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This thesis focuses on the infinitive among Puerto Rican, Dominican and Cuban speakers, in contrast with Mexicans. Most grammars describe as ungrammatical some types of optative clauses in Caribbean Spanish (Bosque & Gutiérrez-Rexach, 2009): (4) a. *Nosotros estamos buscando otras alternativas, pero el director dice él tener ya todo seteao. We are looking for other alternatives, but the director says he to-have [inf] already everything checked. We are looking for other alternatives, but the director says he has already checked everything. (5) a. *Eso te pasa por tú ir demasiado rápido. That you [acus] happens because [-Q] you [nom] to-go [inf] too fast. That happens to you because of your going too fast. Therefore, a variation phenomenon is produced (Silva-Corvalán, 2001): (4) b. Nosotros estamos buscando otras alternativas, pero el director dice que tiene ya todo seteao. We are looking for other alternatives, but the director says he has already everything checked. We are looking for other alternatives, but the director says he has already checked everything (5) b. Eso te pasa porque vas demasiado rápido. That you [acus] happens because you [nom] go [ind] too fast That happens to you because you go too fast This project sharpens a specific look to clauses such as (4) and (5) on the basis of mood microvariation concerning the infinitive/indicative optionality, related to linguistic variables: subject type, person features, prepositions, subject specificity, subject co-references, topic-actor subject, and declaration features; and sociolinguistic variables: Caribbean sub-variety, age, and education level. Debates have arisen when studying subjunctive/infinitive optionality (Aponte, 2008; Kempchinsky, 2007; Morales, 1986, 1999). Less attention has been given to indicative/infinitive variation. This work proposes the application of procedural meaning hypothesis (Terkourafi, 2011) to explain that Caribbean speakers choose infinitive clauses because their grammar has a syntax-pragmatics micro-parameter. Using GoldVarb2001, phenomena such as (4) and (5) are analyzed from a query answered by 72 Carribeans, and 24 Mexicans; and 125 interviews. Caribbeans prefer the infinitive with first person singular, non-specific, and topic-actor subjects. This hierarchy demonstrates that Caribbean Spanish has its own structural configurations which privilege the syntactic-pragmatic interface. |
