This paper explores a specific contact-induced change, that is, innovation, defined as structure that emerges as a consequence of contact between two languages and that diverges from the patterns of both the model language and the replica language. In other terms, these new innovated linguistic features are not created on the model of the model language. In this paper I investigate the development of new features as consequences of the contact between Purepecha, the replica language, and Spanish, the model language, with which it has been in contact for nearly five centuries. According to the types of contact-induced changes described by Thomason and Kaufman (1988), Purepecha presents a situation of intense contact and the characteristics of a shift situation, since the changes are mainly in phonology and morphosyntax (Chamoreau 2007, 2010).
