This thesis is a qualitative and quantitative study of the changes that occurred in the phrase structure and system of pronominal clitics in medieval and renaissance Spanish, with the goal of explaining the basic differences between the syntactic properties of clitics in Old Spanish and their counterparts in the various dialects of modern Spanish.
As a typical interface phenomenon, clitics have become increasingly important in linguistic theory during the last decade. The present book contributes to the recent discussion and first provides a comprehensive overview of clitic sequencing, clitic placement and clitic doubling in the major Romance languages. In addition, new data from a northern Italian dialect are introduced. The author then gives a critical summary of the current morphological analyses of clitic phenomena. She also discusses recent Optimality-theoretical analyses of clitic combinations and clitic placement and shows how these analyses can be improved upon when we also consider a morphological treatment of clitics. This book provides innovative solutions to clitic phenomena within the framework of a constraint-based morphological theory and will be of interest not only to morphologists, syntacticians and those working on the grammar of Romance languages, but also to linguists who are interested in the organisation of the grammar and the lexicon.
This Handbook represents the development of research and the current level of knowledge in the fields of syntactic theory and syntax analysis. Syntax can look back to a long tradition. Especially in the last 50 years, however, the interaction between syntactic theory and syntactic analysis has led to a rapid increase in analyses and theoretical suggestions. This second edition of the Handbook on Syntax adopts a unifying perspective and therefore does not place the division of syntactic theory into several schools to the fore, but the increase in knowledge resulting from the fruitful argumentations between syntactic analysis and syntactic theory. It uses selected phenomena of individual languages and their cross-linguistic realizations to explain what syntactic analyses can do and at the same time to show in what respects syntactic theories differ from each other. It investigates how syntax is related to neighbouring disciplines and investigate the role of the interfaces especially the relationship between syntax and phonology, morphology, compositional semantics, pragmatics, and the lexicon. The phenomena chosen bring together renowned experts in syntax, and represent the consensus reached as to what has to be considered as an important as well as illustrative syntactic phenomenon. The phenomena discuss do not only serve to show syntactic analyses, but also to compare theoretical approaches with each other.
This book provides a new approach to the study of clitic doubling in Spanish, based on spontaneous data considered within their broad discourse context, and focusing on the cognitive and pragmatic factors that underpin the use of these constructions. Considering examples from Argentine, Mexican and Spanish regional variants of the language, the study embraces the graduality and heterogeneity that emerge from the data, and distinguishes different subtypes of “doubling” depending on the pragmatic constraints that govern their use, as well as the morphophonological and morphosyntactic characteristics of dative and accusative clitics in each variant. Each “doubling” subtype, in turn, is shown to have different degrees of spreading. The book concludes with an examination of these constructions within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar. The formalizations proposed account for the complex interplay of syntax, semantics and pragmatics evidenced by clitic doubling in a way that, at the same time, is consistent with the diversity uncovered by the analysis of the natural data.
This volume offers theoretically informed surveys of topics that have figured prominently in morphosyntactic and syntactic research into Romance languages and dialects. We define syntax as being the linguistic component that assembles linguistic units, such as roots or functional morphemes, into grammatical sentences, and morphosyntax as being an umbrella term for all morphological relations between these linguistic units, which either trigger morphological marking (e.g. explicit case morphemes) or are related to ordering issues (e.g. subjects precede finite verbs whenever there is number agreement between them). All 24 chapters adopt a comparative perspective on these two fields of research, highlighting cross-linguistic grammatical similarities and differences within the Romance language family. In addition, many chapters address issues related to variation observable within individual Romance languages, and grammatical change from Latin to Romance.
The book is a qualitative and quantitative investigation into the Catalan clitic system from Old to Modern Catalan. Building on the Minimalist Program, the author shows that a number of facts about Old Romance clitic placement that previously have either not been accounted for or have received unsatisfactory treatment can be explained in a principled way once a strict division of labor between syntax and phonology is adopted.
This book is a compilation of articles on different aspects of Spanish grammar in the areas of current theoretical syntax and semantics. The issue brings together scholars working on some formal aspects of Spanish predicative complementation (e.g., dequeísmo), neuter demonstrative pronouns, the subject of Psych verbs, the nature of non-verbal predication, and the internal structure of the Determiner Phrase (DP), cf. gender variation, among other topics. Linguists and philologists with interests in Spanish and/or in other Romance languages are the main target audience. The book will appeal also to researchers and students specializing in generative grammar, semantics and in the syntax/semantics interface. It will also be of interest to historical linguists and dialectologists addressing theoretical/formal issues (cf. Afro-Bolivian Spanish). The research in this book points to a cohesiveness in Spanish linguistics that lies in the integration of up-to-date empirically-based linguistic research with current theoretical assumptions on the nature of syntax and semantics.
Presenting cutting-edge research in syntax and semantics, this important volume furthers theoretical claims in generative linguistics and represents a significant addition to present scholarship in the field. Leading scholars present crosslinguistic studies dealing with clausal architecture, negation, and tense and aspect, and the issue of whether a statistical model can by itself capture the richness of human linguistic abilities. Taken together, these contributions elegantly show how theoretical tools can propel our understanding of language beyond pretheoretical descriptions, especially when combined with the insight and skills of linguists who can analyze difficult and complex data. Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics covers a range of topics currently at the center of lively debate in the linguistic literature, such as the structure of the left periphery of the clause, the proper treatment of negative polarity items, and the role of statistical learning in building a model of linguistic competence. The ten original contributions offer an excellent balance of novel empirical description and theoretical analysis, applied to a wide range of languages, including Dutch, German, Irish English, Italian, Malagasy, Malay, and a number of medieval Romance languages. Scholars and students of semantics, syntax, and linguistic theory will find it to be a valuable resource for ongoing scholarship and advanced study.
