Abstract
This study provides a usage-based analysis of Spanish Variable Clitic Placement (VCP). A variationist analysis of VCP in spoken Argentine Spanish indicates that VCP grammar is constrained by lexical (finite verb) and semantic (animacy) factors. Considering the finite effect, the study focuses on usage-based accounts for the gradience attested across finite verb constructions. Grammaticalized meaning and increased frequency tend to account for VCP in general. However, one [tener que + infinitive] construction is found exceptional in that it favors enclisis despite its grammaticalized meaning of obligation and its high frequency of use. Data from a larger corpus indicate that the [tener que + infinitive] construction lacks unithood, signaling great analyzability of its component elements. Through an exemplar analysis, the [haber que ‘must’ + infinitive] construction that categorically takes enclisis and which is strongly linked to [tenerque + infinitive] diachronically, semantically, and structurally emerges as a likely analogical model for VCP with tener que, pushing tener que towards enclisis. This study not only illustrates how usage-based linguistics can capture VCP more generally, but also how this framework provides powerful tools to discover the constraints on VCP in naturalistic use in order to account for individual construction behavior.
Highlights
HHooww ddoo uussaaggee--bbaasseedd aapppprrooaacchheessttoo llaanngguuaaggeeaaccccoouunnttffoorrggrraaddiieenncceeaannddvvaarriaiatitoionn??IInntthhisisssttuuddyy,I Ipprorovvidideeaauussaaggee-b-baasseeddppeerrssppeeccttiivveeoonnaapphheennoommeennoonn tthhaatt hhaass aattttrraacctteedd lliinngguuiissttss’’ aatttteennttiioonnffoorryyeeaarrss, nnaammeellyy SSppaanniisshh VVaarriiaabbllee CClliittiicc PPllaacceemmeenntt ((VVCCPP)) iinn [[ffiinniittee vveerrbb ++ nnoonn--ffiinniittee vveerrbb]] ccoonnssttrruuccttiioonnss, aass iinn ((11))
TThheeppreresesennt tstsutuddyyexeexmemplpifliefisehs ohwowusuasgaeg-bea-bsaedseldinlginugisuticssticasccaocucnoutsnftosrfVorCVP,CaPl,soaldsoradwrianwgionng on corpus linguistics and variationist sociolinguistics, which provide powerful tools to discover the constraints on VCP in naturalistic use (Tagliamonte 2006)
The first goal of the present study is to extend this literature by presenting the results of a variationist study of VCP in Argentine Spanish, a dialect for which no variationist study exists up to this point
Summary
In his study of 543 tokens of clitics in variable contexts from written texts, (Myhill 1988, p. 360) observed that proclisis was more frequent with some verbs with more grammaticalized meanings, as well as whenever the clitic outranked the subject in the Animacy Hierarchy than in the opposite scenario. Apart from the effect of the finite verb discussed earlier, the large-scale corpus study of VCP by Davies (1995) reported a semantic effect of animacy, where clitics with animate referents prefer preverbal position, providing evidence for Myhill’s earlier proposal. More recent studies provided evidence for those effects and uncovered other variable constraints operating on VCP These studies focused mainly on particular dialects. The dialects examined in later studies include those of Madrid and Bogotá (Sinnott and Smith 2007), Caracas (Gudmestad 2006; Zabalegui 2008), Gran Canaria (Troya Déniz and Pérez Martín 2011), Salamanca (Aijón Oliva and Nieto 2013), Asturias in Nothern Spain (González López 2008, 2013), and Mexico (Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos 2014) Despite their methodological differences, some patterns of VCP use emerge among these studies. This study seeks to find out whether the same constraints that impact clitic placement in other dialects (verb, animacy, and topicality) do so in Argentine Spanish as well. This study seeks to test the apparently exceptional behavior of tener que
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