Spanish Linguistics: The past 100 Years: Retrospective and ...

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250 HISPANIA 81 MAY 1998 have always played a central role in His- Martin (1965) proposed an explicit hierarpanic linguistics, theoretical phonological chy of difficulty in the acquisition of Spanaccounts have been few and far between. ish structures by English-speaking stu- Although structuralist accounts of Spanish dents, and suggested error types. Terrell phonology appeared in articles, the first and Salgues (1979) gave brief comparative monograph focusing exclusively on Span- accounts of Spanish and English phonetic ish phonology was Alarcos Llorach (1950), and syntactic patterns. Whitley (1986) covbased on the Prague school of structural- ers many of the same structures in greater ism. In the United States, Harris (1968) pro- depth. Bull (1965) studied both phonologivided the first monograph on Spanish pho- cal and grammatical constrasts, in the latnology based on the early generative pho- ter dimension offering theoretical proposnology paradigm. Foley (1965), an earlier als which continue to attract followers. account within a similar theoretical frame- Bull's ideas on the nuances of the distincwork, remained unpublished, although tions between preterite-imperfect, indica- Foley (1977) included many of the author's tive-subjunctive, and ser-estar gave rise to innovative ideas. Cressey (1978), also presented within the early generative model, lively debates, many of which were conducted in the pages of Hispania, while the was directed at an advanced student audi- accompanying posters which graphically ence (the earlier books were doctoral dis- illustrate exemplary contrasts have become sertations), while Hooper (1976) reacted underground classics, continuing to resuragainst the overly abstract derivations of face in Spanish classes throughout the classical generative phonology by propos- country. In recent years, the contrastive ing a surface-structure based Natural Gen- analysis approach has fallen into disfavor, erative Phonology, most of whose examples particularly in the area of grammar, since were drawn from Spanish. Harris (1983) second language acquisition research has represented the next major milestone, rein- revealed few demonstrable first-language troducing the syllable into phonological transfers, but rather error patterns based on theory and presenting the first fully elabo- learning strategies and cognitive universals. rated metrical phonology of Spanish. As a consequence, the once popular "com- The studies edited by Bjarkman and parative structures" courses have largely Hammond (1989) run the gamut from early disappeared from Spanish curricula, algenerative phonology to non-linear models though methods courses for Spanish teachand include versions of Natural Phonology ers often implicitly include a contrastive and Natural Generative Phonology; this book provides a useful survey of phonologiapproach. cal analyses of Spanish through the end of Descriptive Grammar the 1980s. D'Introno et al. (1995) is a more advanced treatise which provides a compre- Spanish descriptive grammar has been hensive treatment of autosegmental, metri- the beneficiary of many excellent treatises, cal, and lexical phonological analysis as beginning with the monumental work of applied to Spanish. Martinez-Gil and Mo- Ramsey (1894), later revised by Robert rales-Front (1997) brings together the lat- Spaulding, and still the most complete deest phonological analyses of the 1990s. scription of the intricacies of Spanish usage. Gili Gaya (1943) brought to the study of Contrastive Structures Spanish grammar a profound respect for observed usage and offered well-crafted The contrastive analysis movement of explanations of verb tense and mood selecthe 1960s and early 1970s produced com- tion, grammatical concordance, and other parative studies of Spanish and English sticking points where prescriptive gramgrammar, which often included phonetic mars do not fully coincide with prevailing comparisons as well. Stockwell, Bowen, and use. Sole and Sole (1977) present a modern-
SPANISH LINGUISTICS: THE LAST 100 YEARS RETROSPECTIVE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 251 ized treatment of Spanish grammar written Peninsular Spanish Dialectology in English, which implicitly compares English and Spanish structures. More re- The second half of the twentieth century cently, Butt and Benjamin (1988) put forth has seen numerous monographic descripa comprehensive grammar of Spanish de- tions of Peninsular Spanish dialects, many signed primarily for English speakers. King published by the Consejo Superior de (1992) offers theoretical accounts of several Investigaciones Cientificas. Among the syntactic and semantic structures, includ- studies which transcend the boundaries of ing verb tense and mood selection. a single community are Mondejar's study (1970) of the Andalusian verb, and the Spanish Syntax Sociolingiistica andaluza series, beginning with Carbonero (1982). Garcia de Diego Treatises on Spanish syntax before the (1946) offered a book on Spanish dialectoladvent of generative grammar were in real- ogy, covering several Ibero-Romance lanity atheoretical descriptive grammars, in guages in addition to Spanish. Zamora which "logic" and prescriptive norms pre- Vicente (1960), revised several times, convailed over a comprehensive model of lan- centrates on dialects of Spain, including guage structure. Structuralist approaches to marginal or defunct regional languages, syntax had few repercussions for the study while also giving some attention to Latin of Spanish, and it was not until the early American dialects. Among the many contrigenerative grammar of Hadlich (1971) that butions of Manuel Alvar to Peninsular dia- Spanish syntax received a theoretically- lectology, Alvar (1975a, 1991) offers a grounded treatment. Generative grammar sociohistorical approach to the diversificaadvanced rapidly in the following decades, tion of Spanish dialects. Alvar (1996b) to the Government and Binding/Principles brings together panoramic articles surveyand Parameters model, the Barriers model, ing contemporary Spanish dialectology. and the Minimalist paradigm. D'Jntrono The twentieth century also saw the pub- (1979,1985) kept pace with the evolution of lication of monumental dialect atlases in Spanish syntax during the 1970s and early Spain, beginning with the Atlas linguistico 1980s. Demonte (1991) gives a more mod- de la Peninsula Iberica orALPI (Consejo Suernized government and binding approach; perior de Investigaciones Cientificas 1962), a number of important articles appear in which contains numerous maps tracing Campos and Martinez-Gil (1991). phonetic and lexical variants across a wide Details from Spanish were also instru- range of largely rural communities. Other mental in shaping the course of syntactic important dialect atlases include the Atlas theory in the 1970s and 1980s. Constraints linguisticoy etnogrdfico deAndalucia (Alvar on the order of object clitics motivated 1961), and the Atlas linguisticoy etnogrdfico Perlmutter's (1971) theory of surface struc- de Aragon, Navarra y Rioja (Alvar et al. ture constraints, while the combination of 1979-83), all following the same methodolnull subjects, subject-verb inversion, and ogy of transcription of individually promore subtle extraction and movement phe- nounced words elicited by a team of nomena in Spanish were adduced as evi- fieldworkers. Alvar (1975b) published a lindence of a "null subject parameter," given guistic atlas of the Canary Islands using a the widest diffusion in Chomsky's seminal Government and Binding lectures (1981). similar approach. Chomsky's "Managua lectures" (1988), aimed at a non-specialist audience, con- Latin American Spanish Dialectology tained key examples from Spanish which "El espanol de America" has fascinated illustrate the evolving syntactic theory. observers on both sides of the Atlantic, and from the beginning of Spanish linguistics, numerous scholars have sought to describe
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