Conditional morphology in New York heritage Spanish: General and variable usage patterns

Abstract This paper analyzes the use of conditional morphology by second-generation Spanish speaking New Yorkers. We consider both overall usage patterns and variation, the latter exclusively in the apodosis of hypothetical utterances where three forms occur: the conditional, the subjunctive, and the indicative. The data are from semi-controlled sociolinguistic interviews with 26 Spanish-English second-generation bilingual participants from New York City. The participants stem from the six largest Spanish-speaking national origins in the city: Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Mexican, Colombian, and Ecuadorian. The findings show that conditional morphology is active in the grammars of these bilinguals, but variation does manifest between the three aforementioned forms in the apodosis. Furthermore, three of the 10 external variables identified for the investigation are found to be statistically significant in the cohort: level of English skill, level of education, and areal origin.