The polysemy of the Spanish verb sentir: a behavioral profile analysis

This study investigates the intricate polysemy of the Spanish perception verb sentir (‘feel’) which, analogous to the more-studied visual perception verbs ver (‘see’) and mirar (‘look’), also displays an ample gamut of semantic uses in various syntactic environments. The investigation is based on a corpus-based behavioral profile (BP) analysis. Besides its methodological merits as a quantitative, systematic and verifiable approach to the study of meaning and to polysemy in particular, the BP analysis offers qualitative usage-based evidence for cognitive linguistic theorizing. With regard to the polysemy of sentir, the following questions were addressed: (1) What is the prototype of each cluster of senses? (2) How are the different senses structured: how many senses should be distinguished – i.e. which senses cluster together and which senses should be kept separately? (3) Which senses are more related to each other and which are highly distinguishable? (4) What morphosyntactic variables make them more or less distinguishable? The results show that two significant meaning clusters can be distinguished, which coincide with the division between the middle voice uses (sentirse) and the other uses (sentir). Within these clusters, a number of meaningful subclusters emerge, which seem to coincide largely with the more general semantic categories of physical, cognitive and emotional perception

The role of force dynamics and intentionality in the reconstruction of L2 verb meanings:A Danish-Spanish bidirectional study

This paper examines the role of force dynamics and intentionality in the description of placement events by two groups of native speakers of typologically and genetically different languages, Danish and Spanish, and by two groups of intermediate adult learners, Danish learners of L2 Spanish and Spanish learners of L2 Danish. The results of the study showed that (a) force dynamics and intentionality are important semantic components in both languages, but their distribution and relative focus differed crosslinguistically, and (b) the two learner groups had difficulties in reconstructing the meanings of the L2 verbs involving these two semantic components. Learning difficulties were observed when moving from a less to a more complex L2 system, when moving in the opposite direction, i.e., from a more to a less complex L2 system and when moving to an L2 system that is as complex as the learners native one

Lexical typology through similarity semantics: Toward a semantic map of motion verbs

This paper discusses a multidimensional probabilistic semantic map of lexical motion verb stems based on data collected from parallel texts (viz. translations of the Gospel according to Mark) for 100 languages from all continents. The crosslinguistic diversity of lexical semantics in motion verbs is illustrated in detail for the domain of `go', `come', and `arrive' type contexts. It is argued that the theoretical bases underlying probabilistic semantic maps from exemplar data are the isomorphism hypothesis (given any two meanings and their corresponding forms in any particular language, more similar meanings are more likely to be expressed by the same form in any language), similarity semantics (similarity is more basic than identity), and exemplar semantics (exemplar meaning is more fundamental than abstract concepts)

A syntactic-semantic analysis of English (non)-dativizable constructions in the production of a set of 2L1 English/Spanish simultaneous bilingual twins

This paper analyzes the syntactico-semantic factors which trigger Dative shift in English dativizable verbs, i.e. those verbs that allow alternation between double object and prepositional complement constructions. It also focuses on non-dativizable verbs that restrict their subcategorization framework to either double object or prepositional complement constructions. This syntactico-semantic relation between dativizable and nondativizable structures is addressed in acquisition by examining the incidence for the two verb types in a set of English/Spanish 2L1 bilingual twins. Our results show that the syntactic and semantic features that dativizable and non-dativizables present go hand in hand with the age of first occurrence and the language development of the participants. Hence, dativizable to-dative double object constructions (DOC) are the utterances produced the earliest at the age of 2, as opposed to dativizable to/for-datives and non-dativizable constructions, which begin to emerge at around the age of 3. Finally, our results also suggest that the high adult input frequency explains the twins' early production of dativizable structures and that, in the same way, the children's low exposure to non-dativizable utterances correlates with the later occurrence in the twins' spontaneous production.peer-reviewe

Formulaic Language and Adjective Categories in Eight Centuries of the Spanish Expression of \u27Becoming\u27 /quedar(se)/ + ADJ

The purpose of this study is to track the diachronic development of exemplar clusters formed by the adjectives in the Spanish expression of becoming quedar(se) + ADJ (e.g. quedar(se) solo to be left alone\u27, quedar(se) espantado \u27to get scared\u27). This approach applies the same system of analysis used by Bybee & Eddington (2006) in their synchronic study of four verb + adjective combinations used to denote a change of state (ponerse + ADJ, hacerse + ADJ, quedarse + ADJ, and volverse + ADJ). Although there are diachronic studies that follow the development of constructions employing usage-based approaches (Israel 1996), and there are synchronic studies that apply the exemplar model to the analysis of constructions in Spanish (Bybee & Eddington 1996) this thesis is the first in-depth diachronic study known to the author that uses the exemplar model to account for the development of a construction over several centuries. It represents the continuation of preliminary studies by the author (Wilson 2006, 2009) but is much more in-depth, analyzing data from the 13th to the 19th centuries. A total of 1,374 tokens were analyzed in the time span indicated and were extracted from a corpus of 5,394,606 words compiled from 119 narrative (or narrative-like) written works. This study provides evidence that, (a) frequently occurring verb + adjective combinations, such as prefabs, serve as the central members of exemplar categories, (b) formulaic combinations, such as prefabs, have longevity, (c) the categories to which formulaic sequences belong have longevity, (d) categories mutate over time by becoming more centralized, changing central members, expanding to new types or by contracting as types are lost, and (e) there is a correlation between the token frequency of the central member of a category and the type frequency of that category. The data studied in this thesis suggest that the rise in overall standardized frequency of quedar(se) + ADJ has to do with the decrease in frequency of a similar expression of \u27becoming\u27, fincar(se) + ADJ, as many adjectives associated with the latter come to be used with the former. In tracking the continuum of adjective categories over time, this investigation provides insight into diachronic trends of formulaic language showing trends of emergence as categories expand, contraction as forms fall into disuse, and stability as some categories change very little over time

How to become a woman without turning into a Barbie: Change-of-state verb constructions and their role in Spanish as a foreign language

Pseudo-copulative change-of-state (PCOS) verbs are predicates that involve a change in the composition of an entity undergoing a particular event. Due to their complex linguistic nature, these verbs are not easy to be accounted for and consequently, they represent a real challenge to language teachers and learners. First, this paper critically examines the specialized L1 and L2 literature on PCOS verbs in Spanish. Then, it is shown that previous studies are unable to provide a unanimous theory, but rather offer heterogeneous explanations that are full of exceptions and overlook semantic nuances. The second part of this work presents a corpus-based constructional study of the PCOS verbal structure [Vcl+NP] in two PCOS verbs, hacerse ‘make.cl’ and volverse ‘turn.cl’. It is argued that a multi-level family of PCOS constructions captures both the specificity of fully-saturated constructions (María se hizo mujer ‘María became a woman’), as well as the more general abstract patterns ([Subject PCOS-verb Object]). This constructional approach offers a unified and motivated explanation for these PCOS verbs that can be very useful for Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL)