Mapuche (Mapudungun), Spanish, and "Castilla" in Argentinian Patagonia: From I-Language to S-Language

In this paper we analyze data of number marking in nominals from three language varieties of the Argentinian Patagonia: Mapuche, Spanish, & "Castilla," the dialect resulting from the contact of both languages. The minimalist approach allows the analysis of NP number agreement in the i-languages involved. The concepts of e-language & s-language (Menegotto 2004a & 2005) are applied to the analysis of the relation between the individual & the social aspects of the problem. We conclude that there are three e-languages, Mapuche-e, Spanish & Castilla-e, but only two s-languages are recognized by the communities. Castilla-e is socially considered bad Spanish because of the natural inconsistency between i-language & e-language: in naturalistic settings, Spanish-i speakers tend to consider that the absence of final -s is a production mistake in their own discourse. Adapted from the source document