Verbless exclamatives in Spanish beyond the syntax-semantics interface: a pragmatic account

• Autores: Melvin González Rivera
• Localización: Language Patterns in Spanish and Beyond: Structure, Context and Development / Juan José Colomina Almiñana (aut.), Sandro Sessarego (aut.), 2021, ISBN 9781003091790, págs. 166-187
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper examines several aspects of the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics properties of Spanish Predicative Noun Phrases (PredNPs): un gilipollas este chaval “a jerk this guy” (Vinet 1991, Munaro 2016; etc.). Spanish PredNPs are non-verbal constructions that exhibit clausal properties—that is, these clauses involve predication and clearly denote a proposition or s, t in Montague’s terminology. Following an insight by Paul (2008), I will argue that these clauses involve predicate inversion à la den Dikken (2006) (see also Vinet 1991 for French). Thus, the internal structure of Spanish PredNP comprises an asymmetric small clause with a relator head. Contrary to Paul (2008), however, I will show that the clause head is not a missing copula, but rather the feature T(ense). Finally, it will be argued that these clauses should be considered a subtype of exclamatives in keeping with Vinet (1991), and contra Alonso-Cortés (1999).