Priming and mechanical effects in linguistic variation: (de)queísmo in a canarian linguistic community

Authors

  • Manuel Almeida Instituto de Lingüística “Andrés Bello”, Universidad de La Laguna, Campus de Guajara, 38071, La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Abstract

Spanish and Portuguese are the only Romance languages characterisedby (de)queísmo, a non-standard phenomenon. As scholars havepointed out, it is a very complex phenomenon, since it has implicationson the linguistic, social, psycho-social and psycho-linguisticdimensions of speech. The aim of this research is the analysis of differentpsycho-linguistic factors that infl uence the use of the prepositionde before que, as priming (i.e. its the presence or absence of /de/ inthe clause just preceding que) and different mechanical effects (as theexistence or not of related linguistic structures and the juxtapositionor not of the main clause and the clause headed by que).    

Keywords:

(de)queísmo, language variation, psycholinguistics