Sobre el orden de palabras en español.

Sin resume

Datives in Constructions with Unaccusative Se

In this talk I argue that in Spanish there is a type construction, involving a verb with the unaccu-sative seclitic and a dative, where the dative is in fact the external argument, which renders the construction comparable to a transitive structure (in the well-established unaccusative-transitive alternation). A number a tests and criteria are reviewed to support the external argument status of the dative (which in fact can be assimilated to the status of locatives and datives with some impersonal verbs, see Fernández Soriano 1999). These are: unmarked word order, raising and binding. On the other hand, there is also evidence for the non externalized status of other, internal, argument: impossibility of anaphor binding, possibility of being a bare NP, inability to control, among others. I conclude that in this constructions the dative is an instance of quirky case.En aquesta xerrada defenso que en castellà hi ha un tipus de construcció, que conté un verb amb la marca sed'inacusatiu i un datiu, on el datiu és, de fet, l'argument extern, cosa que fa aquesta construcció comparable a una estructura transitiva (dins l'alternança ben coneguda inacusatiu-transitiu). S'hi revisen tots de proves i criteris que donen suport al caràcter d'argument extern del datiu (que, de fet, és assimilable a l'estatus dels locatius i datius amb alguns verbs impersonals, vegeu Fernández Soriano 1999). Com a indicis, tenim: ordre de mots no marcat, elevació i lligam. D'altra banda, hi ha també indicis del caràcter no externalitzat de l'altre argument, l'intern: impossibilitat de lligam d'anàfores, possibilitat de ser un SN nu, incapacitat de controlar, entre d'altres. La conclusió és que en aquestes construccions el datiu és un exemple de cas capri-ciós (quirky case)

Sobre el orden de palabras en español

La investigación que subyace a este trabajo ha sido parcialmente financiada por el proyecto de investigación DGICYT PB 90-0181

The structure and interpretation of non-matching split interrogatives in spanish

The goal of this paper is to analyze the properties of (a special type of) split interrogative (SI) constructions in Spanish. SIs are wh-questions followed by a phrase that constitutes a possible answer, the tag. The overall structure is interpreted as a yes/no question (as in what did John bring, a book?). In standard cases, the tag matches the (case and thematic) features of the wh-element. Nevertheless, in (spoken Peninsular) Spanish what we will call Non-matching Split Interrogatives (NMSI) are also possible. In this cases, the wh-element and the XP in the tag may not match; instead, it is the dummy (neuter) qué “what” that heads the wh-clause. We will study these cases and propose a (biclausal) analysis involving an ellipsis process similar to the one taking place in fragments (Merchant 2004). To support this hypothesis, we will center our attention in a property: in NMIS there is a form-meaning mismatch that, to our knowledge, has gone unnoticed both in theoretical and descriptive studiesThe research behind this work has been supported by the project FFI2017-87140-C4-4-P, from the Spanish Ministerio de Industria, Economía y Competitivida

Evidentials dizque and que in Spanish : Grammaticalization, parameters and the (fine) structure of Comp

In this paper we study one type of Spanish que (the equivalent to the complementizer “that”) that can be shown to belong into the crosslinguistically restricted list of evidentials. In particular, we will claim that it encodes the (most basic) marks of nonfirst- hand or indirect (reported) evidence. Our point of departure is certain (apparently) independent clauses of Spanish headed by an overt complementizer (que). Some tests will be presented that support the idea that that one type of que introducing a well specified subset of root sentences shares most of the properties that have been claimed to characterize reportative evidentials in languages such as Quechua (Faller 2002, 2006). As for the properties of reportative que, it will be further shown that it does not encode any features related to epistemic modality (reliability or (im)probability) and we will propose that it is better analyzed as an illocutionary operator, affecting the illocutionary force (in line with Faller 2002 among others) and not as an epistemic modal (Izvorsky 1997 among others). In order to determine the nature of this reportative element and its origin, we contrast it with an old Spanish form, dizque, which exists nowadays in certain modern American varieties. This particle also has the properties of an evidential but behaves as an epistemic modal. In the last sections, we will propose that both evidential particles (que and dizque) are the result of a process of grammaticalization (i.e. ‘upward reanalysis’, or categorial change, of functional material, in the sense of Roberts and Roussou 2003) of the complex structure headed by a communication verb, dicen que “they say that”. We will tentatively describe such process and introduce a hypothesis as to the nature and role of the parameter involved in the claimed reanalysi

A multidimensional analysis of the Spanish reportative epistemic evidential dizque

This paper investigates the syntactic and semantic properties of American Spanish dizque (lit. ‘it is said’). We claim that the not-at-issue meaning of this evidential is reportativity, while it also contributes epistemic modal semantics ranging from doubt/negative attitude, weak possibility to almost complete lack of commitment. This semantics can be derived from ways of updating the common ground and origo ground, and from the fact that evidentials may target evidence strength. We examine the types of speech report dizque introduces, and describe its syntactic behavior in terms of co-occurrence restrictions, scope, and Main Clause Phenomena. Evidential dizque follows patterns ascribable to both Speech Act operators and propositional modifiers. We analyze the semantic contribution of dizque along three tiers of meaning: a) speaker commitment to p, b) contribution to either Speech Act or Propositional level, and c) trustworthiness of the evidence, emerging from the ways dizque expresses presentational force, serving to update either only the origo ground or both the common ground and the origo groundThis work was supported by the Research Project from the Spanish MINECO, FF12017-87140.C4-4-

Force and finiteness in the Spanish complementizer system

The goal of this paper is to show that the structure of CP in Spanish is more complex than it appears to be in most descriptive approaches. In particular, we analyze five types of constructions, which are quite extended in all dialects of Spanish but which have remained almost unaddressed in grammatical studies. These data clearly reveal a complex structure for Spanish CP both in root and embedded clauses: They involve sentences with more than one instance of a complementizer heading the clause, sentences where a wh-element (interrogative or exclamative) can be preceded or followed by the complementizer que ‘that’, and matrix sentences (obligatorily) introduced by an explicit Comp, among other cases. Our point of departure will be the studies on the so called “sentence left periphery” (Rizzi 1997) containing an upper limit, ForceP and a lower limit, FinP. Our claim will be that in Spanish there are two instances of que: que1 and que2 which are respectively generated in the upper and in the lower part of the sentence periphery. In addition, we will provide data suggesting that there might even be a third instance of que, a kind of “reinforcement” of Force. In this sense Spanish resembles some languages which are very different from the typological point of view.The research behind this paper has been financed by the Spanish DGI (MEC) through a grant to the Project BFF2003-06053

Variation at the Interfaces in Ibero-Romance. Catalan and Spanish Prosody and Word Order

We are grateful to Joan Borràs-Comes for kindly providing us with the map that appears in Figure 1. Alba Chacón, Verònica Crespo-Sendra and Marianna Nadeu deserve a special mention for having participated unselfishly as narrators of the short picture stories presented in a PowerPoint slide show. We also thank participants, and people that helped us to get in contact with potential participants: Gotzon Aurrekoetxea, Mercedes Cabrera, Verònica Crespo-Sendra, Irene de la Cruz, Gorka Elordieta, Leire Gandarias, Miriam Rodríguez, Paco Vizcaíno. This research has been funded by the project FFI2011-23829/FILO awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.En aquest estudi investiguem la interacció entre l'ordre de mots i la prosòdia a l'hora d'expressar la modalitat i diferents construccions de focus en una sèrie de dialectes del català i de l'espanyol. Hem analitzat un corpus obtingut mitjançant dues tasques: a) una tasca de producció dissenyada per obtenir diferents construccions de focus mitjançant parells de pregunta-resposta amb petites històries presentades a partir de figures i b) la metodologia de la tasca de compleció del discurs. Les dades recollides s'han analitzat prosòdicament i sintàctica. Les nostres dades confirmen que en català i en espanyol la prominència entonativa tendeix a recaure al final de l'oració, però això és del tot cert només en les declaratives de focus ample, ja que la prominència principal pot recaure a l'inici de l'oració en les declaratives de focus informatiu en català oriental i en espanyol del País Basc o restar in situ tant en les declaratives de focus informatiu com en les de focus contrastiu (especialment en valencià o espanyol). Quant a la modalitat interrogativa, podem fer una distinció important entre les llengües que poden presentar inversió del subjecte-verb en les interrogatives directes (valencià i espanyol) i les llengües que no (català oriental). En català oriental el subjecte apareix dislocat.In this study we investigate how word order interacts with prosody in the expression of sentence modality and different focus constructions in different varieties of Catalan and Spanish. We analyze a corpus obtained by means of two tasks: a) a production test designed to elicit different focus constructions by means of question-answer pairs from short picture stories and b) the Discourse Completion Task methodology. The collected data were prosodically and syntactically annotated. Our data confirm that in Catalan and Spanish the intonational prominence tends to be located in clause-final position but this is completely true only for broad focus declaratives, since the main prominence can also fall on clause-initial position in Eastern Catalan and Basque Spanish informational focus declaratives or remain in situ in both informational and contrastive focus declaratives (especially in val_cat or Spanish). As for interrogative modality, an important distinction is made between languages that can present subject-verb inversion in direct questions (val_cat and Spanish) and languages that cannot (Eastern Catalan). In Eastern Catalan the subject is dislocated

La seguridad alimentaria de los moluscos bivalvos vivos en Catalunya: manual de suporte al autocontrol de la depuración

Seguretat alimentària; Mol·luscs bivalves vius; DepuracióSeguridad alimentaria; Moluscos bivalvos vivos; DepuraciónFood safety; Live bivalve molluscs; DepurationAquest document tècnic té l’objectiu de ser un manual de suport a la Guia de Pràctiques Correctes d’Higiene per als Centres de Depuració de mol·luscs bivalves vius (MBV) aportant la informació tècnica necessària per entendre millor la fisiologia dels MBV i el funcionament d’una depuradora.Este documento técnico tiene por objecto ayudar a la Guia de prácticas correctas de higiene para los centros de depuración de moluscos bivabos vivos (MBV) aportando la información técnica necesaria para entender mejor la fisiología de los MBV y el funcionamiento de una depuradora