The University of New Mexico (UNM) has highlighted the recent research conducted by Sarah Lease, a Ph.D. Linguistics student and Joseph Greenberg Fellow. Lease's work, titled "A usage-based account of paragogic /e/ in 20th-century New Mexican Spanish," has been published in Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics.
According to UNM, Lease's research focused on identifying the factors that influence when speakers of New Mexican Spanish include a characteristic element of this dialect in their speech. Specifically, she examined variations in words featuring paragogic /e/, which involves adding the vowel /e/ to the end of a word. This phenomenon can be observed in words such as "rincón" and "rincone" (meaning "corner") and "leer" and "leere" (meaning "read") within New Mexican Spanish.
"These are the same exact words for speakers – it’s just two ways of producing these words," Lease explained. "The paragogic /e/ just hasn't received a lot of attention in previous scholarly work, so I was just kind of interested in trying to expand the body of work on New Mexican Spanish by looking at this less studied feature."
Lease's research revealed that she identified 77 word types exhibiting variable use of paragogic /e/ by 24 speakers, totaling 2,235 instances. Interestingly, Lease found that 76% of speakers from Rio Arriba County consistently used paragogic /e/, while speakers from San Juan County and Santa Fe County exhibited less frequent use of this variant. Additionally, Lease discovered that the likelihood of producing paragogic /e/ depended on word frequency, with less frequently used words having a higher probability of displaying this variant. Furthermore, within words that variably showed paragogic /e/, Lease observed that speakers most commonly introduced it at the end of a sentence.
UNM emphasized the significance of Lease's research, stating, "Across languages, linguists spend a lot of time figuring out what it is about the way that we use language that predicts when speakers produce certain words." Lease's work adds to the understanding of the New Mexican Spanish dialect and expands the body of knowledge in the field of linguistics.
The research conducted by Sarah Lease provides valuable insights into the pronunciation variations in New Mexican Spanish and sheds light on the factors influencing the use of paragogic /e/ in this dialect. By examining word variations and considering social factors and word frequency, Lease's work contributes to the ongoing research in the field of linguistics.