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Chapter 3. Spanish infinitives borrowed into Zapotec light verb constructions

Abstract

Spanish infinitives are commonly borrowed into Zapotec languages. The borrowed infinitive construction is here analyzed as a special type of light verb construction. In Southern Zapotec languages the construction occurs in a transitive version using ‘do’ and an intransitive version using ‘become’. This chapter analyzes the syntax of these constructions in Southern Zapotec, including the lexical status of the borrowed infinitives and the argument structure of the different forms of the construction.

Abstract

Spanish infinitives are commonly borrowed into Zapotec languages. The borrowed infinitive construction is here analyzed as a special type of light verb construction. In Southern Zapotec languages the construction occurs in a transitive version using ‘do’ and an intransitive version using ‘become’. This chapter analyzes the syntax of these constructions in Southern Zapotec, including the lexical status of the borrowed infinitives and the argument structure of the different forms of the construction.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements ix
  4. Contributors xi
  5. Abbreviations and acronyms xiii
  6. Dedication xv
  7. Chapter 1. Language contact in Mesoamerica and beyond 1
  8. Chapter 2. Spanish influence in two Tepehua languages 29
  9. Chapter 3. Spanish infinitives borrowed into Zapotec light verb constructions 55
  10. Chapter 4. The effect of external factors on the perception of sounds in Meꞌphaa 81
  11. Chapter 5. Sociolinguistic factors in loanword prosody 105
  12. Chapter 6. Some grammatical characteristics of the Spanish spoken by Lacandón and Mazahua bilinguals 125
  13. Chapter 7. Spanish loanwords in Amerindian languages and their implications for the reconstruction of the pronunciation of Spanish in Mesoamerica 155
  14. Chapter 8. Loanword evidence for dialect mixing in colonial American Spanish 171
  15. Chapter 9. The impact of language contact in Nahuatl couplets 187
  16. Chapter 10. Spanish–Huastec (Mayan) 16th-century language contact attested in the Doctrina Christiana en la lengua guasteca by Friar Juan de la Cruz, 1571 209
  17. Chapter 11. Historical review of loans in Chichimec (c.1767–2012) 229
  18. Chapter 12. Nahuatl L2 texts from Northern Nueva Galicia 237
  19. Chapter 13. Western and Central Nahua dialects 263
  20. Chapter 14. Loanwords in Apachean from indigenous languages of the Southwest 301
  21. Chapter 15. Language contact across the Andes 319
  22. Chapter 16. The Mesoamerican linguistic area revisited 335
  23. Chapter 17. Language diversity, contact and change in the Americas 355
  24. Chapter 18. Spanish in the Americas 385
  25. Index of subjects and terms 419
  26. Index of authors 425
  27. Index of place, person and ethnic group names 427
  28. Index of languages 429
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