Resumen de Verbless exclamatives in Spanish beyond the syntax-semantics interface: a pragmatic account
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).
