The clause is a special kind of phrase with a verb phrase (VP) as its head, also called its predicate. The subject is an external complement (outside the VP). Though traditional definitions of the subject fail, subjects have some characteristic properties. Notably, they usually precede the VP, but some interrogative constructions feature subject-auxiliary inversion, in which the subject is preceded by an auxiliary verb; subject pronouns are usually nominative case. Semantically, subjects are typically the predicand, a semantic term for what a predicate applies to. Objects are internal complements, and pronoun objects are usually accusative case. Some verbs license two objects: direct and indirect. The verb ‘be’ and a few others take predicative complements. Like objects, predicative complements are internal complements. Unlike objects, they can be adjective phrases and they never correspond to any passive subject. There are ascriptive and specifying uses of ‘be’. Internal complements also include various subordinate-clause and preposition-phrase complements.

Negation is marked by individual words (such as ‘not’, ‘no’, ‘never’) in a variety of functions (including adjunct, determiner, and head of VP) or by affixes within a word (the suffix ‘·n’t’ or prefixes like ‘un·’ or ‘non·’). Very often there is an effect on the whole clause, and negation is usefully divided into clausal and subclausal negation. There are a number of syntactic tests for clausal negation, including the ‘not even’ test and confirmation tags. Within clausal negation a further distinction exists between verb and non-verb negation.

The grammatical system in which positive and negative contrast is called polarity, and it can be absolute (e.g., ‘no’ & ‘never’) – or approximate (e.g., ‘few’ & ‘rarely’). A number of words or larger expressions have the property of being polarity-sensitive, in the sense that they occur readily in clauses of one polarity but not of the other. Some of these occur equally well in negative and interrogative clauses. We call these non-affirmative items.

The scope of negation is the part of the sentence that the negative applies to semantically.

If you’re coming to this book from a traditional grammar or with little or no background in grammar, or if you plan to read only individual chapters, then this chapter was written to orient you to our approach and make your life easier.

We start by discussing words, different senses of what a word is, and the ways that words are categorized. Then show how words can be combined into phrases with heads and dependents, where each phrase category is named after the category of its head word. These phrases build into a special larger phrase called a clause.

With this framework in hand, we move into the core of the chapter. Beginning with §2.3, each of the sections corresponds with a chapter. So, Ch. 3 and §2.3 are Verbs and verb phrases, Ch. 4 and §2.4 are Complements in clauses, etc.

The chapter also includes an appendix explaining the book’s notational conventions.

The Afro-Hispanic languages of the Americas (AHLAs) are rich in structures and prosodic patterns that would be considered either ungrammatical or pragmatically infelicitous in standard Spanish. Some of these features have traditionally been classified as the traces of a once-existing creole language, which would have almost completely dissolved after a process of decreolization. The present book was written out of the conviction that the Decreolization Hypothesis is on the wrong track and that such “creole-like” features can actually be explained as the result of common contact-driven phenomena, which are related to processing constraints affecting the interfaces between different language modules; hence, they are universal and depend on the nature of the architecture of the language faculty.

Chapter 2 provides a sociohistorical analysis of the evolution of Yungueño Spanish, Chota Valley Spanish and Chincha Spanish. The chapter illustrates general aspects of the African Diaspora to the Americas and its specific linguistic consequences in Yungas (Bolivia), Chota Valley (Ecuador) and Chincha (Peru). Given the historical evidence available for these Afro-Hispanic Languages of the Americas, I propose that these contact varieties developed in isolated rural villages, not subject to the social pressures imposed by education, standardization and the linguistic norm. In such a context, advanced SLA processes could be nativized and conventionalized at the local level, thus crystallizing in the L1 varieties spoken by subsequent generations of these Afro-Andean communities.

Chapter 7 concludes this book by summarizing its content and highlighting how the so-called “creole-like” features detected for the AHLAs can be better explained in terms of interface-constrained advanced SLA processes, which were subsequently nativized and conventionalized by following generations of speakers. Likewise, this chapter stresses the importance of these Afro-Hispanic vernaculars to linguistic theory by showing how these contact varieties can offer both a window into possible L2 instantiations of UG as well as an ideal testing ground for formal hypotheses (Sessarego 2014a), which have primarily been built on standardized language data.

Chapter 6 provides an overview of Yungueño Spanish, Chota Valley Spanish and Chincha Spanish declarative intonation in terms of the realization of pitch accents and phrase boundary tones. The inventory of these phonological targets in these vernaculars is much more reduced than what has been encountered in other native (non-contact) varieties of Spanish (Aguilar et al. 2009; Beckman et al. 2002; Prieto & Roseano 2010). The speakers of these dialects show evidence of duplicating nuclear and prenuclear pitch accents, as well as boundary configurations, at both levels of phrasing (i.e., intermediate and intonational phrases) (Sessarego & Rao 2016; Rao & Sessarego 2016, 2018; Sessarego, Butera & Rao 2019; Butera, Sessarego & Rao 2020). The nature of these phenomena is analyzed as pertaining to the phonology–pragmatics interface, since both phonological and discourse features are involved.

Chapter 5 focuses on mechanisms that do not rely solely on the interaction between the morphological and semantic modules; rather, they are also significantly conditioned by the syntax–pragmatics interface. The chapter addresses the nature of certain pro-drop phenomena in these Afro-Andean vernaculars. In particular, it analyzes the presence in these dialects of three highly interrelated features and provides a model to explain this specific restructured configuration: (1) the use of non-emphatic, non-contrastive overt subjects; (2) the presence of non-inverted questions; and (3) impoverished subject–verb agreement. The data presented there also serve as a testing ground for formal hypotheses on the nature of pronominal expressions across languages. In so doing, the chapter offers evidence for arguments questioning the validity of the Null Subject Parameter (Chomsky 1981; Rizzi 1982), or more broadly, for recent proposals that revisit the concept of “parameter” in favor of new potential paths of analysis (Eguren, Fernández-Soriano & Mendikoetxea 2016).

Chapter 4 analyzes gender and number agreement processes within the Determiner Phrase (DP) of Yungueño Spanish, Chota Valley Spanish and Chincha Spanish. The data presented here show a variety of reduced agreement configurations, which are rooted in L2 processing constraints applying at the morphology–semantics interface. A unified account of these phenomena is provided by adopting current formal proposals on the nature of feature valuation and checking (Frampton & Gutmann 2000; Pesetsky & Torrego 2007). In so doing, this chapter enhances a stronger dialogue between syntactic theory and variationist analysis, which is fundamental to account for the nature and evolution of the agreement domain across the DP of these Afro-Hispanic dialects.

Chapter 3 provides an overview of a number of theoretical proposals that have been put forward in the literature to account for language variation. It elaborates on models that combine formal generative theorizing and quantitative sociolinguistic methodology, in line with current minimalist analyses (Adger & Smith 2005; Sessarego & Gutiérrez-Rexach 2011; Sessarego 2014a). This chapter also stresses the importance of embracing a perspective of mutual complementation – rather than mutual exclusion – between these two fields, especially when the varieties under study consist of stigmatized vernaculars, for which it may be hard to obtain reliable grammaticality judgments and that may be characterized by high levels of inter- and intra-speaker speech variability (Cornips & Poletto 2005).