City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 9-2020 The Grammatical Systems of Attentionworthiness: Positional Signals and Invariant Meanings in Spanish Word Order Eduardo Ho-Fernández The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4079 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE GRAMMATICAL SYSTEMS OF ATTENTIONWORTHINESS: POSITIONAL SIGNALS AND INVARIANT MEANINGS IN SPANISH WORD ORDER. by EDUARDO HO-FERNÁNDEZ A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2020 © 2020 EDUARDO HO-FERNÁNDEZ All Rights Reserved ii The Grammatical Systems of Attentionworthiness: Positional Signals and Invariant Meanings in Spanish Word Order. by Eduardo Ho-Fernández This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. September 9, 2020 Ricardo Otheguy ___________________ ________________________________________________ Date Chair of the Examining Committee September 9, 2020 Carlos Riobó ___________________ ________________________________________________ Date Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: José del Valle Alan Huffman Beatriz Lado Ricardo Otheguy THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT The Grammatical Systems of Attentionworthiness: Positional Signals and Invariant Meanings in Spanish Word Order. by Eduardo Ho-Fernández Advisor: Ricardo Otheguy This dissertation presents a Columbia School analysis of word order phenomena in Spanish. The data was sourced from a corpus of manually collected utterances extracted from six volumes of Latin American short stories written in the twentieth century. The study employs various qualitative and quantitative techniques in order to test the various hypotheses offered as explanations of the distributional problems selected for the study. The observations roughly correspond to word orders that the grammatical tradition describes as having to do with either verbs with one argument (SV, VS, OV, VO) or verbs with two arguments (SVO, OVS, VSO, VOS, SOV, OSV). However, the present analysis shows that word order in Spanish can best be accounted for by discarding the traditional notions Subject, Object and Verb (S, O, V) in favor of the notions of Event or (E) (a word inferred as an event or occurrence) and Participant or (P) (a word, phrase, or clause inferred as an entity involved in the occurrence), where Participant can equally be what the tradition would have called a Subject or what it would have called an Object. The study offers hypotheses that propose that the word orders under scrutiny are discrete signals of meanings of Attentionworthiness, which is defined as the relative degree of differential attention that the speaker wants paid to a Participant or an Event. Depending on the word order iv configuration, qualitative testing is performed on individual examples assessing the attention- grabbing merits of either the Participant(s) or the Event, while quantitative tests are designed to test for the general applicability of an explanation throughout the corpus. Two grammatical systems are hypothesized as representing grammatical features of Spanish: the system of Participant Attentionworthiness and the system of Event Attentionworthiness. Within these systems, HIGHER or LOWER Participant Attentionworthiness or MORE or LESS Event Attentionworthiness is allocated based on the position occupied by the Participant(s) or the Event within an utterance. The new typology (i.e., various combinations of P and E) represents the meaningful relationship between the categories proposed for the ordering phenomena and the signaling of a semantic or communicative instruction that is hypothesized for each word order. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation took multiple years to complete, and it is thanks to the dedication of many that it became a reality. My mother taught me early to be thankful, thus, I acknowledge, at the academic level: First, the Columbia School Linguistic Society, its generous donors, members, and especially its Executive Committee. The work herein is possible to the full financial, institutional, and intellectual support I received as a Fellow in the Society’s Fellowship Program from 2015 to 2020, years in which I worked the entirety of this dissertation. As a Fellow, I enjoyed the continued support from a select group of Columbia School scholars that provided me with a community to rely on, debate with, and to learn from. The discussions around the Friday morning Seminar table at Faculty House in Columbia University have shaped my thinking in ways that I cannot account for in these pages. I thank all Seminar members for their challenging questions and interest; especially, Prof. Nancy Stern for your belief in my work and your unrelenting support; and notably, the Seminar Chair, Prof. Wallis Reid, as you forced debates and offered many ideas, often enriching my thinking and analysis, much like your doctoral dissertation did. The finest minds in Philology and Literary Criticism one can learn from: Prof. Raquel Chang-Rodríguez; Prof. Silvia Dapía; Prof. Isaías Lerner†; Prof. Lía Schwartz†; and Prof. José Martínez-Torrejón. I learned more than textual interpretation and the Renaissance; thanks to you, my thinking is forever changed. The benefit from my time as Visiting Scholar at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Madrid, 2016) and at the School of Advanced Study (Univ. London, 2019). The CUNY Graduate Center awarded me funds through: Graduate Assistanships (2012-2014); an Advanced Research Council Fellowship (2015); Research Grant (for Madrid, 2016); and a University Fellowship (for London, 2019). Prof. Beatriz Lado, for agreeing twice to being part in my Committees for my Ph.D. and M.Phil.; thank you for your dedication and serious engagement, and for your insistence that linguistic theory go alongside with sound pedagogical practice. Two scholars that have directly and indirectly impacted much more than my training in Linguistics are: -Prof. José del Valle, for allowing me to tailor my program around my interests and for sponsoring my research in Madrid and London –they have had a lasting impact on me. For teaching me that history in linguistics is never linear. And for leading by example, as the true intellectual one aspires to be someday. -Prof. Joseph Davis, for your intellectual radicalism; for the time you have devoted to my development and to my ideas; and for your collegiality and generosity. For keeping the Diverian in me critically active, and for not compromising. Our post-Seminar de-briefing intellectual lunches are times unmatched! To use a baseball analogy, I had the ideal “opening” and “closing” pitchers in the roster for this long- lasting dissertation game. Playing with me for nine and extra innings, were two of the best in our field: -Prof. Alan Huffman, for being my Columbia School mentor. I cannot ever thank you enough for all the years you have invested in me and this project; for your generosity of self and intellect; for your attention to the most exacting details; and for allowing me to think freely and without judgment; and importantly, for not micromanaging me or the process. Our 10 pm videoconference start-time will be missed! I can only but think that you embody all the qualities that you so much admired in your teacher, William Diver. -Prof. Ricardo Otheguy, for agreeing to the supervision of this dissertation and ensuring its “closure”, especially for doing so in retirement. Thank you for sharing your ever-lasting wisdom; for encouraging me to become a linguist; and for reading (not sure how) everything I ever sent you in record-breaking time and with so much care. I am glad you chose to emulate only the qualities you liked in your teacher, Erica García. To me, personally, you have been more than just a teacher: You have been a guardian. vi At a personal level, I would like to acknowledge: The love, encouragement, and prayers from my parents: Enrique and Pilar. The friendship of my sister, Pili. My brother, Quique, opened me his home where I could comfortably shelter-in-place and complete this written work in the chaos of a global pandemic – to you, I dedicate this work. Suzanne Stamm, because I could have not done the required Ph.D courses and a career at Morgan Stanley without you. Thanks for every opportunity, and especially, for your lasting friendship. At the CSIC in Madrid, more than a research supervisor, Dr. María Jesús Torrens, offered me her bright intellect; the time to look for sources for this work; and her personal friendship – which I greatly cherish. To my friends who listened when I needed, you were some of the best therapy I could afford. Gracias. Dr. Steven F.; Dr. Adam F.; and Dr. Arielle S. What you have done for me is priceless. I certainly could not tell this story without you. I am forever in gratitude. And last, but not least: I am thankful to my Creator, who has blessed me with life and this great American opportunity. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................................