Reflections of gender and address in language use

Reflections of gender and address in language use: The culturally driven motivation of the uses of Spanish oblique pronouns le and lo

Talk by Bob de Jonge, University of Groningen.

Bob de Jonge will give a basic introduction to the Columbia School of linguistics and illustrate some of its tenets with a discussion of the Spanish oblique pronouns le and lo.

The traditional analysis of the Spanish oblique pronouns le 'to him/her' and lo/la 'him/her' divides these two types into resp. dative and accusative. However, observed cases of language variation in different varieties of Spanish can only label these as deviant from the traditional dative/accusative analysis, but do not explain these uses. Moreover, there is also no explanation or meaning for the accusative and dative as such to begin with.