Doubling In Spanish Research Articles

Clausal doubling and verum marking in Spanish

Abstract This paper offers a description and analysis of the clausal doubling construction, and contrasts it with predicate doubling based on their formal and verum-related properties. The study shows that the behavior of both patterns can be captured by extending the analysis of predicate doubling by Muñoz Pérez and Verdecchia (2022. Predicate doubling in Spanish: On how discourse may mimic syntactic movement. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 40(4). 1159–1200). Basically, both doubling constructions have the same structure, with a contrastive topic in the left periphery; they differ, however, in the nature of the constituents carrying this function. The proposal derives from this single factor all formal and interpretative differences between the constructions. Moreover, the paper provides evidence to distinguish these phenomena from other verum-marking strategies in Spanish.

Predicate doubling in Spanish: On how discourse may mimic syntactic movement

Predicate doubling in Spanish: On how discourse may mimic syntactic movement

Decomposing Spanish dative clitics

In Spanish, dative clitics have standardly been analyzed differently from accusative ones. The apparent different constraints that regulate each of these clitic doubling constructions have been at the base of the differing analyses. In this paper, we will argue that in spite of the alleged differences, clitic doubling in Spanish (both accusative and dative) has more in common than meets the eye. In light of a generally neglected structure in which Spanish dative clitics may not show agreement with their plural double (a.k.a. le-for-les), we will argue for a decompositional analysis of Spanish dative clitics. For us, dative clitics instantiate an applicative (Cuervo 2003, a.o.) morpheme which may be combined with a Dº head (Uriagereka 1995). This analysis will allow us not only to explain the le-for-les phenomenon observed, accounting for its distribution and syntactic licensing, but also the definiteness interpretation that an agreeing dative clitic is subject to, in turn providing a uniform account for the parallelisms between accusative (i.e., purely Dº) and dative (i.e., Applicative + optional Dº) clitic doubling. Finally, certain contexts in which les surfaces and that fail to be accounted for under our proposal are provided an account in terms of “harmonic agreement,” while still keeping the analysis proposed to account for both new and old data and observations.

A diachronic study of indirect object doubling in Argentinian Spanish

ABSTRACT This article investigates the textual motivation of clitic doubling in Spanish with a case study of indirect object doubling in 18th, 19th and 20th century Argentinian Spanish. It is generally assumed that doubling originated with preposed and stressed NPs, and increased in frequency till it was obligatory in those contexts. This development and the further spread of doubling have been ascribed mainly to topicality and high accessibility of the indirect object. However, in our data indirect objects may also be doubled when they are not highly accessible, for instance, when they are coded by an indefinite NP that introduces a new discourse referent. To gain a more comprehensive insight, we relate doubling to the interaction between the indirect and the direct object in terms of their accessibility marking. We observe that the gradual, ongoing spread of doubling to definite and indefinite indirect objects, which mark low accessibility, is strongest in contexts where the direct objects are marked for high accessibility, i.e., in contexts with the inverse distribution of the unmarked pattern, in which the indirect object has high and the direct object low accessibility marking. We interpret this surprising finding in terms of informational prominence and degrees of communicative dynamism.

Why There Are No Clitics: An Alternative Perspective on Pronominal Allomorphy (review)

Reviewed by: Why there are no clitics: An Alternative Perspective on Pronominal Allomorphy by Daniel L. Everett Joel A. Nevis Why there are no clitics: An alternative perspective on pronominal allomorphy. By Daniel L. Everett. (Summer Institute of Linguistics and The University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics 123.) Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics & University of Texas at Arlington, 1996. Pp. xii, 188. $25.00. Everett offers a unified theory of pronouns, pronominal clitics, and agreement affixes in which there is a single semantic core with derivation of the syntax of each ‘allomorph’. E argues forcibly [End Page 162] that there is little need for a separate category for pronominal clitics and hints in his title that grammatical theory can do away with the category of clitic altogether. He argues that the lexicon contains no pronouns, clitics, or agreement affixes per se; instead, phi-features store the appropriate information. The differences among the three lie in the insertion of bundles of these phi-features into distinct syntactic positions, and syntax alone is responsible for their diverse morphosyntactic and morphological behaviors. E invokes the minimalist theory but utilizes terminology from principles and parameters for ease of exposition. He is explicit in his attempt to engage both theoreticians and fieldworkers, promising the latter a grasp of the issues and tools for analysis. In this theory-oriented approach, E’s monograph appears a noteworthy departure for its series. The book consists of nine chapters. After a short introduction (1–5), Ch. 2, ‘Storage, insertion and form of phi-features’, develops the basics of the model (7–43). Ch. 3, ‘Clitic doubling’, implements the model for detailed analyses of doubling in Spanish, Celtic, Pirahã, and Yagua (45–114). Ch. 4 is ‘Subject doubling in French and Northern Italian dialects’ (115–29). Chs. 5 and 6 explore two issues pertinent to Romance languages: ‘Romance se’ (131–54) and ‘Pronominal determiners in Romance’ (155–63). Ch. 7, entitled ‘Clitics and binding’ (165–71), addresses the left dislocation of clitics in Italian, Romanian wh-movement, and binding in Brazilian Portuguese. Ch. 8, ‘Acquisition of clitics’ (173–78), makes predictions about sequences in children’s acquisition of affixes and clitics. The book concludes with a succinct summary (179–80). There is a fairly comprehensive bibliography for Chomskyan works in the 1980s and up to 1992—but coverage is rather limited outside of this tradition. The book lacks an index. The second and third chapters comprise the greater part of E’s work. In Ch. 2 E develops his model, according to which clitic, pronoun, and agreement are not treated as grammatical primitives, lexical entries, or ontological categories. Instead, E invokes phi-features (i.e. inflectional categories such as case, person, number, and gender) to be the basic lexical entries inserted into D-structure. Phi-features differ from other lexical entries in that phi-features do not permit morphological subcategorization (23–25). Note that E employs the term ‘clitic’ as a convenient label throughout the book, even when he is arguing that the clitic does not exist as a separate category. This turns out to be rather deceptive to the reader and undermines a central point. Phi-features are inserted into syntax anywhere they are allowed, but there will be restrictions on the minimal number of phi-features for AGR (18). Cross-linguistic variation in the presence or absence of particular phi-features is reduced to differences in lexical entries, and since AGR and determiner are always filled by phi-features, other differences lie in whether phi-features are spelled out or not. Moreover, if a morphologically subcategorized AGR position is linked to a theta-role, a nominative pattern will be derived; if not, an ergative system will emerge. E predicts that a nominative-accusative language could have object clitics with subject agreement and an ergative-absolutive language could show subject clitics with object agreement, but the theory rules out the reverse. Allomorphy is significant here, defined by E as a relation of complementary distribution in configurational morphosyntax. That is, he, him, and third person singular -s are allomorphs under this scheme (though E notes that -s further offers tense, mood, and aspect information and constitutes a...

Obligatory dative clitic doubling in Spanish

This study investigates the phenomenon of obligatory dative doubling, examining data based upon a critique of two analyses of clitic doubling in Spanish within cdfferent grammatical frameworks. Previous analyses propose that dative clitic doubling is obligatory whenever the Noun Phrase in indirect position is not a semantic Recipient/Addressee (Goal). The data presented demonstrate that obligatory clitic doubling does not depend solely on the thematic role of the dative but that other features must be considered. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 reviews an analysis proposed within Relational Grammar and outlines structural and theory-based problems with the argument; Section 3 summarizes another analysis regarding dative clitic doubling proposed within Government and Binding theory as well as potential theory-based problems and shows the similarities with the earlier theory. Section 4 discusses thematic roles and presents data that cannot adequately be accounted for by either analysis. Section 5 presents implications for further research. (JL)

Spanish clitic doubling and levels of grammatical relations

This paper examines the phenomenon of clitic doubling in Spanish, in particular, the conditions under which doubling of dative clitics is obligatory. Several descriptively distinct cases in which doubling is obligatory can be unified under a single general rule. This analysis depends crucially on the ability to refer to deep grammatical relations which are distinct from semantic roles. A comparison is made between Relational Grammar, an example of a theory which allows more than one level of syntactic grammatical relations, and Functional Grammar, an example of a theoretical framework which posits only one syntactic level. This comparison shows that the rule is more complicated in a framework like Functional Grammar. Thus clitic doubling in Spanish provides an argument in favor of positing at least two levels of grammatical relations distinct from semantics.