“The yacurunas swim in the rivers”: Concordance in the Nominal Syntagm of Spanish Spoken by the Nomatsiguenga of the Pangoa District (Junín)

Abstract

Research on concordance between varieties of Spanish has been mainly carried out in the Andean region; however, few studies have been developed in other regions, such as the Amazon. This lack not only limits knowledge about the grammatical particularities of Amazonian Spanish, but also about how linguistic contact influences the creation of innovative linguistic structures as a result of the convergence of cultures and the experiences of speakers of different languages. The objective of the present work is describing the linguistic phenomena that arises in the nominal syntagma in Amazonian Spanish spoken by the native nomatsiguenga community Jerusalén de Miñaro in the district of Pangoa (Junín); in addition, to identify the particularities that occur in the agreement between gender and number. With respect to methodology, the sample consisted of 25 bilingual speakers (L1: Nomatsiguenga and Asháninka and L2: Spanish). The analysis identified, on the one hand, processes of gender mismatch between determiners and nouns (for example, the use of feminine demonstratives with masculine nouns such as “esa ajicito”, masculine possessives with feminine nouns such as “nuestro lengua” and feminine articles with masculine nouns such as “la idioma nativa”); on the other hand, grammatical phenomena in number agreement, such as the use of the singular article with plural nouns (“el personas”), singular possessives with plural nouns (“nuestro hijas”) and singular adjectives accompanying plural nouns (“desfiles grande”). Finally, it is concluded that these variations constitute new linguistic forms specific to a group of bilingual speakers of the nomatsiguenga native community, adapted to their sociocultural and linguistic context. In this way, a system that responds to a systematic and functional internal logic within the bilingual community is consolidated.