Functional Approaches to Spanish Syntax This page intentionally left blank Functional Approaches to Spanish Syntax Lexical Semantics, Discourse and Transitivity Edited by J. Clancy Clements Indiana University and Jiyoung Yoon University of North Texas Editorial matter and selection and Chapter 1 © J. Clancy Clements and Jiyoung Yoon 2006 Individual chapters © contributors 2006 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2006 978-1-4039-9406-6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-54428-8 ISBN 978-0-230-52268-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230522688 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clements, J. Clancy. Functional approaches to Spanish syntax : lexical semantics, discourse and transitivity / edited by J. Clancy Clements and Jiyoung Yoon. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Spanish language – Syntax. I.Yoon, Jiyoung. II. Title. PC4361.C54 2005 465—dc22 2005051277 10987654321 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 This book is dedicated to the memory of Clements’ teacher Eugenio Coseriu This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Tables and Figures ix Acknowledgements xii Notes on the Contributors xiii 1 Introduction 1 J. Clancy Clements and Jiyoung Yoon 2 Semantic and Discourse-Pragmatic Factors in Spanish Word Order 7 Belén López Meirama 3 Continuity and Episodic Structure in Spanish Subject Reference 53 Llorenç Comajoan 4 Gustar-Type Verbs 80 Victoria Vázquez Rozas 5 Primary and Secondary Object Marking in Spanish 115 J. Clancy Clements 6 Null Direct Objects in Spanish 134 J. Clancy Clements 7 Transitivity and the Syntax of Inalienable Possession in Spanish 151 Richard Winters 8 Ser-estar in the Predicate Adjective Construction 161 J. Clancy Clements 9 Spanish Adjective Position: Differences between Written and Spoken Discourse 203 Richard J. File-Muriel 10 Adjective Placement and Noun Semantics in Spanish 219 Mariche García-Bayonas 11 Transitivity and Spanish Non-Anaphoric se 236 J. Clancy Clements vii viii Contents 12 ‘Juan salió contento’: Semantic Constraints on Small Clauses in Adjunct Position 265 Jiyoung Yoon 13 Causative hacer and dejar 278 Carmen Ruiz-Sánchez Index 301 List of Tables and Figures Tables 1.1 Component parts of Transitivity 3 1.2 Component parts of individuation 3 2.1 Comparison of semantic differences and syntactic patterns of prototypically transitive clauses sentences v. clauses sentences with a gustar-type verb construction 18 2.2 (In)definiteness, (non-)referentiality and topichood 21 2.3 The theme–rheme dichotomy 26 2.4 The overlay between thematic and syntactic structure 29 3.1 Percentage rates of third-person pronouns in different Spanish varieties 54 3.2 Percentage rates of zero, pronoun, and full NPs in different Spanish varieties 55 3.3 Nominal devices for topic continuity 56 3.4 Subject nominal devices used in the narratives 60 3.5 Nominal devices to introduce new characters 61 3.6 Nominal devices to introduce same subjects from previous clauses 61 3.7 Nominal devices to introduce different subjects from previous clauses 62 3.8 Look-back distance for definite NPs, pronoun, and zero when they refer to a different subject from the previous clause 63 3.9 Overall hits and misses for the episodic model 63 3.10 Hits and misses for new referents, old referents and different subjects 64 3.11 Nominal devices in episodes 5 and 6 69 3.12 Nominal devices to introduce continuous subjects in Spanish, English and Japanese 69 4.1 Degree of topicality in indirect objects 84 4.2 Frequencies and percentages of animate v. inanimate subjects in two-participant clauses 88 4.3 Frequencies and percentages of clauses functioning as subject 89 4.4 Frequencies and percentages of preposition and postposition of subject and indirect object for gustar 97 5.1 Nominative-accusative v. ergative-absolutive marking 117 5.2 Direct–indirect v. primary–secondary object marking 122 ix x List of Tables and Figures 5.3 The etymological Spanish pronominal system 124 5.4 Frequency of le as a function of the referents’ animacy in (1) writings of St Teresa; (2) speech of present-day Castilian professional women; (3) speech of present-day Castilian rural speakers 125 5.5 A probable result of leísmo in a variety of the Castilian pronominal system 125 5.6 General pronominal system found in the Moratín play El sí de las niñas 126 5.7 Probable object-marking system based on pronoun use in Moratin’s El sí de la niñas 127 6.1 Lazard’s definiteness scale 143 8.1 Characterization of verb classes 169 8.2 Examples of Spanish adjective types in terms of features 173 8.3 Comparison of commonly occurring verb forms of ser and estar 182 8.4 Form-by-form frequency comparison of different forms of ser and estar 183 8.5 Copula-adjective combination according to adjective type and reading for both animate and inanimate subject referents 198 9.1 Spoken and written style 210 9.2 Position of As to Ns for the all the data according to their respective weights 210 9.3 Position of As to Ns in the spoken data according to their respective weights 210 9.4 Position of As to Ns in the written data according to their respective weights 210 9.5 Preposed adjectives in spoken discourse 211 9.6 Adjective position 212 9.7 One v. two adjectives modifying same noun 212 9.8 Distribution of semantic categories 212 9.9 Chi-square test for Table 9.8 data (semantic class) 213 9.10 Diachronic distribution of A position in texts 214 9.11 Mean word length of As by semantic class 214 10.1 Interpretations of alto funcionario and funcionario alto in adults and children 225 10.2 Interpretations for azafata alta and alto piloto in adults and children 225 10.3 Semantic interpretations for N-pequeño and pequeño-N in adults and children 226 10.4 ‘Miserable’ v. ‘poor’ interpretation for preposed v. postposed pobre 227 xi List of Tables and Figures 10.5 ‘Mere’ v. ‘simple-minded’ interpretation for preposed v. postposed simple 227 10.6 Chi-square results for the adults 228 10.7 Chi-square results for the children 228 10.8 The significance of specific–general and general–specific ordering in the instrument, calculated with tokens from the specific semantic interpretation in adult and child groups 229 11.1 Characterization of Vendlerian Aktionsart categories 251 12.1 Licensing factors of adjunct predicates in relation to Transitivity 272 13.1 Characterization of causative dejar 288 13.2 Characterization of causative hacer 289 Figures 5.1 Possibilities for a simple lexical split of case marking: two two-way sub-systems, ‘accusative’ v. ‘ergative’ 116 8.1 The distribution of ILPs and SLPs over states, activities and events 166 8.2 Prototypical coding of the world in language based on time stability 169 8.3 Time stability of adjectives with no underlying process/event v. adjectives with an underlying process v. adjectives with an underlying event 170 8.4 Spanish adjective classification 173 13.1 Reference frame of hacer 295 13.2 Reference frame for causative hacer with activities 296 13.3 Reference frame for main verb and causative dejar 296 13.4 Implied reference frame of causative dejar in certain cases 297 13.5 Reference to the result of an event in small clauses with an implied event or state 297 Acknowledgements This volume has benefited greatly from discussions with students over the years. We are grateful to those students for all their input and also to an anonymous reviewer whose comments shaped the argumentation of many of the contributions. Thanks go also to Jill Lake for presenting this project to Palgrave Macmillan, to Manolo Triano López for translating Chapters 2 and 4 and to Richa Clements for proofreading some of the typescript. J. CLANCY CLEMENTS JIYOUNG YOON The editors, contributors and publishers are grateful to Georgetown University Press for permission to use Chapter 6, Mouton de Gruyter for permission to use Chapter 5, and Elsevier Publishers for permission to use Table 6.1. Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently omitted the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the earliest opportunity. xii Notes on the Contributors J. Clancy Clements is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.