Syntactic structure of Spanish parasynthesis: towards a split little-v via affectedness

Gabriel Antonio Martínez Vera

doi:10.5565/rev/isogloss.40

Abstract

In this paper, I claim that the syntactic structure of Spanish parasynthetic verbs a-…-ar (e.g. a-bland-ar ‘to soften’) and en-…-ar (en-dulz-ar ‘to sweeten’) provides (further) evidence for a decomposed vP structure. I propose that these verbs are represented with a structure where v.Caus and verbalizer-v are distinct. In particular, I analyze transitive a-/en-…-ar verbs as complex predicates with a v.Caus-headed vP and a Small Clause (SC) that denotes change of state/location for the theme. These verbs differ in the properties of a projection (XP), located between vP and SC, whose head expresses how specific the result state/location for the internal argument is: a-...-ar specifies a (particular) result state/location for the internal argument whereas en-...-ar remains underspecified with regard to a (particular) result state/location.

Highlights

In this paper, I claim that the syntactic structure of Spanish parasynthetic verbs a-...-ar and en-...-ar provides evidence for a decomposed vP structure
With nominal bases, (i) a-...-ar specifies that only one core meaning can be denoted by a given verb, whereas en-...-ar remains underspecified on this regard (e.g. the locatum/locatio ambiguity in envinagrar ‘to put vinegar’); (ii) provided that only en-...-ar remains underspecified with regard to the result state/location, the development of idiosynchratic/conventionalized meanings is expected with this verbal scheme
The theme is specified for result/state location via movement from Spec,PP to Spec,result state/location phrase (ResultP), which is grounded in Kratzer’s (2004) discussion regarding the specification of the internal argument and Bowers’ (2010) proposal that affectees are higher than themes in the syntactic structure

Summary

Split little-v via affectedness

I propose that there is a projection, ResultP, between v.Caus and verbalizer-v, that determines how specific the result state/location for the internal argument is. The theme is specified for result/state location via movement from Spec,PP to Spec,ResultP, which is grounded in Kratzer’s (2004) discussion regarding the specification of the internal argument and Bowers’ (2010) proposal that affectees are higher than themes in the syntactic structure. My claim that verbalizer-v is a distinct head from v.Caus is as follows: (i) provided that the result state/location projection (ResultP) is higher than PP but lower than v.Caus, (ii) These are not 3Sg conjugations of the verbs, but a-/en- + adjectives. Provided that a-/en- are the morphological spell-outs of Result, and (iii) provided that the base predicates are adjectives or nouns (crucially, they are not verbs), if the prefixes attach to verbal forms (as Montalbetti claims), ResultP merges with a PP that contains a base predicate that has already been verbalized by means of verbalizer-v (that is distinct from v.Caus). A-lisar el pelo en 15 minutos/durante 15 minutos ‘to straightened the hair in 15 minutes/for 15 minutes’ is grammatical; a-lisar ‘to straighten’ does (50)

Result

Variation in Romance

Conclusion