The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs

Cognitive constraints on Spanish clitic clustering
Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-90-272-1570-3
Verlag: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Buch, Englisch, Band 61, 335 Seiten, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 245 mm, Gewicht: 785 g

Reihe: Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics

This detailed study challenges the claim that syntax is arbitrary and autonomous, as well as the assumption that Spanish clitic clusters constitute grammaticalized units. Diverse--apparently unrelated--restrictions on clitic clustering in both simplex VP's and Accusative cum Infinitive structures are shown to be cognitively motivated, given the meaning of the individual clitics, and the compositional/interpretative routines those meanings motivate. The analysis accounts, in coherent and principled fashion, for the absolute non-occurrence of some clusters, and the interpretation-dependent acceptability of all remaining clitic combinations: cluster acceptability depends on the ease with which the given clitic combination can be processed to yield a congruent message; there is no point in combining clitics whose meanings preclude speedy processing of the cluster. The monograph goes beyond previous work on Spanish clitics in its wealth of data, the range of syntactic phenomena discussed, and its analytic scope.

Autoren/Hrsg.

García, Erica C.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Grammatik, Syntax, Morphologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Einzelne Sprachen & Sprachfamilien
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Schrift, Paläographie, Orthographie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Erica C. García: In memoriam
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. The problem: Unacceptable clitic clusters
Chapter 3. The communicative value of clitic reference
Chapter 4. Basic clitic syntax
Chapter 5. Variable clitic-cluster acceptability
Chapter 6. Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se
Chapter 7. Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se
Chapter 8. The syntactic structure of AcI’s
Chapter 9. Clitic syntax in AcI’s
Chapter 10. Clitic placement in AcI’s
Chapter 11. Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s
Chapter 12. Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes
Chapter 13. Summary and conclusions
Abbreviations
Glossary
References
Corpus
Name index
Subject index