Ling Fridays Colloquia: Pato on variation in Spanish

On Vernacular Universals and Grammatical Variation in Spanish

Enrique Pato, Université de Montréal

In person

Enrique Pato is Full Professor in the Hispanic Studies section of the Department of World Literatures and Languages at the University of Montreal (Quebec, Canada). Ph.D in Spanish Philology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2003), his field of research focuses on the study of the grammar of Spanish varieties and dialects.

In this colloquium he will present the notion of universal vernacular and exemplify it with two grammatical phenomena of current Spanish: i) the use of the verb tener (‘to have’) as in Tengo hecho la tarea (no-agreement, ‘I have done the homework’), and Tengo visto a Juan (auxiliary verb, ‘I have seen John’); and ii) the syncretism in 1PL subject pronoun nosotros (‘we’) as in Nosotros las mujeres nos movemos por amor (‘We women are driven by love’).