Construcciones verbales del Espanol Andino: Interaccion Quechua - Espanola en la frontera Colombo - Ecuatoriana. (Spanish text);

Abstract

Ever since the Spanish influx into the Colombian-Ecuadorian border region (the area chosen for this study), the Spanish language has been in contact with Quechua, the ancient language of the Incas. The result is a local dialect of both Spanish and of Quechua (the latter called Quichua). This study gives special attention to the historical background, intermingling, and consequences of the language-contact in this Andean region. The specific focus of this thesis is variant Spanish verbal constructions which have been classified into two main categories: (1) periphrases with the gerund using dar, dejar, mandar, poner and venir as the auxiliaries, and (2) verbal constructions known to have been current in Castilian at the time of the Conquest, to have survived in this region, but to have disappeared subsequently from other parts of the Hispanic world (i.e. the synthetic future used as a softened command and saber + infinitive used instead of the verb soler). Analogous constructions are equally anomalous in the local Quechua. Data were collected in situ through participant observation in different parts of the region, eliciting casual speech from both monolingual and bilingual speakers. Supplementary data were collected on both sides of the Colombian-Ecuadorian border through more formal interviews with 60 informants. A constrastive analysis of the local Quechua and Spanish reveals Quechua influence in both widespread gerundial usages and in the specific semantic changes to which the Spanish periphrases of Category 1 were subjected. The equivalent construction of auxiliary + gerund has developed in tandem in both languages in this frontier speech community as a whole. Moreover, the use of the synthetic future as a softened command and the survival of saber + infinitive, both traditionally attributed to Quechua influence, seem not to result from substratum influence. Thus, in contrast to the anticipated pattern, neither the substratum nor the superstratum has been exclusively dominant.