Constructions of uncontrolled state or event

Abstract

Spanish and other Romance languages inherited from Latin the seeds of a new construction that is common to the syntax of some verbs belonging to the field of emotions, feelings, pain or modality. The semantic values of this construction are strange to prototypical transitivity and are coupled with a marked argument structure, compared with the more common transitive sentence.In the early centuries of the history of Spanish only a few verbs were integrated in the new scheme, which could receive an experience, modal or quantitative meaning, depending on an analogical association with certain frequent verbs. As the construction gained productivity, the importance of these few specific verbs as models for the newly integrated ones was reduced and the construction as a whole was understood in a more general sense of uncontrolled state or event.This paper provides a history of the construction in its different stages and tries to uncover the mechanism and factors that favored the increase in its productivity over the centuries. It also attempts to understand these facts from a typological standpoint, as an effect of some kind of a transitivity split that took place in Old Spanish, which gave rise to a type of marked construction, associated to some specific verbs.

On Deísmo. Another Case of Variation in Spanish Complementation

“…These were accompanied sometimes by a complement in genitive that indicated the cause or origin of the experience. This is precisely what Elvira (2011) clearly refers to in a work dedicated to the medieval expansion in Spanish of this group of Latin verbs. According to him, the argument structure of verbs like miseret 'to pity', paenitet 'to regret', piget 'to be annoyed', pudet 'to be ashamed', taedet 'to be tired of', despite disappearing in Romance, provided a pattern that was to be largely adopted at least in Medieval Spanish -with a dative control verb and sentential complement headed by de instead of a genitive-, as (39) shows.…”

The MIHI EST construction

“…Usually described as the subject because it agrees with the verb, the nominative argument shows at least two object properties: it is post-verbal in unmarked sentences, and it can be used without a definite article. Observing the non-canonical behavior of these two arguments in one and the same construction, Elvira (2011) underlines that the definition of the term non-canonical argument must be related to the construction it belongs to.…”

“…the phenomenon of clitic doubling, see Elvira 2011, 189). The dative argument shows subject properties, such as raising, initial position in interrogatives, secondary predication, quantification, and nominalization, and has been argued to instantiate a typical case of non-canonical subject (Masullo 1993;Campos 1999;Fernández-Soriano 1999;Cuervo 2010;Elvira 2011). Elvira (2011) points out that, in fact, both the dative and the nominative arguments are non-canonical.…”

“…The dative argument shows subject properties, such as raising, initial position in interrogatives, secondary predication, quantification, and nominalization, and has been argued to instantiate a typical case of non-canonical subject (Masullo 1993;Campos 1999;Fernández-Soriano 1999;Cuervo 2010;Elvira 2011). Elvira (2011) points out that, in fact, both the dative and the nominative arguments are non-canonical. Usually described as the subject because it agrees with the verb, the nominative argument shows at least two object properties: it is post-verbal in unmarked sentences, and it can be used without a definite article.…”

Leísmo real y leísmo aparente. Sobre el uso de los pronombres átonos (le, les, la, las, lo, los) en Málaga

“…La existencia o inexistencia de afectación, así como el hecho de que tal afectación se conciba como completa o incompleta, depende, en gran medida, del carácter dinámico o estativo, télico o atélico (aspecto léxico), perfectivo o imperfectivo (tiempo verbal), real o virtual del evento (modo). 1995Elvira 2004Elvira , 2011Melis & Flores 2005, 2007 han sido definidas en oposición a las estructuras transitivas mediante los rasgos [± estativo] y [±control]. En contraposición a las transitivas, estas estructuras se caracterizan por llevar el sujeto normalmente pospuesto al verbo y por tener el dativo (argumento por lo general humano o animado) una función señaladora: su presencia presupone normalmente la existencia de un tópico, mencionado o presupuesto en el discurso precedente (o subsiguiente).…”