This investigation explores the origins, perception and use of the northern Andean Spanish (CAE) dialectal construction dar + gerund, most often classified as a manner to convey a polite request or favor. It forms part of a handful of similar construction that combine a non-standard auxiliary verb (such as dar “give”, mandar “send”, pasar “pass”) with a gerund and an optional clitic, i.e. dame explicando (“give me explaining”). These variations are not found in standard or other varieties of Spanish, and historically correspond to pragmatic and syntactic transfer from Ecuadorian Kichwa (Haboud, 1998, 2003; Lipski, 2013; Muysken, 2005).

While previous studies (Niño-Murcia, 1995; Hurley, 1995a, 1995b; Haboud 1998, 2003; Lipski, 2013; Olbertz, 2002, 2008) have investigated the origins and varieties of dar +gerund in bilingual and monolingual CAE speakers, few (Carvajal, 2016; García, forthcoming; Haboud & Palacios, 2017) have addressed pragmatic constraints and use. Therefore, the first paper in this investigation reviews relevant literature on the origins and uses of dar + gerund and other non-standard auxiliaries as evidence of grammaticalization and complexification the context of language contact. This sets the backdrop in the second and third papers for the examination of how dar + gerund is perceived as a defining feature of the CAE speech community in computer mediated discourse (CMC) and in the context of personal, transactional and professional relationships.

By examining the perception of appropriate use, this investigation shows how dialectal constructions (and language in general) encode a range of social meaning. In addition, it demonstrates how a simple definition of politeness is insufficient to describe appropriate pragmatic performance in the context of a request. Instead, appropriate request performance is derived from a complex interpretation of relationship type, context and social distance.