Pragmatic Uses of Negation in Chipileno Spanish (Mexico)

This paper discusses two negation types (standard negation (SN), negative doubling (ND)) in Chipileno Spanish, a variety that has emerged as a result of contact between Spanish and Veneto (an Italo-Romance language) in Mexico. In Veneto, negation can be formed in two ways: preverbally (SN) and as a negative doubling (ND). Based on sporadic observation, bilingual speakers of Spanish and Veneto transfer a final no while speaking Spanish, a language that does not allow repetition of the same negator in the postverbal position. Using both a spontaneous and a controlled tasks, the results show two possibilities: preverbal negation only (no vino '[S/he] did not come') and sentence final (no me gusta no 'I do not like') in both tasks. This study compares the findings from Chipileno Spanish to the other Romance varieties that exhibit similar cases of negation, while discussing its scope and relevance to discourse-pragmatic factors.