Negative Doubling in the Italo-Mexican community of Chipilo, Mexico

What is it about?

This study describes the phenomenon of negative doubling in Chipilo, Mexico. It has been hypothesized that Italo-Mexican bilinguals who speak Veneto (L1) and Spanish (L2) have transferred a second final no (no fui no 'I did not go NEG') from their L1 into Spanish, a language that does not allow a repetition of the same negator in the postverbal position. This study analysed the data of 49 participants (Chipileños, mixed, and monolingual speakers) classified into two sex groups and four ethnicity groups, who performed a preference forced choice task and a repetition task. The results suggest a transfer effect from L1 to L2 in the bilinguals' speech, specifically in the discourse of males. Second negative mention and verbs as previous constituents had a strong effect on elicitation of negation doubling.

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Why is it important?

This project departs distinctly from much previous research. Instead of focusing on minority language patterns of shift or loss, it examines variation in the majority language among bilingual speakers. This is something rare, since minority languages usually undergo language attrition and then loss after three generations (e.g., Silva-Corvalán, 2001; Trudgill, 1982).This paper therefore offers important implications for developing future proposals or theories that deal with contact-induced changes and transgenerational relationships in a bilingual setting.

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