The loss of semantic distinction between ir and irse, venir and venirse, in a Spanish-English lanugage contact situation in Moorhead, Minnesota

This thesis shows that the semantic distinction between the verbs ir and venir and their reflexive counterparts, irse and venirse, is less clear in the bilingual speech community of Moorhead, Minnesota, than the monolingual speech community of Puente Genil, Andalusia. This loss of semantic distinction between two contrasting forms can be seen as evidence of simplification in the bilingual community. Specifically, the data show that monolingual Spanish speakers explicitly or implicitly express a point of departure when using irse and explicitly state a destination when using ir. In contrast, the bilingual Spanish-English speakers explicitly state a destination with both ir and irse with similar frequencies, and explicitly or implicitly express a point of departure with irse and explicitly state a destination with ir less frequently than the monolingual speakers. Similar results were found for venir and venirse, but the differences between the monolingual and bilingual communities were not as pronounced.