Pluralization of the Impersonal Verb Haber on Twitter

Abstract

The pluralization of the existential haber verb is prevalent in Caracas, Venezuela. The present study provides insights into this variant on Twitter, a novel source for this research. Data consisted of 1,157 Caracas tweets published between June 2018 and June 2021. The binomial logistic regression revealed a decrease of 21.68 percentage points in pluralization rates. Tense and mood with the imperfect and the present perfect conditioned the use of plural forms while the preterit level, the affirmative clause, and the argument’s frequency conditioned singular forms’ use. The results support the stabilization of linguistic change and the variability of the phenomenon. Due to the imperfect and the present perfect still being the only two plural tenses, linguistic change is stabilized. Furthermore, pluralization proved a variable phenomenon the rates of which depend on the corpus style (oral vs. written) and, if written, whether it is informal or edited (or a combination). The Twitter corpus yielded lower rates than interview corpora and higher than a source comprising magazines, newspapers, and film scripts. Finally, the present study does not probably reflect Caracas’ total pluralization rate due to the possibly reduced number of speakers with lower socioeconomic status who produce more plural haber forms than those with higher socioeconomic status.

RESUMEN

La pluralización del verbo existencial haber es un fenómeno prevalente en Caracas, Venezuela. El presente estudio ofrece una nueva percepción acerca del comportamiento de esta variante en Twitter, una fuente novedosa en este tipo de investigación. Los datos constan de 1,157 tuits de Caracas publicados entre junio de 2018 y junio de 2021. La regresión logística binomial reveló una disminución de 21.68 puntos porcentuales en los porcentajes de pluralización. Tiempo y modo con el imperfecto y el presente perfecto condicionaron el uso de las formas plurales de haber existencial, mientras que el nivel del pretérito, la cláusula afirmativa y la frecuencia del argumento condicionaron el uso de las formas singulares. Los resultados avalan la estabilización del cambio lingüístico y la variabilidad del fenómeno. Debido a que el imperfecto y el presente perfecto son aún los únicos dos tiempos plurales, el cambio lingüístico se ha estabilizado. Además, la pluralización del verbo haber demuestra ser un fenómeno variable cuyos porcentajes dependen del estilo del corpus (oral o escrito), y si es escrito, de si es informal o editado (o una combinación). Los porcentajes de pluralización del corpus de Twitter fueron menores que los de corpus basados en entrevistas y mayores que él que incluye material de revistas, periódicos, o guiones de películas. Por último, el presente estudio probablemente no refleja el porcentaje total de pluralización en Caracas debido al posible número reducido de participantes del estrato socioeconómico más bajo, quienes producen más formas plurales de haber existencial que los estratos más altos.

Keywords:

• haber
• existential verb
• agreement
• variation
• corpus

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• haber
• verbo existencial
• concordancia
• variación
• corpus

Acknowledgement

I want to thank Dr. Robyn Wright from the University of Mississippi for her help with the statistical analysis.

Disclosure Statement

The author has not declared any potential conflict of interest.

Notes

1 El Español del Siglo XXI or CORPES XXI is a project led by the Real Academia Española (RAE) and comprises written and oral texts from Spain and Latin America from journals (40%), books (40%), and the internet (20%) (Casado and Llamazares 2015). Fiction (e.g., novels, film scripts, narrations, and plays) include more than 101 million texts, while those in nonfiction and periodical publications (e.g., social science, health, politics, arts, and technology) comprise more than 275 million texts. A little more than eight million were taken from blogs, digital interviews, social media, and miscellaneous sources (Real Academía Española n.d.).

2 Corpus Sociolingüístico de la Ciudad de Mérida, led by Carmen Luisa Domínguez, is a 40-hour recording made of 80 Mérida speakers classified according to sex (masculine or feminine), age (14–29, 30–45, 46–60, and 61–older), and socioeconomic status (lower, lower-middle, middle, middle-upper, and upper) (Domínguez 1996).

3 Corpus para Estudios Sociolingüísticos de Caracas (CESC) was led by Paola Bentivoglio, Francesco D’ Introno, and Juan Manuel Sosa. It consists of recordings of 70 Caracas speakers made between 1976 and 1977 classified into sex (masculine and feminine), age (14–29, 30–45), and socioeconomic status (lower, middle, and upper) (Bentivoglio and Malaver 2012).

4 El Habla Culta de Caracas (HCC), led by Ángel Rosemblat and Paola Bentivoglio, consists of 240 recordings of 320 educated Caracas speakers made between 1969 and 1977. It was classified according to sex (masculine and feminine) and age (25–35, 36–55, and 56 or older). It is part of a larger project about the linguistic norm in Spanish and Latin American cities (Estudio Coordinado de la Norma Lingüística Culta de las Principales Ciudades de Iberoamérica y de la Península Ibérica) (Bentivoglio and Malaver 2012). This large project compiled formal and informal language samples of educated Hispanic speakers from different cities made between the late 1960s and the early 1980s: Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Caracas, La Habana, La Paz, Lima, Madrid, Mexico City, San Juan, Santiago de Chile, and Sevilla (Spain).

5 Bentivoglio and Sedano (1989) provided percentages with no statistical procedure for the analysis. Additionally, most analysis was based on había vs habían since the number of other haber forms was limited.

6 The analysis consisted of percentages with no statistical procedure.

7 The Rabanales and Contreras (1979) corpus comprises 100 recorded hours made between 1970 and 1972.

8 Corpus Sociolingüístico del Habla de Caracas 1987 (CSC’87) consisted of 160 thirty-minute recordings made between January 1987 and April 1998. The content was classified according to sex (masculine and feminine), age (14-29, 30-45, 46-60, and 61 or older), and socioeconomic status (lower, lower-middle, middle, middle-upper, and upper), (Bentivoglio and Sedano 1993). Paola Bentivoglio and Mercedes Sedano led the project.

9 According to Labov’s 1972 work (quoted in Ruíz 2004), when linguistic change starts from below, it often occurs subconsciously and advances to the more prestigious groups. On the contrary, the less prestigious groups consciously strive to incorporate variant forms when the more prestigious groups initiate the change.

10 Corpus Diacrónico del Habla de Caracas 1987/2013, led by Krístel Guirado, integrates Corpus Sociolingüístico del Habla de Caracas 1987(CSC'87) and Corpus Sociolingüístico de Caracas: PRESEEA Caracas 2004/2010 (PRESEEA–Caracas’04/10). PRESEEA–Caracas’04/10 is part of PRESEEA (Proyecto para el Estudio Sociolingüístico del Español de España y de América). It consists of 108 recordings of Caracas speakers made between June 2004 and December 2010. The materials are classified according to sex (masculine and feminine), age (20–34, 35–54, and 55 or older), and education (primary school, secondary school, and higher education) (Guirado 2014).

11 A defined NP can be a proper noun (e.g., Madrid), a personal pronoun (e.g., ella ∼ she), a demonstrative (e.g., aquellos ∼ those); a common noun preceded by a definite article (e.g., las personas ∼ the people), by a demonstrative adjective (e.g., ese hombre ∼ that man), or by a possessive (e.g., su perro ∼ his dog). On the other hand, an undefined NP can be a numeral pronoun (e.g., dos ∼ two), an undefined determiner (e.g., algunos ∼ some), common nouns without a determiner (e.g., sillas ∼ chairs); or a common noun accompanied by an indefinite article (e.g., una canción ∼ a song), by a numeral adjective (e.g., tres sillas ∼ three chairs), or by an undefined determiner (e.g., algunas manzanas ∼ some apples) (Alarcos Llorach 1999).

12 It should be noted that Criado de Diego (2018), Díaz-Campos (1999), and Malaver (1999) are not included in Table 1 as their work either does not utilize oral corpora or does not analyze only Caracas-based data. 

13 De Mello (1991) obtained percentages only to report the results, whereas Bentivoglio and Sedano (1989) and Díaz-Campos (1999) performed statistical procedures.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Raúl Antonio Gamboa García

Raúl Gamboa García is a Colombian instructor who graduated from the University of Mississippi (PhD). He is currently working at Louisiana State University as a Spanish instructor. His research interests are L2 Spanish dialects perception, Spanish variation, and second language pedagogy and acquisition.