The expressive use of possessives in three Venezuelan dialects

Abstract

In this research, I analyze five use of the first-person singular possessive, typical of Spanish spoken in Venezuela: alternation in nominal context (mi casa ~ la casa mía), alternation in adverbial context (delante de mí ~ mío), alternation in verbal context (se burla de mí~mío, una casa hecha mía ~ por mí), redundant possessive (mi casa mía) and ponderative possessive (me compró mi casa).
I study the cases in the dialects of three cities (Caracas, Maracaibo, Mérida) and I present the results in two parts; in the first, I statistically analyze the possessive in nominal context (mixed effects and conditional trees) to determine if the forms are conditioned by linguistic and social factors; in the second, I describe the other cases –less abundant in the sample– to specify their occurrence and establish the expressive character of their pragmatic use. The results show that: i. the semantic relationships of social coexistence and self-realization, the attribute function, and low-level adult speakers favor the use of the postnominal stressed forms; ii. in contrast, emphatic possessives (post-adverbial, appreciative, ponderative, and redundant) are more common in young Caracas speakers and their use constitutes an effective strategy to give expressive enhancement to the statement.