Causative and inchoative constructions with poner and meter (‘to put’) in Spanish

Abstract

This article documents the historical evolution of the causative and inchoative constructions with the put verbs poner and meter in Spanish. The aim of this case study is to determine how both constructions developed out of the more general abstract caused-motion schema. The analysis is based on a large historical corpus, and traces their semantic and morphosyntactic characteristics from the 13th to the 21st century. The empirical observations are accounted for within the grammatical constructionalization framework. By adopting a network approach we argue that four micro-constructions emerged simultaneously, but that their constructionalization process has been completed to a varying extent. Individual differences are traced back to the upwards strength of the core semantics of the nucleus verb, and the sideward impact of other members in the network.