Feelings as emotion, attitude, and viewpoints

Abstract

This chapter examines the syntax and semantics of sentir ‘to feel’ in simple and complex structures. Based on data from Mexican Spanish, we corroborate the polysemy of this verb, and we point out that different complement types (and verb forms) denote particular subjective connotations (emotions, attitudes, thoughts, evaluations, viewpoints). We propose that nominal complements correlate with an unmediated physical and emotional perception of an object, while clausal complements report a thought towards a proposition. What we called predicative elements (mainly adjectives and past participles) describe the state, quality, or property of the perceived object. In the last structure, the verb form is sentirse , and both the verb and the perceived state form a complex predicate.