Some properties of the so-called ‘pero’ Bahiense

Abstract

While the contrastive connector pero ‘but’ usually occupies the initial position of the sentence it introduces, some Spanish dialects allow to locate this element at the very end of a sentence. This paper introduces a number of properties of the instance of final pero exhibited in the Spanish dialect spoken in the Argentinian city of Bahia Blanca, i.e., the so-called pero Bahiense. It is argued that this type of pero cannot be reduced to other cases of non-initial pero attested in Spanish. It is shown that pero Bahiense is a discourse particle that exhibits properties in common with standard initial pero. Despite some similarities, both elements differ with respect to (i) the type of constituents with which they may co-appear, (ii) their discourse value, and (iii) their prosody. The article also discusses the role of language contact in the emergence of final pero across Spanish varieties.