Gender Agreement in Correntino Spanish

Abstract

This article provides qualitative and quantitative analyses of variable gender agreement in Correntino Spanish, the variety of Spanish spoken by both Spanish-Guarani bilinguals and Correntino Spanish monolinguals in the province of Corrientes, Argentina. Drawing on data collected from fieldwork in the province, it will be shown that this variation is conditioned by distance effects and modifier class. Synchronic gender agreement variation in Correntino Spanish is attributed to diachronic source language agentivity effects (Van Coetsem, 1988) given the lack of gender inflection in Guarani. This phenomenon would be unsurprising as a contact effect if found synchronically only in bilinguals; however, its occurrence in monolinguals sets it aside as a rare instance of variable gender agreement in monolingual Spanish. This loosening of gender agreement mirrors the development of gender in Argentine Guarani (Cerno, 2010), and these phenomena taken together shed light on the malleability of gender systems under situations of intense language contact. Together they provide a valuable example of mutual contact-induced changes in gender systems.