constraint-based frameworks like
Optimality Theory (McCarthy and Prince 1993, McCarthy 2002) can account for
most of the processes where syllable plays a role, including onset
maximization, syllabification across word boundaries, syllable mergers, coda
licensing restrictions, and plural epenthesis.

The eighth chapter, by José Ignacio Hualde, reviews research on “Stress and
Rhythm” in Spanish. The author reviews general patterns of word-level and
utterance-level stress before discussing some of the contributions of Metrical
Theory (Liberman 1975, Liberman and Prince 1977) to our understanding of the
interplay between stress and rhythm and questioning its assumptions regarding
the degree to which stress and rhythm are integrated, based on research on
word-level stress assignment and rhythmic patterns. Next, Hualde explores the
questions of quantity sensitivity and related restrictions on stress
assignment, as well as issues associated with compounds, unstressed words, and
secondary stress assignment. He also reviews the acoustic correlates of
stress, and finally discusses the complexity of phonetic and phonological
research on rhythm. 

“Intonation in Spanish”, by Erin O’Rourke, describes intonation in terms of
its properties and their relation to meaning, and reviews the literature on
intonation in Spanish, focusing, as the field has, on describing the common
utterance type features widely found across varieties of Spanish.  The author
also reviews recent research related to language contact and dialect-specific
intonation patterns, and finds support for contact as a source of variation.
Additionally, she mentions current research dealing with the acquisition of
intonation, both in one’s first and second language. O’Rourke concludes by
suggesting that once the phonetics and phonology of contours have been
adequately described, the field may advance by further investigating questions
of contact and acquisition and sociolinguistic issues, as well as conducting
detailed pragmatic analyses and comparative studies with other languages. 

David Eddington’s chapter “Morphophonological Alternations” discusses the
major morphophonological alternations in Spanish, based on the attention each
has received in the literature: diphthongization, diminutive allomorphy, velar
and coronal softening, and nasal and velar depalatalization. He first
addresses diphthongization, arguing that its productivity may be largely due
to analogy. Next, his description of diminutive allomorphy leads to the
conclusion that it is largely predictable by the base’s final phone, gender of
the form, and number of syllables.  In relation to velar and coronal
softening, he finds little evidence to support coronal softening, and
concludes that velar softening is related to orthography. With regard to nasal
and velar depalatalization, he argues that these processes have received a
disproportionate amount of attention given his finding that depalatalization
only occurs in borrowings where the palatal would occur word-finally. 

In the next chapter, Soledad Varela examines “Derivation and Compounding”,
beginning with a review of the types of derivation, and the processes of
suffixation and prefixation, followed by a discussion of derivation and
argument structure, affixation and aspect, and productive affix ordering. Then
she considers various aspects of compounding: constituents, traditional
classifications, and types of compounds and their properties, including
verb-noun > noun, noun-noun > noun, adjective-adjective > adjective,
noun-adjective/adjective-noun > noun, and noun-i-adjective > adjective, in
which the two parts are linked by an –i-, as in the word pelirrizado. Varela
subsequently provides discussion regarding the internal structure of
compounds, their inflection and derivation, compounds and phrases, and
productivity and recursivity. 

In the twelfth chapter, “Morphological Structure of Verbal Forms”, Manuel
Pérez Saldanya looks at verbal inflection in Spanish, in particular the
morphological properties of the categories of person and gender, time, aspect,
and mood, and conjugation. He reports that person and gender markers are very
regular with the only exceptions being present indicative first person and
imperative second person, while tense, aspect, and mood markers are less
regular with some cases of allomorphy in several conjugations and persons. He
concludes that the main irregularities encountered are due to changes in the
root vowel or final consonant, while inflectional irregularities are sporadic.

Chapter 13, “Forms of Address”, by Bob De Jonge and Dorien Nieuwenhuijsen
provides an account of forms of address in Old Spanish, Modern Peninsular
Spanish, Modern Latin American Spanish, including their historical origins,
and their specific usage characteristics in Spain and Latin America. For
Spain, the authors discuss the geographical distribution of ‘vosotros’ and
‘ustedes’ for both formal and informal contexts, and the spreading of tú to
contexts in which the speaker does not know the interlocutor. For Latin
America, the authors examine the total lack of ‘vosotros’ and the use of
‘usted’ in some regions to express solidarity, but spend the most space on
‘voseo’, outlining its morphology, the appearance of pronominal ‘tuteo’ with
verbal ‘voseo’, or vice versa, regional distributions of ‘tú’ and ‘vos’, and
attitudes toward ‘vos’.

M. Carme Picallo’s “Structure of the Noun Phrase” addresses the
morphosyntactic properties of noun phrases, examining approaches to the
argument structure of derived and non-derived nouns, possible functional
projections for derivation and inflection under the Determiner Phrase domain,
and the interpretation and hierarchical ordering of adnominal adjectives. The
author argues that operations assumed to take place under distinct theoretical
models leave some gaps and asymmetries, and concludes by suggesting that a
theoretical model is needed that takes into account all factors of nominal
constituency. 

“Indefiniteness and Specificity”, by Manuel Leonetti, presents significant
advances in our understanding of the grammar of indefinite noun phrases, by
addressing three topics: bare nouns, indefinite determiners, and specificity. 
He begins with an overview of bare nouns, presenting well-established
assumptions about them: their behavior as property-denoting semantically
incorporated expressions, their absence of generic readings, and constraints
on their distribution. Next he presents the variety of indefinite determiners
such as the article ‘un/unos’, epistemic and modal indefinites like ‘algún’,
and adjectives like ‘cierto’ and ‘otro’. Finally, he discusses some
grammatical phenomena related to specificity, especially adjective position,
Differential Object Marking, clitic doubling, and fronting constructions. 

In Chapter 16, on “Quantification”, Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach shows the richness
and variation in the landscape of quantificational constructions in Spanish.
He addresses an array of topics related to the syntax and semantics of
quantification in seven sections dealing with: reference; constraints on
determiner denotations; quantifier classes; scope, polyadicity, and plurality;
dynamics; questions; and degree. Gutiérrez-Rexach notes that analysis of
quantification in Spanish has grown in recent years and its richness of
quantificational constructions has provided new insights to this area of
research.

The seventeenth chapter, “Structure of the Verb Phrase”, by Jaume Mateu, deals
with the syntactic and lexical semantic properties of verbs, starting with the
assumption that the latter heavily determines the former. The author begins by
comparing two major approaches to the lexicon-syntax interface: one based on
thematic roles and the other based on predicate decompositions. Then he
applies Hale and Keyser’s (2002) syntactic decomposition of VP to Spanish, and
finds that argument structure and event structure are represented in a layered
syntactic structure of the verb phrase. Mateu also presents a case study of
contrasts between Spanish and English Path/Result structures in the verb
phrase.

Karen Zagona’s chapter, “Tense and Aspect” offers an overview of the main
concepts of verbal tense and aspect, and the temporal information encoded by
them. In her overview of tense, she suggests that distinctions traditionally
portrayed as pertaining to tense are actually relations between speech-time
and reference-time, as described in Reichenbach’s framework (1947). Zagona
then considers the properties of past and non-past tenses in more detail, and
follows with a discussion of tenses in embedded clauses and contextual factors
affecting their meaning. She finishes the chapter by addressing traditional
and recent approaches to lexical and grammatical aspect. 

“Mood: Indicative vs. Subjunctive”, by Ignacio Bosque, reports some main
issues and controversies in the theoretical literature on Spanish verbal
moods. After giving an overview of the indicative and subjunctive moods and
their triggers, the author considers the possibility of a unified account of
subjunctive meanings, and indicates that while broad semantic claims of unity
leave much to be desired, restrictive syntactic claims of subordination are
correct.  Next he considers research on the relationship of mood to lexical
selection, locality, scope, and finally, co-reference. 

Héctor Campos deals with the classification of sentences in his chapter, “The
Simple Sentence”. He notes that classifying sentences on the basis of the
“attitude” of the speaker, as proposed by the RAE (2009, 2010), as opposed to
their dependence on (or independence from) other units or the nature of their
predicate, is the most effective criterion. His theoretical framework
incorporates insights from syntactic, semantic and pragmatic research and
relies on the concepts of sentential types, sentential force, and
illocutionary force. He addresses in detail five main sentence types that
emerge from this analysis: declarative, interrogative, exclamative,
exhortative, and desiderative, as well as dubitative and probability
sentences, and notes that future research could benefit from incorporating
propositional modality into analyses of sentence types. 

In “Clitics in Spanish”, Francisco Ordóñez addresses the morphosyntactic, and
to a lesser extent, phonological properties of the unstressed pronouns known
as clitics. The author notes that they are distinguished from stressed
pronouns on the basis of coordination, modification, emphasis, and isolation. 
He then discusses their source, different distributional patterns, namely
proclisis and enclisis, and their movement to an inflectional projection close
to the verb. Ordóñez’s analysis of clitic doubling suggests that clitics’
initial structure is likely more complex than previously believed, and he
concludes by noting the complexities in the morphology – syntax interaction
observable in clitic combinations.   

“Ser and Estar: The Individual/Stage-level Distinction and Aspectual
Predication”, by José Camacho offers a summary of the distribution of the two
main copular verbs, ser and estar, accompanied by proposals in the literature
that account for this overlapping distribution using either aspectual
properties of the copula or the predicates, or both. He concludes that while
ser lacks any aspectual properties, estar agrees with its complements in an
inchoative feature. He also highlights the role of semantic coercion for a
subset of lexically marked predicates in order to explain non-canonical uses
of ser and estar. 

Chapter 23, “Passives and se Constructions”, by Amaya Mendikoetxea, examines
the involvement of se in arbitrary constructions (impersonal/passive and
middle constructions), as well as anaphoric constructions (reciprocal,
(pseudo-) reflexive, unaccusative/inchoative). After reviewing the descriptive
literature on se (si in Italian), the author discusses its status and its
place in the clitic paradigm, and then gives an account of the syntax and
semantics of arbitrary se constructions, followed by an account of anaphoric
constructions. She concludes by hypothesizing about the possibility of a
unified account of se/si, for Spanish as well as all other Romance languages. 

The twenty-fourth chapter, by Ricardo Etxepare, addresses “Coordination and
Subordination”. The author begins by reviewing the basic properties of the two
clause linking strategies, and then discusses subordination in terms of mood,
including intentional and polarity subjunctives and semantic factors in the
selection of mood. Next, he examines infinitive dependents, focusing on
temporal properties and selection, control infinitivals, and raising
constructions, followed by an analysis of the status of the finite
complementizer in which he assesses nominal properties of que-clauses, queísmo
and dequeísmo, predicative and modifying uses of que-clauses, speech act
dependents, and nonselected que-clauses. He then reviews research on
coordination, including asymmetries in coordination, plurality,
distributivity, and conjunction, and adversative coordination.   

In “Wh-Movement: Interrogatives, Exclamatives, and Relatives”, Jerid Francom
expands on earlier accounts of wh-movement that focused only on
interrogatives. He restricts his analysis to wh-interrogatives,
wh-exclamatives, and restrictive relative clauses, noting that they share
lexical, syntactic, and semantic properties. Francom provides several examples
of each type, and then addresses each separately, which leads to the main
theoretical discussion about the major topics with which research on
wh-movement is concerned: the landing site of wh-phrases, the nature of matrix
and embedded complementizer phrases, and wh-phrase extraction across clause
boundaries. He concludes noting that recent research combining applied and
formal accounts has resulted in a better understanding of wh-movement.

Luis Eguren’s “Binding: Deixis, Anaphors, Pronominals” offers a generative
account of deixis, situated within the Binding Theory framework (Chomsky
1981). The author begins by describing deixis, with a focus on demonstrative
determiners and pronouns, and continues with an introduction to Binding
Theory. Next, anaphors and pronominals are discussed in detail with regard to
their distinctive syntactic properties. The chapter concludes with a
discussion of the problem of complementary distribution, which Binding Theory
predicts that anaphors and pronominals must have; however Eguren outlines some
problematic cases for this prediction, namely binding in prepositional phrases
and emphatic and distributive pronouns. 

In “Empty Categories and Ellipsis”, Josep María Brucart and Jonathan E.
MacDonald analyze ellipsis, in which elements that contribute to
interpretation and remain syntactically present, are phonetically unrealized,
resulting in gaps. The authors review the nature, licensing and interpretation
of several constructions that are classified as ellipsis: empty nominal and
pronominal categories, verbal ellipsis, including gapping, Tense Phrase
ellipsis, sluicing, and null-complement anaphora. While acknowledging the
differences between these constructions, the authors note the contributions of
the analysis of each as a first step to a deeper understanding of the
interpretation of ellipsis. 

Chapter 28, “Word Order and Information Structure”, by Antxon Olarrea, offers
a summary of the research on the relationship between syntax, informational
content and prosodic phonology, with a focus on simple declaratives. As the
author notes, Spanish has a relatively free word order, but derived word
orders that differ from the neutral Subject Verb Object (SVO) give rise to
non-neutral interpretations of constituents: as given or new information, or
as part of a restricted set. Olarrea first addresses the properties of neutral
SVO order, defines topic and focus, and then presents descriptions of the
structures that codify topic and focus. The topicalizing constructions
described are: hanging topic left dislocation, clitic left dislocation, clitic
right dislocation, and one focalizing construction, focus fronting is
described. Next, formal accounts for the structures are offered, and Olarrea
concludes by mentioning several areas that had to be excluded for lack of
space: cleft sentences, fronted quantifiers, and focalizing adverbs, and he
also highlights the importance of recent and future research on focus and
intonation. 

“Speech Acts”, by Victoria Escandell-Vidal, reviews basic notions of language
as action and interaction, as well as the main trends and findings in this
area for Spanish. After a brief review of major concepts such as
locutionary/illocutionary/perlocutionary acts, the author focuses on sentence
type and illocutionary force. Before discussing imperatives, interrogatives,
and exclamatives, she notes the importance of considering the pragmatic
meaning of utterances as part and parcel of their grammatical description. She
then turns to illocutionary force and politeness, followed by a discussion of
cognition and inferential process. Escandell-Vidal concludes by emphasizing
the contributions of pragmatic meaning to grammatical explanation, and calls
for further research to better understand overlapping categories, and in
particular, the inclusion of intonation in formal accounts.

The thirtieth chapter, “Discourse Syntax” by Catherine E. Travis and Rena
Torres Cacoullos offers a usage-based, functional account of syntax in
discourse. The authors present a sample of empirical studies of discourse
focusing on different issues, including: information flow in the realization
and distribution of NPs, transitivity as a scalar phenomenon, nonreferential
uses of lexical NPs, constructions as the basic unit of grammar, and
additionally provide a case study of first person subject expression in
discourse. Travis and Cacoullous conclude by arguing that grammatical
structure is expressed in and derives from usage patterns in discourse, and
call for further research grounded in these patterns in order to improve our
understanding of grammar. 

In “Historical Morphosyntax and Grammaticalization”, Concepción Company
Company addresses major morphosyntactic changes in the history of Spanish
within the theoretical framework of Grammaticalization. She presents a
traditional definition of grammaticalization along with a complementary one
that defines grammaticalization as the conventionalization of tendencies
emerging from the discourse. She then discusses the ways in which innovative
forms emerge and advance, including a discussion of the role of markedness,
the hierarchy of the favorability of contexts for grammaticalization, the role
of context, and consequences and pathways of grammaticalization.  Before
concluding, Company Company presents some controversial issues regarding the
nature of reanalysis and its relation to grammaticalization. 

Conxita Lleó explores research on “First Language Acquisition of Spanish
Sounds and Prosody” in Chapter thirty-two. She presents the central issues in
field, such as the basic units of acquisition, cross-linguistic chronological
ordering of acquisition, the role of frequency, and more. After reviewing
several theoretical models of acquisition, Lleó discusses existing research on
acquisition of sounds and prosody in Spanish, covering the acquisition of
consonants and vowels in general and in different prosodic positions, as well
as acquisition of: the syllable, the prosodic word, stress, rhythm, and
intonation. She also briefly addresses bilingual acquisition in light of the
previously mentioned topics, and concludes by calling attention to the
importance of studies investigating frequency effects and potential insights
that further research in this area could bring. 

In “Spanish as a Second Language and Teaching Methodologies” Cristina Sanz
summarizes the history and current methods of Spanish language teaching,
influential research on foreign/second language pedagogy, and current issues
in the field. The historical review begins noting the lack of publications
dealing with methodology until the 1800s, when debates about traditional and
natural methods began, and proceeds discussing advances up through the opening
of the Instituto Cervantes. Sanz then presents sketches of three major
approaches and the research on which they are based. These are: Task-based
Instruction (known as the Communicative Method), Processing Instruction, and
Content-based Instruction. She notes the significance of Task-based
Instruction and also presents the newer perspectives of Processing Instruction
and content-based approaches. Before concluding by noting progress and future
challenges, Sanz gives an overview of theoretical underpinnings of pedagogical
research, focusing on early nativist approaches, contributions of
sociocultural theory, and issues regarding the role of input, pedagogical
interventions, and individual differences in SLA.  

Miquel Simonet’s chapter, “The L2 Acquisition of Spanish Phonetics and
Phonology” focuses on the lesser-studied area of the second language
acquisition of the sound system of Spanish.  The author first presents general
characteristics of second language phonetic learning and two influential
models, the Speech Learning Model (Flege 1995) and the Perceptual Assimilation
Model (Best 1995). For vowels, Simonet reviews studies that investigate
production of Spanish vowels by native speakers of both Quichua and English,
as well as studies concerned with perception of Spanish vowels by speakers of
English and Dutch. With regard to consonants, the studies reviewed here
explore production and perception of voiceless stops by English-speaking late
learners of Spanish and Spanish-English bilinguals, variable production of
spirantized /b d g/ by English-speaking late learners, and the production of
liquids by English-speaking late learners and Catalan-Spanish early
bilinguals. He concludes that SLM and PAM models can account for and improve
with further research on many more sound categories, including the L2
acquisition of prosodic features.   

Chapter 35, “Theoretical Perspectives on the L2 Acquisition of Spanish” by
Silvina Montrul, presents research on second language acquisition of
morphosyntax and lexical semantics in terms of two main theories of
acquisition, Universal Grammar, which posits a special human capacity for
language rooted in genetics, and emergentist approaches with the view that
language and grammar emerge from interaction. Montrul looks specifically at
accusative and dative object clitics, null objects, and transitivity
alternations, and discusses how research grounded in each approach has
accounted for each. In her assessment of the relative success of these
analyses, she observes that emergentist approaches better account for early
acquisition, while UG approaches better explain later stages of acquisition.
She concludes that neither approach can fully explain the range of phenomena
observed and advocates for a position somewhere in the middle.

In “Spanish as a Heritage Language”, María M. Carreira traces the development
of the relatively recent field of the teaching of Spanish to U.S. Latinos who
are bilingual to varying degrees. A brief history of the field is given,
highlighting the move from a prescriptive approach in the early 20th century
to a comprehensive approach in the 1970s and 1980s. Next is a discussion of
developments in the 1990s and 2000s, which brought a greater focus on Spanish
heritage language pedagogy. Carreira discusses the development of new
resources, including pedagogical materials, and research advancements in age
of onset of bilingualism, input, literacy and schooling and motivation, before
discussing more recent progress such as research on heritage learner’s
grammatical competence, effects of instruction, and sociolinguistic research
on language maintenance. She concludes the chapter by noting the vast progress
made in the last fifteen years, but calls for more focus on connecting
research advances to classroom practices.

“Acquisition of Spanish in Bilingual Contexts” by Carmen Silva-Corvalán,
focuses on grammatical aspects of Bilingual First Language Acquistion (BFLA)
of Spanish by children with exposure to both languages before six months of
age. She reports that, despite the presence of bilingualism in all countries
where Spanish has official status, BFLA is an especially under-researched
topic. Before discussing contextual factors in the development of child
bilingualism, Silva-Corvalán outlines some main research questions for BFLA,
such as the role of exposure and input, and the organization of the two
systems. She then compares bilingual children’s language development to that
of monolinguals and finds many similarities. Finally, after reviewing research
methods in the field, the author presents some case studies of morphosyntactic
development, concluding that development for the dominant language proceeds in
much the same way as for monolinguals, whereas development in the weaker
language is slightly delayed.
 
Manuel Carreiras, Jon Andini Duñabeitia, and Nicola Molinaro discuss the
psycholinguistics of word and sentence processing in the next chapter,
“Reading Words and Sentences in Spanish”. For word reading, the authors review
research on alphabetical orthography, grapheme to phoneme mapping, syllabic
processing, morphological processing, and the close co-existence of Spanish
with other languages. For sentence reading, major findings are reported for
the processing of anaphoric relationships, and the empty category PRO, as well
as some research investigating the syntax-semantic interface using
neurobiological data and in the early stages of processing.  The major
conclusion is that the study of Spanish has made great contributions to this
field, which had previously relied on English data, and that further research
on Spanish and other languages can lead to a more comprehensive theory of
language processing.

“Language Impairments” by José Manuel Igoa addresses the particularities
associated with Spanish that are not found in language impairments of speakers
of other languages. The author presents research on spoken language
impairments affecting the phonology, lexicon, and morphosyntax of the speaker,
followed by relevant findings of neuropsychological research on reading and
writing impairments. He also presents a brief review of some studies done on
language impairment in bilingual Spanish speakers, and discusses investigation
on the collection of disorders and delays that fall under the category of
Specific Language Impairment. Igoa concludes that while the study of language
impairments in Spanish speakers mostly confirms findings of previous research
done on other languages, it also provides new evidence for some controversial
issues, like the processing of tense-agreement functional categories. 

The fortieth and final chapter, “Lexical Access in Spanish as a First and
Second Language” by Albert Costa, Iva Ivanova, Cristina Baus, and Nuria
Sebastián-Gallés addresses bilingual cognitive research on the lexical access
stage of speech production. The authors review the literature on the
representations of and processes and variables involved in lexical access
generally, and in bilingual contexts, discussing not only the effects of
speakers’ L1 on their L2 Spanish, but also effects of L2 on L1 Spanish. They
notably address the bilingual disadvantage and some possible explanations for
it, including cross-language interference and frequency effects. Next, they
discuss bilingual lexical control in Spanish speakers, as well as effects of
immersion on the activation of the two languages. The conclusion suggests that
the bilingual disadvantage may in fact be evidence of more efficient systems
of language control, which extend to other nonlinguistic areas of cognitive
function. 

EVALUATION

The Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics is a remarkable compendium encompassing a
wide range of scientific inquiry on the many facets of Spanish language
structure and use. While presenting complex research, it remains clear and
accessible, constituting a valuable resource for not only for linguistic
scholars, but also for advanced Spanish learners, and anyone with an interest
in the field.  

The Handbook is notable for its breadth, covering a wide and diverse range of
topics, including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics,
sociolinguistics, historical linguistics and language change, L1 and L2
acquisition, language teaching methodologies, and more. A variety of
approaches are represented as well: qualitative, quantitative, theoretical,
empirical, and pedagogical, and where possible, authors of individual chapters
discuss previous contributions to their topic by multiple approaches and
frameworks. 

Advanced scholars of Hispanic linguistics can greatly benefit from this
volume, but it is also impressive in its accessibility. Authors of individual
sections, among whom are many of the most well established specialists in the
field as well as emerging scholars, do not assume highly advanced knowledge in
their subjects and are careful to describe terminology and concepts that may
be unfamiliar to a less-experienced reader. 

Due to space limitations and the need for breadth, the contributions did not
manage to offer an in-depth analysis of the topics. However, most of the
chapters note areas that had to be excluded, in many cases providing
references for these in their extensive reviews of the pertinent literature,
and the compromise of depth for breadth is justified. 

Overall, the “Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics” is a crucial volume that not
only presents the state of the art of research on many aspects of the Spanish
language, it also opens new discussion on different topics and provides venues
for further research, ensuring its relevance for years to come. It is clear,
accessible, sophisticated, and wide-ranging, and is therefore highly
recommended for all scholars in Hispanic linguistics, as well as students of
Spanish, and linguists interested more generally in any of the topics
presented.  
 
REFERENCES:
 
Best, Catherine. 1995. A direct realist view of cross-language speech
perception. In Winnifred Strange (ed.), Speech perception and linguistic
experience: issues in cross-language research, 171-206. Timonium, MD: York
Press.

Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris. 

Flege, James. Second language speech learning: theory, findings, and problems.
In Winnifred Strange (ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience:
issues in cross-language research, 171-206. Timonium, MD: York Press.

Hale, Kenneth L. and Samuel Jay Keyser. 2002. Prolegomenon to a theory of
argument structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 

Liberman, Mark. 1975. The intonational system of English. MIT, Cambridge, MA
dissertation.

Liberman, Mark and Alan Prince. 1977. On stress and linguistic rhythm.
Linguistic Inquiry 8. 249-336.

McCarthy, John. 2002. A thematic guide to Optimality Theory. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

McCarthy, John and Alan Prince. 1993. Generalized alignment. In Geert Booij
and Jap can Maarle (eds.), Yearbook of morphology, 79-153. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 

McWhorter, John. 2000. The missing Spanish creoles: recovering the birth of
plantation contact languages: Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Real Academia Española. 2009. Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid:
Espasa Libros.

Real Academia Española. 2010. Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Manual.
Madrid: Espasa Libros.

Reichenbach, Hans. 1947. Elements of symbolic logic. New York: Macmillan.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Meghan Dabkowski is a PhD student in Hispanic Linguistics at The Ohio State
University with a specialization in the phonetics and phonology of intonation
and segmental sociophonetic variation. She is interested in the contribution
of intonation to pragmatic meaning in Spanish and Portuguese, as well as
variation and prosodic interaction in vowel weakening processes.





----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-26-3025	
----------------------------------------------------------