Gender, Animacy, and Variable Constraints: An OT Analysis of Leísmo, Loísmo, and Laísmo

Abstract

This paper examines the Spanish dialectal phenomena of leísmo, loísmo, and laísmo. I argue that a speaker’s ability to transition towards a more uniform use of [le] or [lo/la] is governed by a set of underlying restrictions on the dative and accusative cases. These restrictions are based on a speaker’s preference towards masculine over feminine gender, as well as a preference towards human over nonhuman animacy. These preferences limit an object NP’s accessibility to the dative and accusative cases. The specific constrictions each speaker employs within their grammar, as well as how they prioritize them, determine how dative and accusative case are assigned. The resulting case assignment patterns produce the various permutations of leísmo and lo(la)ísmo. To represent the relevant case restrictions, I ground my framework within Optimality Theory, which uses constraint rankings, to provide the basis for this model. Using dative and accusative case constraints with respect to gender and animacy, along with markedness and faithfulness constraints, I account for both inter-speaker and intra-speaker variation within leísmo and lo(la)ísmo