Volume 15, Issue 2

Subjectification is a dynamic category in linguistic change as it triggers both grammaticalization and pragmaticalization. In this line, this study traces the evolution of Spanish en plan ‘in plan’ from its origin in the 13th century to the present. I argue that en plan has undergone a bidirectional process of subjectification. Its internal structure has become more fixed, moving from concrete meanings ( una clase de literatura, cuyas producciones se semejan en plan , estilo … ‘a kind of literature, whose productions are similar in plan, style …’), to perform approximate adverbial functions ( Sus actuaciones (…) son en plan restringido ‘their performances are like restricted’). Moreover, it developed discourse marker functions ( le soltó en plan : “oye no es por nada” ‘she said “hey, just saying”’). This implies that the structure has undergone a bidirectional change, first towards the grammar, through grammaticalization, and away from the grammar and towards discourse through a process of discursivization.

-ear has become a highly productive option in denominal verb formation in Spanish. The unparalleled productivity and range of verb classes obtained invites us to revisit fundamental questions on verb formation and interpretation: e.g., which domain (lexical/syntactic/semantic) primarily drives and constrains denominal verb use and interpretation, which verb types are possible, whether or not a canonical use constraint can correctly predict and capture the role of the root in verb meaning, as assumed in mainstream accounts. Based on analytical and (preliminary) experimental data, we consider syntactic and semantic (aspectual) behavior of denominal verbs, including both traditional and novel verbs with -ear. We observe that: (i) productive types include verb classes untapped in the existent literature; (ii) the range of verb classes obtained coincides with a significant range of possible interpretations and uses, suggesting that a ‘same’ verb (lexical and morphotactic composition) can be associated with distinct structural configurations; (iii) the interpretation is highly sensitive to the grammatical context. We argue that (i) verb meaning and behavior are not deterministically driven by one (e.g., lexical/conceptual) domain but rather in interaction; (ii) syntax plays a nontrivial role in verb meaning/interpretation; (iii) non-univocity arises as a distinctive property of ear verbs.

This paper explores the links between Spanish verb-noun (VN) compounds and verb phrases (VPs) ( limpiabotas lit. ‘clean+boots’ ‘shoe shine’/ limpiar botas ‘to clean boots’), particularly between those with idiomatic meaning ( metepatas lit. ‘put+paws’ ‘bungler’/ meter la pata lit. ‘put the paw’ ‘to put your foot in it’). I discuss the theoretical implications of different accounts of the phrase-compound divide, namely, whether or not compounds are created by rules of a different nature than those for phrases (lexicalist vs. neoconstructionist approaches), and whether or not VN compounds can be derived from phrases through applying any kind of transformation. I show that VN compounds share key properties with VPs which could justify their treatment as syntactic objects. By contrast, the VN compound pattern presents unique restrictions that challenge the empirical adequacy of derivational approaches, which are likely to overgenerate ill-formed compounds from existing phrases. Once stored as lexical objects, however, VN compounds and VP idioms may evidence strong semantic connections as illustrated by the pair metepatas/meter la pata , which suggests the need to carefully examine lexical associations to ensure a balanced understanding of the phrase-compound divide.

This study uses a corpus of conversational speech to describe a structure in Spanish previously known as Ser Focalizador (‘Focalizing Be’, hereafter [Verb+ Ser +X]). In this structure, the verb ser ‘to be’ appears after the main verb of the clause. Its function has traditionally been described as indicating what comes after in the sentence as the marked focus. However, by examining how the [Verb+Ser+X] is used in talk-in-interaction it is found that a more particular construction has the function of marking counter-argumentation – i.e., canceling some background inference (presupposition or implicature) – by making the second member of a contrastive pair more clearly contrastive, and establishing a structural distinction which has the pragmatic and contextual effect of contrast. I call this particular construction presupposition canceling [(NEGclause)(pero ’but’)Verb+Ser+X]. The description provided here is also founded on identifying the linguistic contexts that favor the use of the [Verb+ Ser +X], by treating it as a variant of the simple clause with a complement where ser was absent in the verbal phrase, but could have been present. The analysis of variation provides evidence for the presuppositional [Verb+ Ser +X] to be variably conditioned by a propositional X, and by the co-occurrence of previous negation and of the adversative conjunction pero ‘but’. The analysis also offers an operationalization of contrast in conversational data, as well as a definition of the variable context for a pragmatic construction such as the [Verb+ Ser +X].

The topic of this paper is an emergent Spanish adverbial, a lo peor , formed by analogy with a lo mejor ʻmaybeʼ. This novel adverbial constitutes an instance of an apprehensional epistemic (Lichtenberk, Frantisek. 1995. Apprehensional epistemics. In Joan Bybee & Suzanne Fleischman (eds.), Modality in grammar and discourse , 293–327. Amsterdam: John Benjamins); that is, it expresses epistemic possibility together with a negative attitude towards the hypothetical state-of-affairs. We discuss its status as an emergent construction and develop a corpus-based descriptive approximation that extends previous notes on the adverbial by considering patterns of usage and aspects of syntax, as well as observations about diatopic and diaphasic variation. We further discuss the motivation for the coinage of a lo peor as well as the exact process of analogy formation, applying both a language-internal perspective and a cross-linguistic one. Lastly, we compare our findings on a lo peor to typological observations on the functions and evolution of apprehensional epistemics.

In this study we examine the linguistic complexity and lexical properties of the discourse associated with second person singular forms of address (2PS) in the Spanish spoken in Medellín, Colombia. This Spanish variety exhibits the use of a tripartite system of 2PS, in which voseo , tuteo , and ustedeo are used, and sometimes interchanged, according to sociopragmatic factors. By means of a discourse completion task (DCT), 672 responses were collected from 38 informants. Data was parsed and tagged using UDPipe to train an annotation Spanish model. Syntactic and lexical properties were extracted automatically in Python. Results revealed the syntactic properties and the existence of collocations significantly associated with each 2PS. The discourse associated with vos differs in terms of the predicate structure, DCT response length, pragmatic function, and use of colloquial speech markers. Results of this work shed further light on the variable use of 2PS in this intriguing Spanish dialect.

Research in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has studied negation in a wide variety of languages but has mainly focused on the acquisition of clause negation, or the negation of finite verbs in main clauses (Dimroth, Christine. 2008. Age effects on the process of L2 acquisition? Evidence from the acquisition of negation and finiteness in L2 German. Language Learning 58(1). 117–150). The present study discusses the acquisition of negative concord (NC) in L2 Spanish, from both a syntactic and a lexical approach to the analysis of learner production data. The results of a structured oral elicitation task indicate that learners produce NC with the negative concord items (NCIs) nada ‘nothing’ and nadie ‘no one’ in argument position, and also ascertain their appropriate usage contexts, with greater accuracy as their L2 proficiency increases. These findings are discussed in relation to studies of NC in English and English First Language Acquisition (FLA), and also to recent work in English SLA on the acquisition of negative polarity items (NPIs) (Gil, Kook-Hee, Heather Marsden & Melinda Whong. 2019. The meaning of negation in the second language classroom: Evidence from ‘any. Language Teaching Research 23(2). 218–236; Marsden, Heather, Melinda Whong & Kook-Hee Gil. 2018. What’s in the textbook and what’s in the mind: Polarity item “Any” in learner English. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 40(1). 91–118; Puig-Mayenco, Eloi & Heather Marsden. 2018. Polarity-item “anything” in L3 English: Where does transfer come from when the L1 is Catalan and the L2 is Spanish? Second Language Research 34(4). 487–515). Ultimately, this study aims to contribute to further research in the literature on complex negation constructions in SLA and underline the interplay of syntactic, semantic, and lexical issues in the acquisition of these structures.