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A QUANTITATIVE APPROACH TO VARIABLE SE-MARKING IN SPANISH INGESTIVE VERBS DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Juliana De la Mora, M. Sc Graduate Program in Spanish and Portuguese The Ohio State University 2011 Dissertation Committee: Professor Scott A. Schwenter, Advisor Professor Terrell A. Morgan Professor Laura Wagner Copyright by Juliana De la Mora 2011 ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I analyze the Spanish ingestive verbs comer ‘eat’ and beber/tomar ‘drink’ that variably occur with the pronoun SE and its person/number variants. Many scholars (De Miguel and Fernandez Lagunilla 2000; Nishida 1994; Sanz 2000; Zagona 1996) have claimed that SE is an aspectual marker, and its use imposes a completive interpretation; on this view SE can only occur with telic predicates. However, it is possible to find examples that show that the alternation between SE-marked and non- SE-marked constructions is not only constrained by aspectual-related factors, but also by other factors such as the degree of individuation of the object (cf. Hopper and Thompson 1980) (1) and the (counter)expectations of the speaker (2): (1) Ayer vi a Sergio, (#SE) estaba comiendo unos tacos pero todavía no le servían ‘Yesterday I saw Sergio, he was about to (#SE) eat some tacos but they hadn’t been served yet’ (2) a. Marta se comió diez tacos de lengua b. #Marta comió diez tacos de lengua ‘Marta (#SE) ate ten tongue tacos’ ii Maldonado (2000) and Clements (2006) have argued that the use of SE in transitive constructions increases the transitivity of the event. Previous variationist studies of Spanish variable SE marking in motion verbs (Aaron and Torres Cacoullos 2005; Torres Cacoullos and Schwenter 2008) have revealed a set of linguistic factors that contribute to the variability. Among these are clause type, subject expression, grammatical person, tense-mood-aspect and polarity. Thus, a confluence of pragmatic and aspectual factors has been claimed to be relevant to variable SE-marking in Spanish, but qualitative studies cannot explain the myriad of factors determining this variation and their interactions. Following the variationist method, I analyzed variable SE-marking in ingestive verbs in different dialects of Spanish. My analysis of 3958 tokens from spoken and written corpora revealed non-edible/drinkable objects, highly definite and specific objects, non-human subjects, affirmative polarity, grammatical number and object position favor the SE-marked forms of comer and tomar. These results also reveal that the verb beber disfavors SE-marking. Analysis of the data presented in this dissertation reveals that variable SE marking in Spanish is constrained by pragmatic factors such as animacy and counter-expectations associated with subjectivity and it is also constrained by grammatical factors associated with transitivity. I claim that the so-called aspectual SE is a non-canonical marker with a pragmatic function and a grammatical function. The pragmatic function of SE is to mark non-canonical events (either the events themselves or any of the participants) and the grammatical function of SE is to mark non-canonical transitive clauses that correspond to highly transitive clauses. iii Results also reveal that the meaning of SE is determined in conjunction with the lexical/semantic properties of the verb and not by overarching properties of a generalized SE construction as suggested in prior qualitative research. These results, along with the findings reported by Torres Cacoullos and Schwenter (2008) and Aaron and Torres Cacoullos (2005), suggest that the choice of SE-marked constructions over non-SE- marked constructions is pragmatically driven. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Este trabajo no hubiera sido posible sin la colaboración de muchas personas. En primer lugar, mi inmensa gratitud a mi asesor Scott Schwenter, por sus invaluables críticas, cuestionamientos y comentarios. Gracias Scott por tu generosidad intelectual y bibliográfica y por la confianza que siempre tuviste en este proyecto y en mi trabajo. Fui muy afortunada por contar en mi comité, además de con Scott Schwenter, con Terrell Morgan y Laura Wagner, dos personas y profesores extraordinarios. Gracias a Terrell Morgan por compartir todas esas otras maneras de hacer lingüística y por recordarme constantemente cuánto me apasiona lo que hago. Gracias a Laura Wagner por sus ideas y comentarios siempre brillantes y por dedicar generosamente su tiempo a este proyecto. De una y mil maneras está presente en este trabajo John Grinstead, a quien le agradezco inmensamente todo su apoyo, trabajo y formación. La alegría y el apoyo de la gente de la 288 fue sin duda fundamental en todo este proyecto. Gracias a Ian Tippets por compartir y contagiarme su pasión por los objetos, a Sara Sinnott por leerme y escucharme en todo momento y por el apoyo incondicional durante estos años. Gracias a Meghan Armstrong que fue cómplice de este trabajo desde el incio y que compartió conmigo eternas discusiones sobre lo bebible y lo comible por todos los alrededores de campus. Gracias a Sandro Sessarego por su tiempo y paciencia, por las largas horas de compañía y por hacer del think tank un gran espacio de trabajo. Gracias a Pilar Chamorro, por las interminables, atélicas e imperfectas, charlas y carcajadas. A Daniela Salcedo, la Dany que siempre estuvo dispuesta para charlar por largo tiempo sobre cualquier tema y que sin duda hizo de la 288 un lugar más colorido. v Gracias a Mariana Vega por el apoyo, el ánimo y los cafés que me mantuvieron despierta para poder terminar esta tesis. Gracias a Evelyn Silva por todo el apoyo en todo este tiempo. Gracias a Mariana Lacunza, mi otra hermana, que me acompañó en las horas fáciles y difíciles, gracias por las eternas horas de compañía y apoyo en la cueva. Gracias a Laura Falduti por todo y por tanto, que desde allá siempre estuvo acá. Gracias a Pablo por el apoyo, la compañía y la cercanía, por compartir esto de tantas maneras y por estar siempre ahí. Gracias Ma y Pa, por compartir el amor y la pasión al campo y por enseñarme a disfrutarlo. Gracias por todo el apoyo y por hacer de la distancia un lugar muy acogedor. Gracias a la Tati por tenerme siempre presente y por el apoyo y cariño en todo momento. Al Cam y Tat, gracias por todo, por estar siempre ahí. Gracias a la Pau por sus detalles y ánimos constantes y al Eu por el apoyo compartido también a través de la academia. Gracias a todos los amigos y colegas de la 286 y la 288, especialmente a los que pacientemente colaboraron con sus ideas e intuiciones. Gracias a todos los amigos que desde lejos estuvieron siempre cerca. vi VITA 1998………... B.A. in Speech and Language Pathology, Colegio Superior de Neurolingüística y Psicopedagogía 2004……….. M.Sc. in Linguistics, University of Alberta PUBLICATIONS Kristin Hawkins, Kathie Houcheons, Gerardina Garita-Lacey, Juliana De la Mora and Jan Macian. 2010. Exploring the TLC: A teaching and learning center for students and instructors, The Language Educator, 38-43, February, 2010. John Grinstead, Juliana De la Mora, Mariana Vega-Mendoza and Blanca Flores. 2009. An elicited production test of the optional infinitive stage in child Spanish, Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition-North America (GALANA 2008), ed. by J. Crawford, K. Otaki and M. Takahashi, 36-45. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. John Grinstead, Juliana De la Mora, Amy Pratt and Blanca Flores. 2009. Temporal interface delay and root nonfinite verbs in Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment: Evidence from the grammaticality choice task, Hispanic Child Languages, ed. by John Grinstead, 239–264, Amsterdam: Benjamins. John Grinstead, Juliana De la Mora and Amy Pratt. 2007. Verbal tense and agreement in child Spanish-speakers with specific language impairment. Proceedings of the Thirty- seventh Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL 2007), ed. by Rebecca Colavin, Kathryn Cooke, Kathryn Davidson, Shin Fukuda and Alex Del Guidice, 56-67, San Diego CA: Department of Linguistics, University of California. De la Mora, Juliana. 1999. Actas del primer encuentro sobre problemas de la enseñanza de español en México, Español Actual, 71:112-114, Madrid: Arco. vii FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Spanish and Portuguese Studies in: Variationist Linguistics and Pragmatics viii CONVENTIONS A: agent O: object DO: direct object DOM: differential object marking FEM: feminine MASC: masculine NP: noun phrase S: subject SG: singular PL: plural V: verb VP: verb phrase Corpora CDE: Corpus del español (Davies Corpus) CREA: Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual CORDE: Corpus Diacrónico del Español ix TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v VITA................................................................................................................................. vii CONVENTIONS............................................................................................................... ix LIST OF TABLES........................................................................................................... xiii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................1 1.1 Phenomenon and goals ..............................................................................................1
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