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New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar
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New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar

A special issue of Languages (ISSN 2226-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 September 2023) | Viewed by 31153

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Enrique Pato

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Literatures and Languages of the World, University of Montreal, Montréal, QC H3T 1J4, Canada
Interests: dialectal grammar; syntax; lexis; language and dialect contact

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The goal of this Special Issue is to present analyses of new data on Spanish dialectal grammar from a theoretical and empirical perspective. We will examine how recent research is carried out using data from different Spanish dialects. We specifically encourage contributions dealing with non-standard grammatical features, oral data, rural speakers, dialect contact, and vernacular universals in Spanish.

Dialectal variation used to be perceived as a permanent syntactic diglossia (Kroch 2001), that is to say, an effect of the coexistence of grammars. However according to recent proposals, speakers do not have different grammars but rather an open range of lexical items, some of them with syntactic effects. Thus, the variation is attributable to differences in the features of specific items in the lexicon (Baker 2008, Adger & Smith 2010, Eguren 2014). What is interesting is that, under this view, the dialect system is not static, but rather participates in the same process of change as the standard language (Szmrecsanyi & Kortmann 2009, Szmrecsanyi & Röthlisberger 2020).

In view of the above, if speakers of the vernacular varieties have the same cognitive background as speakers of the standard variety, it is important to extend this hypothesis to the dialect data and give those data the treatment they deserve (Di Tullio & Pato 2022). Furthermore, the limits between the vernacular and the colloquial features are not precise. Some phenomena are vernacular in all dialects and other phenomena are vernacular only in some areas. In this respect, it is mandatory to establish the links between the dialectal and the universal features in rural dialects and in the speech of the working middle class.

This Special Issue aims to present and describe –from different theoretical frameworks– an array of dialectal grammatical phenomena described and analyzed in articles that study the way in which words are combined and the meanings to which these combinations give rise (Bosque & Gutiérrez-Rexach 2009). The Issue will constitute a useful supplement to existing literature on the topic.

As to the projected length of the Special Issue and articles:

  • Contents: Between 20 and 25 articles (with an Introduction).
  • Spanish: European and American.
  • Dialectal issues: Grammar, Syntax, Morphology, Discourse.

The tentative completion schedule is as follows:

  • Abstract submission deadline: 1 February 2023 (c. 400 words including bibliography)
  • Notification of abstract acceptance: 28 February 2023
  • Full manuscript deadline: 1 August 2023 (targeted)

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editor ([email protected]) and to Languages editorial office ([email protected]). The guest editor will review abstracts for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the special issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

References

Adger, D. & Smith, J. 2010. Variation in agreement: A lexical feature-based approach. Lingua 120(5), 1109-1134.

Baker, M. 2008. The Macroparameter in a Microparametric World. In T. Biberauer (ed.), The Limits of Syntactic Variation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 351-373.

Bosque, I. & Gutiérrez-Rexach, J. 2009. Fundamentos de sintaxis formal. Madrid: Akal.

Di Tullio, Á. & Pato, E. (eds.) 2022. Universales vernáculos en la gramática del español. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.

Eguren, L. 2014. La Gramática Universal en el Programa Minimista. Revista de Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada 52(1), 35-58.

Kroch, A. 2001. Syntactic change. In M. Baltin & Ch. Collins (eds.), The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theories. Oxford: Blackwell, 699-729.

Szmrecsanyi, B. & Kortmann, B. 2009. Vernacular Universals and Angloversals in a Typological Perspective. In M. Filppula, J. Klemola & H. Paulasto (eds.), Vernacular Universals and Language Contacts: Evidence from Varieties of English and Beyond. London: Routledge, 33-53.

Szmrecsanyi, B. & Röthlisberger, M. 2020. World Englishes from the Perspective of Dialect Typology. In D. Schreier, M. Hundt & E. W. Schneider (eds.), World Englishes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 534-558.

Prof. Dr. Enrique Pato
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

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Published Papers (17 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research

9 pages, 622 KiB  
Editorial
New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar: Guest Editor’s Introduction
by Enrique Pato
Languages 2024, 9(2), 36; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9020036 - 24 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1421
Abstract
If we understand Language as everything that is selected, numbered, merged and sent, and Grammar (both of the language and of the individual) as the union of Lexicon and Syntax, we share the same theoretical vision [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
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Research

Jump to: Editorial

15 pages, 401 KiB  
Article
Four Dialectal Uses of the Adverb Siempre and Their Grammatical Properties
by Ignacio Bosque
Languages 2024, 9(1), 30; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010030 - 16 Jan 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1503
Abstract
This article analyzes four interpretations of the adverb siempre ‘always’ that do not belong to general Spanish. The continuative and the progressive-comparative interpretations are argued to be calques of Italian, often attested in Rioplatense Spanish. In the first one, siempre is equivalent to [...] Read more.
This article analyzes four interpretations of the adverb siempre ‘always’ that do not belong to general Spanish. The continuative and the progressive-comparative interpretations are argued to be calques of Italian, often attested in Rioplatense Spanish. In the first one, siempre is equivalent to Eng. still or ‘continue to + infinitive’, while in the second one it admits paraphrases with more and more, less and less, and the adverbs gradually and progressively. The third interpretation, in which siempre is roughly equivalent to after all, finally, and ‘end up + gerund’, will be argued to be concessive-adversative. This reading is more frequent in Mexico and Central America, but it is also attested in other American countries. The fourth reading is the attenuated interpretation, registered in part of the Andean area. In this meaning, siempre is equivalent to roughly or so so. It is argued that, with the possible exception of the last reading (whose origin is insecure), these different meanings of siempre coincide in the interpretation of this adverb as a universal quantifier, while they differ in the semantic nature of the quantified variable. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
18 pages, 348 KiB  
Article
Grammatical Object Passives in Yucatec Spanish
by Grant Armstrong
Languages 2024, 9(1), 24; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010024 - 10 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1451
Abstract
Yucatec Spanish displays a type of sentence that appears to mix elements of an active impersonal and a passive. For example, “te castigaron por mi tío” may be interpreted as “you were punished by my uncle”, where a by-phrase headed by the preposition [...] Read more.
Yucatec Spanish displays a type of sentence that appears to mix elements of an active impersonal and a passive. For example, “te castigaron por mi tío” may be interpreted as “you were punished by my uncle”, where a by-phrase headed by the preposition por introduces an agent rather than a cause or reason. The verb has active morphology—it is always third-person plural, and accusative clitics (e.g., te) and DOM-marked objects are possible. This type of sentence, which I descriptively label an active–passive (A-P) hybrid, has been mentioned in previous literature on contact varieties in Mayan-speaking regions of Mexico and Guatemala, but it has not been precisely described or analyzed formally. I argue that A-P hybrid constructions are instances of grammatical object passives. Grammatical object passives have certain active properties—accusative case is assigned to a theme argument and the morphology of the verb is active, but like passives, they require that the expression of the agent be a by-phrase rather than a grammatical subject. I claim that this is possible in this variety of Spanish due to the emergence of a null pronoun, absent in other varieties of Spanish, that can merge in the specifier of Voice and restrict, rather than saturate, an agent argument, permitting the subsequent addition of a third-person by-phrase. I demonstrate that this analysis is able to explain its hybrid properties as well as other person restrictions on the by-phrases that express the agent. Finally, I describe avenues of future research that will help discern the role that language contact may have played in the emergence of A-P hybrids. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
37 pages, 1327 KiB  
Article
Lexical–Syntactic Classes of Adjectives in Copular Sentences across Spanish Varieties: The Innovative Use of Estar
by Silvia Gumiel-Molina, Norberto Moreno-Quibén and Isabel Pérez-Jiménez
Languages 2024, 9(1), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010020 - 9 Jan 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2669
Abstract
This paper aims to provide a clearer understanding of the structure known in the literature as the innovative use of estar, illustrated in sentences like Luego salgo/voy a visitar usuarios que están muy morosos [Medellín, Colombia; Preseea] (“Today I am going to visit [...] Read more.
This paper aims to provide a clearer understanding of the structure known in the literature as the innovative use of estar, illustrated in sentences like Luego salgo/voy a visitar usuarios que están muy morosos [Medellín, Colombia; Preseea] (“Today I am going to visit users that are.ESTAR defaulting debtors”). In such sentences, no comparison is established between stages or counterparts of the subject of predication with regard to the property expressed by the adjective, as opposed to estar-sentences in standard/general Spanish. This innovative structure is a syntactic scheme employed throughout different Latin American Spanish varieties. The goal of this paper is twofold: it is both descriptive and theoretical. From a descriptive perspective, it offers an exhaustive and updated empirical characterization of the extent of this structure in Latin American Spanish based on an analysis of the Preseea corpus. This description takes into consideration both its geographical distribution in the different Latin American dialectal varieties and the lexical–syntactic classes of adjectives that appear as predicates in innovative estar-sentences. Building on this, from a theoretical point of view, a critical evaluation is made of the existing proposals in the literature that explain the properties—both syntactic and semantic—of the innovative construction. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
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18 pages, 534 KiB  
Article
Nominal Possession in Contact Spanish Spoken by Mapudungun/Spanish Bilinguals
by Aldo Olate and Ricardo Pineda
Languages 2024, 9(1), 17; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010017 - 29 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1579
Abstract
Possession has been scarcely studied in the variety of Spanish in contact with Mapudungun and in Chilean Spanish. In this contribution, we analyze the nominal possessive constructions found in a corpus of interviews with speakers from five communities: three Mapudungun–Spanish bilingual communities from [...] Read more.
Possession has been scarcely studied in the variety of Spanish in contact with Mapudungun and in Chilean Spanish. In this contribution, we analyze the nominal possessive constructions found in a corpus of interviews with speakers from five communities: three Mapudungun–Spanish bilingual communities from the Araucanía Region, one Spanish monolingual rural community from the Bío Bío Region, and one Spanish monolingual urban community from the Araucanía Region. The possessive constructions found in the contact Spanish, rural Spanish, and urban Spanish varieties are analyzed and compared to describe the domain of possession and to propose some possible explanations from the perspective of language contact theory for the case of the Spanish spoken by bilinguals. From the corpus of transcribed interviews, nominal possessive constructions were selected, classified, described, and compared. Double possession with restrictive relative clauses, and unstressed possessive pronouns plus a prepositional phrase with genitive/specific value, showed a limited frequency of occurrence. These constructions are analyzed using the Code-Copying framework. This perspective accounts for the observed equivalencies between both languages in contact and the constructions emerging in the bilinguals’ speech. This work contributes to the documentation of the variety and, more generally, to the description of the expression of possession in the Latin American contact varieties of Spanish. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
31 pages, 520 KiB  
Article
Levels of Variation in Subordinates of Immediate Succession in Current Spanish
by Avel·lina Suñer Gratacós
Languages 2024, 9(1), 16; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010016 - 28 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1682
Abstract
In this paper, I analyze, from a compositional perspective, the relevant features to construct the interpretation of immediate succession between a subordinate event and the event that takes place in the main sentence. Among all the components involved in the construction of the [...] Read more.
In this paper, I analyze, from a compositional perspective, the relevant features to construct the interpretation of immediate succession between a subordinate event and the event that takes place in the main sentence. Among all the components involved in the construction of the meaning of immediate succession, I focus particularly on the subordinators, which present a mosaic of variation in current Spanish. The key ideas that can be derived from the data analysis are the following. First: subordinators of immediate succession are the loci of variation of temporal subordinates. Second: a subordinator of immediate succession is a “linguistic variable” that can be syntactically materialized in different forms by applying general rules that do not change the meaning, although sometimes they do change the grammatical category. Third: in the diachronic evolution of Spanish, several patterns of internal structure have emerged for immediate succession subordinators. However, most of them have ceased to be productive, although some subordinators that were coined with these patterns have survived as fossils in the current language. Fourth: the only productive pattern in the present language can be reduced to the Adv (immediacy) + que scheme, which goes back to Late Latin. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
34 pages, 1677 KiB  
Article
Existential Constructions, Definiteness Effects, and Linguistic Contact: At the Crossroads between Spanish and Catalan
by Jorge Agulló
Languages 2024, 9(1), 11; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010011 - 23 Dec 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2740
Abstract
Existential sentences in Spanish are sensitive to the definiteness or quantification restriction or effect, which prevents personal pronouns, proper nouns, and definite constituents from occupying the pivot position. Contact varieties between Spanish, a robust language as regards the effect, and Catalan, which has [...] Read more.
Existential sentences in Spanish are sensitive to the definiteness or quantification restriction or effect, which prevents personal pronouns, proper nouns, and definite constituents from occupying the pivot position. Contact varieties between Spanish, a robust language as regards the effect, and Catalan, which has a weaker version, remain largely unexplored. This paper fills this void. A large corpus was gathered to quantitatively study the variation between definite and indefinite pivots. Examples involving definite, specific pivots and even proper names, hitherto unnoticed, are brought to the fore. The pivot of the existential in Spanish is argued to bear Partitive case, as shown by (i) pronominal existential pivots in other Romance languages, (ii) the phi-feature defectiveness of the clitic out of the pivot position, (iii) and partitive pronouns with unaccusatives in Spanish. The hypothesis is put forth that varieties of Spanish in contact with Catalan no longer relate Partitive case to the non-definiteness of the pivot. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
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32 pages, 810 KiB  
Article
Grammatical and Lexical Dialectal Variation in Spanish: The Case of deísmo
by Edita Gutiérrez-Rodríguez and Pilar Pérez-Ocón
Languages 2023, 8(4), 288; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040288 - 15 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1529
Abstract
Deísmo is a non-standard dialectal phenomenon consisting of the insertion of a non-required preposition de ‘of’ before a non-finite clause: Me apetece (de) salir ‘I want to go out’. In most papers, de is analyzed as a defective complementizer that does not change [...] Read more.
Deísmo is a non-standard dialectal phenomenon consisting of the insertion of a non-required preposition de ‘of’ before a non-finite clause: Me apetece (de) salir ‘I want to go out’. In most papers, de is analyzed as a defective complementizer that does not change the meaning of the sentence. However, deísmo has also been associated with a prospective meaning with some verbs, and de has been considered as a marker of evidentiality with visual perception verbs. In this paper, we provide a formal analysis for deísmo constructions, in which de is located in a projection below that occupied by de in dequeísmo constructions). Secondly, we will show the results of a questionnaire whose objective is to figure out if there is an evidential meaning associated with deísmo. For the questionnaire, we made a preliminary search in Corpus Oral y Sonoro del Español Rural (COSER) and in Spanish Web Corpus 2018 (Sketch Engine). From this, we selected the most frequent verbs with deísmo in Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). An examination of the results revealed that, on the one hand, deísmo is lexically associated with certain verbs, but not necessarily with all of the same semantic class; and on the other hand, that there is not an evidential meaning associated with deísmo. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
22 pages, 1782 KiB  
Article
«¡La de + N + que…!» The Feminine Definite Article in Spanish Exclamative Clauses
by Juan José Arias
Languages 2023, 8(4), 274; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040274 - 21 Nov 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1444
Abstract
The present study explores the exclamative use of the feminine definite article la in structures such as ‘¡La de chicos que besé en la fiesta!’ (How many guys I kissed at the party!). First, a morphosyntactic description of the pattern is [...] Read more.
The present study explores the exclamative use of the feminine definite article la in structures such as ‘¡La de chicos que besé en la fiesta!’ (How many guys I kissed at the party!). First, a morphosyntactic description of the pattern is offered so as to show that the data under analysis are pseudopartitive constructions which display all the characteristics of primary and partial exclamatives. Building on research on nominal exclamatives, we conclude that these examples are not CPs but indefinite DPs with an exclamative flavor which contain a semi-relative clause introduced by que. Within the framework of Distributed Morphology, we schematize a set of syntactic structures which capture the ‘chimeric’ and hybrid nature of the data, these being halfway between DPs and exclamative clauses. In order to do so, it will be necessary to split the DP into smaller projections (FocP, FinP), since la must move to Spec-FocP to be interpreted as an exclamative operator. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
24 pages, 644 KiB  
Article
Dative Doubling in Non-Mandatory Contexts in European Spanish
by Sara Gómez Seibane
Languages 2023, 8(4), 270; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040270 - 16 Nov 2023
Viewed by 1490
Abstract
Clitic doubling (CD) is the co-appearance in the same sentence of the clitic and a correlative syntagma in the canonical position of the object. Apart from obligatory contexts, CD of the indirect object (IO) is found with variable frequency in Romance languages and [...] Read more.
Clitic doubling (CD) is the co-appearance in the same sentence of the clitic and a correlative syntagma in the canonical position of the object. Apart from obligatory contexts, CD of the indirect object (IO) is found with variable frequency in Romance languages and even in different varieties of the same language, most likely because it is a phenomenon of internal/external language interface. The objective of this work is to determine the frequency of CD in non-obligatory contexts of recipient and location IO in peninsular Spanish, and to analyse its features according to the referential hierarchy used for the diachronic evolution of the phenomenon. For this purpose, we extracted data from two open access corpora of interviews (COREC and PRESEEA) from different regions that are (or are not) areas of historical contact with other languages. The results show a significant extension of doubling in contexts where this is optional and the neutralisation of features that previously predicted CD of IOs. Nevertheless, there are geographical differences in peninsular Spanish in terms of frequency, definiteness, specificity, the influence of the cliticization of the direct object, and the accessibility of the IO referents in the minds of the speakers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
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21 pages, 1300 KiB  
Article
A Fork in the Road: Grammatical Gender Assignment to Nouns in Spanish Dialects
by Florencio Del Barrio de la Rosa
Languages 2023, 8(4), 257; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040257 - 30 Oct 2023
Viewed by 1981
Abstract
Spanish nouns are classified as either feminine or masculine. Although some nouns vary depending on their denotation (such as niño ‘male child’ vs. niña ‘female child’), in most cases a fixed gender is assigned. When lacking an inflectional cue, nouns could variably admit [...] Read more.
Spanish nouns are classified as either feminine or masculine. Although some nouns vary depending on their denotation (such as niño ‘male child’ vs. niña ‘female child’), in most cases a fixed gender is assigned. When lacking an inflectional cue, nouns could variably admit both genders. While alternating gender may be present in standard Spanish (e.g., azúcar moreno ‘brown.m sugar’ vs. azúcar blanquilla ‘white.f sugar’), it predominantly depends on social or geographical factors (e.g., la vinagre ‘the.f vinegar’, el sal ‘the.m salt’ unlike standard el vinagre ‘the.m vinegar’, la sal ‘the.f salt’). Thus, Spanish binary system represents a fork in the road of gender assignment to nouns. Focused on European Spanish, the present study addresses the sociogeographical influences conditioning gender values in Spanish nouns. To the best of my knowledge, no previous research has been systematically conducted on gender assignment in modern Spanish dialects, so my findings shall shed light on how gender values are determined and diffused across rural and urban varieties. Data are retrieved mainly from the Corpus Oral y Sonoro del Español Rural and the Proyecto para el estudio sociolingüístico del español de España y América), as well as other bibliographical and dialectal sources. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
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35 pages, 1611 KiB  
Article
On the Nature of Verbal Non-Local Doubling in Patagonian Spanish
by José Silva Garcés and Gonzalo Espinosa
Languages 2023, 8(4), 255; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040255 - 26 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1465
Abstract
The main objective in this study is to describe and offer an account of verbal non-local doubling in Patagonian Spanish (PatSp), an understudied non-standard variety of Spanish in Argentina. We focus on data in which there are duplicated verbs surrounding an XP that [...] Read more.
The main objective in this study is to describe and offer an account of verbal non-local doubling in Patagonian Spanish (PatSp), an understudied non-standard variety of Spanish in Argentina. We focus on data in which there are duplicated verbs surrounding an XP that bears the nuclear accent of the phrase (XPNA). First, our analysis describes the prosodic, semantic, and morphosyntactic behaviour of the data gathered. Second, we present the problems and challenges that doubling phenomena in PatSp pose for approaches that have tried to explain similar data in other Spanish varieties and other languages, such as the copy theory or prosodic cloning. Third, this work explores a biclausal analysis of verbal non-local doubling in PatSp in which each duplicate originates in a different clause, CP1 and CP2. In this approach, duplicated verbs (V1 and V2, according to their linear distribution) are not derivationally related. We also argue that the XPNA moves to the left periphery of CP2. This movement would account for the three typical traits of verbal duplication in PatSp: the mandatory adjacency between the nuclear accent and V2, the non-locality between verbal duplicates, and the semantic value of mirativity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
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19 pages, 424 KiB  
Article
Non-Pronominal Intransitive Verb Variants with Property Interpretation: A Characterization
by Elena Felíu Arquiola
Languages 2023, 8(4), 249; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040249 - 24 Oct 2023
Viewed by 1541
Abstract
In this paper, we study a syntactic construction that has received little attention in the study of Spanish grammar (La masa de pizza congela perfectamente, ‘Pizza dough freezes perfectly’). It is characterized by the presence of a verb in a non-pronominal [...] Read more.
In this paper, we study a syntactic construction that has received little attention in the study of Spanish grammar (La masa de pizza congela perfectamente, ‘Pizza dough freezes perfectly’). It is characterized by the presence of a verb in a non-pronominal intransitive variant, with property interpretation. This construction is related to mediopassive sentences or generic middles (Las camisas de algodón se lavan fácilmente, ‘Cotton shirts wash easily’), as well as to the anticausative construction (La camisa se secó al sol, ‘The shirt dried in the sun’), a relationship that has not always been highlighted in previous studies, which are usually based on a short list of verbs. Taking as a point of departure both the verbal classification found in ADESSE and data from Corpus del Español: Web/Dialects, the construction under study is described, paying special attention to the types of verbs found in it in order to check if they coincide with the verbs found in mediopassive sentences or the anticausative construction. In addition, our study provides new data on the linguistic factors (presence of a manner adverb or other modifiers, negation), as well as on the extralinguistic factors (type of text, geographical distribution) involved in this phenomenon. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
25 pages, 502 KiB  
Article
Evidential Adverbs and Polarity: A Study from Spanish
by Teresa María Rodríguez Ramalle
Languages 2023, 8(4), 243; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040243 - 20 Oct 2023
Viewed by 1669
Abstract
This paper addresses the analysis of variations in structures that are projected in discourse. Starting with the relationship between evidential adverbs and the affirmative Spanish adverb sí, I review the occurrence of the conjunction que “that” with evidential adverbs, such as naturalmente [...] Read more.
This paper addresses the analysis of variations in structures that are projected in discourse. Starting with the relationship between evidential adverbs and the affirmative Spanish adverb sí, I review the occurrence of the conjunction que “that” with evidential adverbs, such as naturalmente “naturally”, ciertamente “certainly”, obviamente “obviously”, and evidentemente “evidently” as a Hispanic phenomenon, as well as its value and development in different varieties of Spanish. Although it appears that Latin American Spanish varieties lack an overt que in certain situations, such as sí que contexts or recomplementation, studies of the construction with evidential adverbs in language varieties different from European Spanish remain limited. I use examples extracted from CREA and CORPES XXI. My main objectives are to review the presence of the construction with evidential adverb + que (“that”) in Spanish by paying particular attention to its distribution in Latin American countries and to study the basic uses of the construction in countries in which it is documented. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
17 pages, 442 KiB  
Article
On Expletive mismo
by Luis Eguren and Cristina Sánchez López
Languages 2023, 8(4), 241; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040241 - 19 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1486
Abstract
This paper deals with the so-called ‘expletive’ mismo ‘same’, a non-comparative emphatic use of the prenominal adjective in appositions, which is currently attested in many varieties of American Spanish (e.g., Finalmente, Laura se sentó y aceptó el cigarrillo, mismo que nunca [...] Read more.
This paper deals with the so-called ‘expletive’ mismo ‘same’, a non-comparative emphatic use of the prenominal adjective in appositions, which is currently attested in many varieties of American Spanish (e.g., Finalmente, Laura se sentó y aceptó el cigarrillo, mismo que nunca encendió ‘lit. Laura finally sat down and accepted the cigarette, same that she never lighted up’). On the basis of corpus data, the geographical distribution of this form is precisely specified, and a novel analysis of its interpretive and combinatorial properties is provided. It is argued, in particular, that expletive mismo functions as an anaphoric reinforcer that is preceded by a null definite determiner and combines with an empty noun that takes a restrictive relative clause as its complement. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
23 pages, 5205 KiB  
Article
Non-Standard Grammatical Features in Castile-La Mancha
by Bruno Camus Bergareche
Languages 2023, 8(4), 237; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040237 - 17 Oct 2023
Viewed by 1512
Abstract
The Spanish spoken in contemporary Castile-La Mancha has been traditionally considered as a mere transitional variety between Northern Castilian and Southern Spanish of the Andalusian type. In the few works devoted to its description, local phonetics attracted a good part of the attention, [...] Read more.
The Spanish spoken in contemporary Castile-La Mancha has been traditionally considered as a mere transitional variety between Northern Castilian and Southern Spanish of the Andalusian type. In the few works devoted to its description, local phonetics attracted a good part of the attention, and the characterisation of its grammar was limited to a heterogeneous list of morphological and syntactic features. Amonag them, there was the presence of leísmo and laísmo in some areas of the region, the considerable extension of sub-standard trends, commonly found in other peninsular varieties (dequeísmo, deísmo, non-standard clitic sequences me se or te se …) and other less-extended features such as the transitive use of the verbs entrar, caer or quedar. In this work, we will address the description of the local manifestations of three grammatical features (third-person clitic pronoun systems, deísmo and reduction in second-person plural desinences) that are widely distributed in Castile-La Mancha and may be considered as general specific traits. By doing so we aim to offer a better definition of the Spanish spoken in this region, beyond the transitional cliché. A temptative approach to determine internal boundaries will also be made in order to illuminate some of the historical components that lie beyond the constitution of this Southern Spanish variety. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
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19 pages, 5673 KiB  
Article
A Formal Approach to Spanish ‘Genitive’ Pronouns in Non-Nominal Domains
by María Mare
Languages 2023, 8(4), 233; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040233 - 13 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1514
Abstract
This paper examines the distribution of ‘genitive’ pronouns in non-nominal domains in Spanish. These pronouns can alternate with constructions headed by the item de ‘of’ and a pronoun or other Determiner Phrases (DPs). In general Spanish, this alternation between a synthetic (nuestro [...] Read more.
This paper examines the distribution of ‘genitive’ pronouns in non-nominal domains in Spanish. These pronouns can alternate with constructions headed by the item de ‘of’ and a pronoun or other Determiner Phrases (DPs). In general Spanish, this alternation between a synthetic (nuestro ‘our’) and an analytic (de nosotros ‘of us’) option is found in the nominal domain. However, when looking at variation, this alternation appears in adverbial, verbal, and adjectival domains too. We discuss this phenomenon from a neo-constructionist approach, which assumes the late insertion of phonological exponents. We propose that the analytic and the synthetic options have almost the same syntactic structure, the only difference being the nature of the nominalizer’s φ-features. When the nominalizer values its φ-features, it can be lexicalized alone, and the ‘genitive’ pronoun lexicalizes the rest of the structure, including the introducer p/Place. Otherwise, when the nominalizer cannot (or needs not to) value its features, a ‘non-genitive’ pronoun lexicalizes the pronominal structure, and the head p/Place is lexicalized by the item de. Our proposal explains the complementary distribution between agreement/nominal morphology and the item de observed in many Spanish constructions. Different consequences are advantageously deduced. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Spanish Dialectal Grammar)
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