La expresión del sujeto en el español de Nueva York: el factor de la perseverancia

Abstract

In Flores-Ferrán (2002) the linguistic and social factors that condition the variable use of subject personal pronouns (SPPs) were examined in Spanish oral narratives of bilingual Puerto Ricans in New York City. Among the findings of that study, Flores-Ferrán uncovered that speakers tend to express an overt SPP as a subject of a verb followed by another overt SPP in the adjacent verb. A similar finding was also unveiled in the use of null subjects. If a verbs subject appeared with a null subject, the subsequent verb was usually accompanied by a null subject. These findings were identified as 'clusters' or pairs' following Chafe (1976), Prince (1982), Pereira-Scherre and Naro (1991). With the guidance of Cameron and Flores-Ferrán (2004), this article further discusses the discourse-pragmatic factors that contribute to the formation and use of these clusters.