Diachronic Applications in Hispanic Linguistics ed. by Eva Núñez Méndez (review)

The result of a conference panel organized for the Pacific Modern Language Association in 2013 in San Diego, California, Diachronic Applications in Hispanic Linguistics unites nine in-depth studies by established specialists in Hispanic linguistics: Robert Blake, Miriam Díaz Granado, Steven Dworkin, Patricia Giménez-Eguíbar, Sonia Kania, Cynthia Kauffeld, Eva Núñez-Méndez, Carlos E. Sánchez Lancis, Israel Sanz-Sánchez, Fernando Tejedo-Herrero. Each takes a decidedly diachronic approach, by and large favoring long-term historical analyses that span Old to Modern Spanish. The topics covered too are broad and include: 1) lexical survivals in Ibero-Romance; 2) lexical variation and change in early modern Spanish; 3) the confusion of b with v in Spanish (which dates back to the roots of the Spanish language in the Peninsular territories); 4) the origins and footprints of Andalusian Spanish in the Americas; 5) seseo and yeísmo and its evolution; 6) Latin American Spanish verbal morphology (which, as the excellent contribution by Israel Sanz-Sánchez makes clear, is considerably more varied than is generally assumed) and how koineization has impacted it; 7) scribal evolution and continuity in Romance syntax in texts from the Early Middle Ages; and 8) long-term semantic shifts that have gradually transformed ser, estar, and haber in Spanish.

To be sure, a majority of studies in Diachronic Applications in Hispanic Linguistics are couched in the philological tradition, championed most vigorously perhaps in the United States in decades past at UC Berkeley, where several of the contributors to this volume (the editor included) received their training. It bears mentioning, however, that the articles assembled in the book under review all excel at taking decidedly modern approaches, thereby making them a most informative and up-to-date read from beginning to end. At the same time, even a quick glance at the book reveals that, true to the philological tradition, the majority of the articles concentrate on the Iberian Peninsula to the detriment of Latin America and the Caribbean in particular.

This collection of essays succeeds so admirably in part because it cohesively focuses on fascinating issues in the evolution of the Spanish language while also answering—convincingly so—knotty questions that this reviewer and his students have often debated in graduate seminars on the history of Romance languages: Why do certain lexical Latinisms survive in Iberia but not in other Romance territories? What social and other factors favored the incorporation (and, often, subsequent loss) of Arabic words in Spanish and Portuguese? How did the advent of printing impact the standardization of its lexicon and orthography? What was the true role of Andalusian Spanish in the eventual evolution of Latin American Spanish? Which social and demographic factors were most influential in the formation of colonial Latin American Spanish? And finally, to what extent did scribal practices really represent spoken medieval Spanish?

Diachronic Applications in Hispanic Linguistics will benefit students of Hispanic Linguistics, as well as general readers and scholars with an interest in the field. To serve the first targeted audience (students), each chapter is usefully accompanied by suggestions for further reading as well as a list of topics for additional discussion. Linguistic jargon is fairly abundant at times, yet the chapters succeed in presenting the relevant information, including data, concepts, and theories in a clear, succinct, and easy-to-follow manner (individual glossaries at the end of each article help readers resolve potential difficulties with technical vocabulary). Each chapter culminates in a brief "Conclusion" that not only restates essential points but also guides newcomers to the field by elucidating why specialists currently prefer certain competing explanations or theories. In this regard, Israel Sanz-Sánchez's chapter "Diachronic perspective on Latin American Spanish Verbal morphology: reassessing the role of koineization" is particularly praiseworthy, as it offers a concise and unusually convincing explanation of how a multi-causational approach—one that highlights the primacy of local social networks...