The agreement of existential haber in three varieties of spoken Spanish

Abstract This paper aims to present one of the most relevant linguistic phenomena of spoken Spanish on both sides of the Atlantic. The singular/plural forms of the verb haber with existential meaning have received considerable attention due to the fact that it is a linguistic variable that changes according to the variety of Spanish that is used. We report the findings from the research carried out within three speech communities: Valencia, Las Palmas and Mexico City, analysing the internal and external factors that may explain this linguistic variation. For this study we have selected these communities because all the data have been obtained according to the guidelines proposed in the PRESEEA (Project for the Sociolinguistic Study of Spanish from Spain and from America). The results are the product of rigorous statistical analysis and allow us to illustrate the processes of convergence or divergence.