The Syntax Of Direct Quotes With Special Reference To Spanish And English

Abstract

This paper provides an in-depth study of the syntax of direct quotes in Spanish.It compares the results to those reported for English (Collins and Braniganl997, and Collins 1997), and reveals substantial differences between thelanguages. Not only do the two contrast with respect to the possibility fornull subjects, V raising to T and adverb positions, but when subject-verbinversion occurs in quotative expressions, English but not Spanish (nor French)obeys the complex verb and the transitivity constraints, and bans sententialnegation. It is argued here that the main differences arise from the overtpositions V occupies and the way in which the null object of the quotativeexpression moves. The object always raises to an A′-position in Spanish, whereas in English it lands in an A-position in the inversion variant and in anA′-position in the non-inverted one. Essentially, little specificto the syntax of direct quotes is needed to account for the facts in Spanishsince the constructionpartakes of well-established patterns of the language; in English, however,quotative inversion has a rather atypical constituent order that requiresconstruction-specific mechanisms, such as short V movement to 0 for example.