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Chapter 4. Spanish predicative verbless clauses and the left periphery

  • Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach✝ and Melvin González-Rivera
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Left Sentence Peripheries in Spanish
This chapter is in the book Left Sentence Peripheries in Spanish

Abstract

Spanish predicative verbless clauses, in which noun phrases display predicative content, are of interest for the study of the left periphery because they systematically involve displacement to this region of the clause. After considering several previous analyses, it is proposed that Spanish predicative noun phrases can be analyzed in terms of predicate inversion in this type of structural configuration. XP predicate movement is triggered by a strong affective feature, which needs to be checked in the course of the syntactic derivation. Other properties of a semantic and pragmatic nature are related to this configuration. For example, only individual-level predicates are allowed, the DP-subject of the construction is semantically strong, and predicate fronting requires this subject to be topical.

Abstract

Spanish predicative verbless clauses, in which noun phrases display predicative content, are of interest for the study of the left periphery because they systematically involve displacement to this region of the clause. After considering several previous analyses, it is proposed that Spanish predicative noun phrases can be analyzed in terms of predicate inversion in this type of structural configuration. XP predicate movement is triggered by a strong affective feature, which needs to be checked in the course of the syntactic derivation. Other properties of a semantic and pragmatic nature are related to this configuration. For example, only individual-level predicates are allowed, the DP-subject of the construction is semantically strong, and predicate fronting requires this subject to be topical.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Section 1. Left Sentence Peripheries in Old Spanish
  6. Chapter 1. Left Dislocation phenomena in Old Spanish 23
  7. Chapter 2. Revisiting stylistic fronting in Old Spanish 53
  8. Chapter 3. Left forever 77
  9. Section 2. Syntactic variation in Modern Spanish
  10. Chapter 4. Spanish predicative verbless clauses and the left periphery 101
  11. Chapter 5. Fronting and contrastively focused secondary predicates in Spanish 125
  12. Chapter 6. The left periphery of Spanish comparative correlatives 155
  13. Chapter 7. The article at the left periphery 185
  14. Section 3. Syntax, semantics, and pragmatics
  15. Chapter 8. Evidentiality and illocutionary force 217
  16. Chapter 9. On the grammaticalization of the Assertion Structure 253
  17. Chapter 10. Informational status and the semantics of mood in Spanish preposed complement clauses 283
  18. Chapter 11. Fronting and irony in Spanish 309
  19. Section 4. Spanish among the Romance languages
  20. Chapter 12. Left periphery in discourse 345
  21. Chapter 13. A comparative look at Focus Fronting in Romance 383
  22. Index 419
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.214.08gut

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Section 1. Left Sentence Peripheries in Old Spanish
  6. Chapter 1. Left Dislocation phenomena in Old Spanish 23
  7. Chapter 2. Revisiting stylistic fronting in Old Spanish 53
  8. Chapter 3. Left forever 77
  9. Section 2. Syntactic variation in Modern Spanish
  10. Chapter 4. Spanish predicative verbless clauses and the left periphery 101
  11. Chapter 5. Fronting and contrastively focused secondary predicates in Spanish 125
  12. Chapter 6. The left periphery of Spanish comparative correlatives 155
  13. Chapter 7. The article at the left periphery 185
  14. Section 3. Syntax, semantics, and pragmatics
  15. Chapter 8. Evidentiality and illocutionary force 217
  16. Chapter 9. On the grammaticalization of the Assertion Structure 253
  17. Chapter 10. Informational status and the semantics of mood in Spanish preposed complement clauses 283
  18. Chapter 11. Fronting and irony in Spanish 309
  19. Section 4. Spanish among the Romance languages
  20. Chapter 12. Left periphery in discourse 345
  21. Chapter 13. A comparative look at Focus Fronting in Romance 383
  22. Index 419
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