Resumen de Chocó Spanish double negation and the genesis of the Afro-Hispanic dialects of the Americas

Sandro Sessarego

• Chocó Spanish is an Afro-Hispanic dialect spoken in the Pacific lowlands of Colombia. This variety is characterized by the presence of double-negative constructions (neg2) (i.e., yo no como no “I do not eat”), which have repeatedly been classified in the literature as the contemporary traces of a previous Afro-Portuguese creole stage for this vernacular. The present paper provides linguistic and sociohistorical evidence offering an alternative explanation. In particular, neg2 is analyzed as an archaic morphosyntactic trait which already existed in 15th–19th century Spanish and which has been preserved in Chocó Spanish and other conservative Afro-Hispanic vernaculars of Latin America.