Two Types of Constructionalization Processes in Spanish and Portuguese Clefted wh-interrogatives

The present paper analyzes and compares the use of clefted wh-interrogatives in spoken Madrid Spanish, Puerto Rican Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. In a first step, a typology of the discourse functions of clefted wh-interrogatives is established. This typology is partially governed by the strength of the presupposition of the proposition of the wh-interrogative. The results suggest the existence of two distinct constructionalization processes 1 March 2021. First, in the Spanish dialects, clefted wh-interrogatives with copula deletion are specialized in the expression of interactional challenges. Second, both Puerto Rican Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese evidence a change in the use of information-seeking clefted wh-interrogatives towards contexts in which the proposition of the interrogative is not activated. Consequently, in these dialects clefted wh-interrogatives can be used to establish questions not related to the current Question Under Discussion. However, this semantic change can be characterized as a constructionalization process only in Brazilian Portuguese.

Syncretism of plural forms in Spanish Dialects

One of the main discussions about the interaction between morphology and syntax revolves around the richness or poverty of features and wherever this richness/poverty is found either in the syntactic structure or the lexical items. A phenomenon subject to this debate has been syncretism, especially in theories that assume late insertion such as Distributed Morphology. This paper delves into the syncretism observed between the first person plural and the third person in the clitic domain in some Spanish dialects. Our analysis will lead to a revision of the distribution of person features and their relationship with plural number, while at the same time it will shed light on other morphological alternations displayed in Spanish dialects; that is, subject-verb unagreement and mesoclisis in imperatives. In order to explain the behavior of the data under discussion, I propose that lexical items are specified for all the relevant features at the moment of insertion, although the values of these features can be neutralized. I argue that the distribution proposed allows for some fundamental generalizations about the vocabulary inventories in Spanish varieties, and shows that the variation pattern exhibits an *ABA effect, i.e., only contiguous cells in a paradigm are syncretic.

Superlative QP “Hyper-Raising” in dialectal Spanish: the role of dormant Edge Features

In this paper I deal with a particular relative-clause superlative construction attested in Spanish dialects like Canariense (Bosque & Brucart 1991) and Puerto Rican (Rohena-Madrazo 2007), among others. In this construction the superlative quantifier raises to the left of the complementizer of the relative clause. However, as observed by Bosque & Brucart (1991), only object quantifiers can move in this way; subject quantifiers cannot. I account for this assymmetry by assuming Bianchi’s (2000) raising analysis for relative clauses, Kandybowicz’s (2009) theory on edge features and Pesetsky & Torrego’s (2001) proposal on Tense-to-Comp movement (among other assumptions). Object-quantifier movement correlates with Tense-to- Comp movement, which activates an edge feature for objects and allows them to escape the phasal minimal domain undergoing Transfer. This is not possible for subject-quantifier movement. I also propose that the determiner introducing a relative clause bears an uninterpretable [Superlative] feature with clitic-like properties. This feature forces the determiner to post-syntactically cliticize to the superlative quantifier degree word, a process which requires linear adjacency. This accounts for certain restrictions on this sort of superlative quantifier raising already pointed out by Bosque & Brucart (1991) The proposal (similar to the one in Rohena-Madrazo 2007) that [Superlative] may also be in Force in these dialects (if selected for Force by the determiner) explains a more restrictive (and widespread) variant of this construction.

Causativity in Southern Peninsular Spanish

The different patterns of the direct (i.e., lexical) causativization exhibited by intransitive verbs are a fundamental topic in the lexical semantics area. The possibilities and restrictions observed in the causativization of intransitives have always triggered divisions in their classification beyond the classical unergative-unaccusative distinction. Spanish is an interesting language in which to explore the limits between possibilities and constraints regarding this phenomenon, given the syntactic variation exhibited by its different dialects. This chapter focuses on variation in the form of contrasts between intransitive predicates that resist lexical causativization in Standard Spanish, such as caer “fall” and entrar “go in,” but allow it in certain Southern Peninsular Spanish dialects such as Andalusian, looking at the relationship between such patterns and other phenomena such as the eventive structure obtained as a consequence of the composition of the verbs under study and other syntactic elements such as reflexive se.

Clitic Doubling in a Doubling World

This chapter places Clitic Doubling in Argentinean Spanish into the broad perspective of pronominal doubling phenomena. A series of diagnostics is presented based on the interaction of Clitic Doubling with its PF/pragmatic effects, on the one hand, and its syntactic/LF effects, on the other. An important conclusion is that Clitic Doubling must be kept apart from Clitic Right Dislocation and Clitic Left Dislocation. Clitic Doubling is thus conceived of the morphological reflex of the abstract composition of object DPs; concretely, it is an A-dependency triggered whenever the object possesses a [person]-feature, an observation called the Person Feature Condition. So, under the minimal assumption that [3P] features can be optionally encoded on lexical DPs in Argentinean Spanish, but that it is only specified for pronouns in other Spanish dialects, variation facts associated with this phenomenon are explained. By the same token, the different behavior of doubled and nondoubled objects in several syntactic/LF configurations also follows.

Introduction

This introduction offers a summary of the antecedents, goals, and prospects of the present volume. On the one hand, it emphasizes the important role of this collection of papers. It’s the first attempt to provide a global characterization of the syntactic variation of Spanish dialects. This is a very rich, but largely unexplored, area of inquiry, a situation that is probably due to a combination of various factors: lack of theoretical tools, interest in more easily observable (lexical, phonetic, or morphological) differences, etc. On the other hand, it introduces chapters that show varying and complementary formal approaches to the study of the syntactic phenomena of both American Spanish and European Spanish dialects.

The Syntactic Variation of Spanish Dialects

This collective volume offers an up-to-date and comprehensive state-of-the-art presentation of the research that has been done in the syntactic variation of Spanish dialects, taking into account both European and American varieties. In so doing, this book seeks to set the boundary conditions for subsequent investigations on the different manifestations of Spanish syntax and its geographic contours, a very rich (though largely neglected) area of inquiry. Such investigations should ideally lead us not only to pin down the short-range microparameters of Spanish but also to explore its similarities with other languages (closely related or not) and, ultimately, to understand the variation margins that the faculty of language offers. The volume is divided into two parts, each of them dealing with varieties of Europe and America. Empirically, the different chapters cover a wide set of syntactic phenomena and constructions, such as agreement, clitics, doubling, expletives, word order, differential object marking, pro-drop, and more. All in all, this book represents not only an important contribution in the study of Spanish syntax, but also the beginning of a new wave of formal studies of dialectal syntax.

Bilabial fricatives in Mexican Spanish: A sociophonetic analysis

Voiceless bilabial fricative productions ([ɸ]) have been widely reported for several Spanish dialects especially in America (Lenz 1940; Predmore 1945; Navarro Tomás 1943; Florez 1951; Boyd-Bowman 1960; Canfield 1981; among others). Most of these sources posit that the bilabial variant [ɸ] is more likely to be found in rural areas, that it is normally produced by speakers with a low educational level and that is generally followed by back (and rounded) vowels. Nevertheless, there is a need to formalize such observations and check to what extent these external and internal factors or others may be impacting the choice of this fricative over the more common [f]. In order to do so, eighteen speakers of Spanish from Guanajuato (Mexico), an area that has been reported to present both variants (Boyd-Bowman 1960), were recorded producing words with ‘f’. The analysis of 126 productions yielded the following results: a) speakers with a lower educational level (primary or secondary education) show more instances of the bilabial fricative [ɸ] than those that have attained higher degrees (university); b) older speakers and males tend to produce the vernacular variant [ɸ] more than younger speakers and females; and c) back round vowels (/o u/) are more likely to trigger the use of the bilabial fricative due to their articulatory similarities.