Lexical–Syntactic Classes of Adjectives in Copular Sentences across Spanish Varieties: The Innovative Use of Estar

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a strong paper that advances our understanding of a long-standing issue. It is also a contribution that raises additional research questions such as the ones included at the end of the article about the state of the attested variation: Can we call it an innovation or is it part of the linguistic norm in those geographical areas where the "innovative-estar" is documented? In other words, is the sample of cases presented in the study representative of the any particular social group in those varieties or is it accepted more generally in the speech community that would make the case for an almost complete change toward the use of innovative estar?

In summary, this is a high-quality paper, clearly presented, very well contextualized within current scholarship, and original in its contribution.

One minor suggestion, perhaps for future studies, would be a more sophisticated (statistically oriented) presentation of the quantitative data (even a simple normalization of the percentages would offer a more accurate presentation)

While the paper is very clearly written and there is no major issue with the quality of English, this reader would suggest asking an L1 speaker of English (not necessarily a linguist, but a careful reader fairly familiar with scholarly writing) to read through the paper. 

Phrases such as "in the light of the generalizations established" will not cause any comprehension block, but they might raise some reader's eyebrow (>> "In light of...". In general, a thorough stylistic revision will polish and improve the final product. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment, where the responses to the 3 reviewers have been compiled.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting contribution that examines the innovative uses of “estar”. The author intends to carry out an empirical analysis and an updated characterization of this use based on the the Preseea corpus of Latin American Spanish.

The author explained clearly the importance of the topic and provided enough references in terms of the factors (e.g. lexical-syntactic class, subjective judgment of the speaker) influencing the distribution of “ser” and “estar.” However, more specific references are needed when the author classifies examples as non-standard/generalized uses of “estar” in Spanish, as in lines 159-160. It should be specified on what sources or analysis it is based to classify these examples as standard or not and, also, where some examples come from.

The author explains well how the lexical-syntactic classes of adjectives were selected and included in the methodology section. As for the dialectal variation, the author notes that s/he regroups the cities in areas based on Moreno-Fernandez 2019. However, in these areas the author includes non-Caribbean varieties within this group, such as the Andean varieties of Bogota and Medellin. The validity of this classification is questionable. Since the geolectal areas with the highest percentages of innovative uses coincide with those that integrate more countries, I would suggest that the author consider an analysis by country instead so as to be able to observe reliable tendencies.

The general objective of the article is clearly stated. Although this study intends to be empirical, the author does not formulate research questions or starting hypotheses, nor explain the method of data analysis. I consider important that the empirical analysis be carried out systematically and according to the conventions of our field, e.g.  applying statistics, running a program to test the significance of the results, a program that corroborates that there is indeed a relationship between the factors analyzed, and the strength of this relationship. Considering the scope and goal of this special issue “New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar,” I believe that the author should work more on the research design and implement a different type of calculation to strengthen the empirical analysis, explanations, and conclusions. Percentages by themselves do not provide statistically significant results.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, please see the attachment, where the responses to the 3 reviewers have been compiled.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comment 1: Although some instances of uses of estar are correctly identified as innovative, other perhaps are not so. For instance, uses of estar with size dimensional predicates are commonplace in all varieties of Spanish, even the more conservative Peninsular ones. Cases like, for example, El niño está muy grande ‘the boy is very big’ o Qué altas están las plantas este Verano ‘How tall are the plants this summer’ are found all across the dialectal continuum.

These cases are traditionally analyzed in terms of expressing personal involvement or evidential cases, such as the evaluative cases found in Este jamón está muy bueno ‘This ham is very good’

The examples provided as innovative could be perhaps be better interpreted as extensions of a pre-existing paradigm, and therefore fundamentally different from the other cases not observed in standard Spanish.

Comment 2: Although the concept of evidentially is briefly mentioned, the article does make extensive use of experiencer/judge when analyzing certain uses of estar. I found this a bit confusing, since the use of evidentiality as an anchor for estar predications is well-established by authors such as Escandell-Vidal and Camacho, among others. The arguments presented in these cases would make the classification clearer, by tying it to an already established terminology. Unless there is a fundamental difference between evidential vs experiencer predicates, there seems to be no reason why the former would not be employed. If there is a difference between these two terms, some examples showing these differences would clarify the situation.

Additionally, by adopting evidentiality, some authors like Escandell-Vidal, who believe all estar predicates to be evidential, could serve to unify the analysis of the innovations presented.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, please see the attachment, where the responses to the 3 reviewers have been compiled.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have made a very good revision of the article, with a more adequate reclassification of the dialectal areas and a more solid quantitative analysis.

As for the dialectal areas, I would still ask the authors if they have considered regrouping the Chilean and Rioplatense areas into one, given the small number of cases of innovations with respect to the total sample (2% and 1.2%). Is there any justification for distinguishing these two areas when analyzing each adjectival class?  Why is it not equally important to distinguish between Mexico and Central America as this is the area with the highest cases of innovation in relation to all adjective classes?

I also suggest that when describing the dialectal distribution of the percentages (from Table 3), in addition to reporting or documenting the # of cases of innovation, the differences between the number of occurrences per area should also be considered. The tables provide important information on trends. For example, in Age Adjectives, it is Mexican & Central American (48%), Andean (31%) and Caribbean (16%) areas that are leading in innovation; in Evaluative Adjectives, Dimensional Adjectives and Property Adjectives, it is the Mexican & Central American area (72.3% & 91.6%, and 71.4%, respectively) that really favor these innovative uses. The percentages point to a clear connection between the innovative construction and the Mexican & CA dialectal area, which deserves to be mentioned in the article. Therefore, I would ask the authors to rethink, for example, what they state in lines 1165-1170: I consider that there is no evidence that this is a systematic phenomenon in the Caribbean and Andean areas.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf