- Universität zu Köln, Romanisches Seminar, Department Memberadd
- Languages and Linguistics, Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Syntax, Generative linguistics, Sociolinguistics, and 24 moreCatalan Studies, Filologia Catalana, Occitan Language, Basque Studies, Romance Linguistics, Clitics, Generative Syntax, Basque linguistics, Romance Languages, Formal syntax, Dative, Catalan Language, Minority Languages, Generative grammar, Morphology and Syntax, Theoretical Linguistics, Language Planning and Policy, Double Object Construction, Language policy and planning, Language Policy, Applicatives, Ditransitive Verbs, Basque Language, and Unaccusativityedit
Versió publicada i revisada (2016) de la meva tesi doctoral, (defensada el 2014).
Published and revised version (2016) of my PhD dissertation (defended in 2014).
Published and revised version (2016) of my PhD dissertation (defended in 2014).
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Si heu obert aquest llibre per qualsevol pàgina, ja us deveu haver adonat que, de fet, no es tracta d’un típic manual de gramàtica. El llibre que teniu a les mans conté, és clar, nocions de gramàtica del basc, però no és només això, ni de... more
Si heu obert aquest llibre per qualsevol pàgina, ja us deveu haver adonat que, de fet, no es tracta d’un típic manual de gramàtica. El llibre que teniu a les mans conté, és clar, nocions de gramàtica del basc, però no és només això, ni de bon tros. Hi trobareu una bona dosi de passatges novel·lats, referències històriques i culturals, tastets de gastronomia… i més! Tot plegat per endinsar-vos, de manera entretinguda, en el funcionament de la llengua basca, guiats per la ploma amena i alhora rigorosa de la professora Beatriz Fernández, amb l’ajut de la lingüista Anna Pineda, que ha traduït i adaptat per al públic catalanoparlant aquest llibre. De fet, tal com es llegeix al subtítol de l’obra, els lectors s’adonaran que el funcionament d’una llengua aparentment tan llunyana i diferent com el basc és, en el fons, molt semblant al funcionament del català. Es tracta, en definitiva, de descobrir, llegint, que la gramàtica basca i la catalana s’assemblen més del que hauríem pogut imaginar, com, de fet, s’assemblen les gramàtiques de totes les llengües.
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En aquest treball analitzem l’acusatiu preposicional del català tant des del punt de vista de l’evolució diacrònica del fenomen com des de la perspectiva de l’abast que presenta en el conjunt dels dialectes catalans avui dia. Primer, a... more
En aquest treball analitzem l’acusatiu preposicional del català tant des del punt de vista de l’evolució diacrònica del fenomen com des de la perspectiva de l’abast que presenta en el conjunt dels dialectes catalans avui dia. Primer, a partir d’un exhaustiu estudi de corpus de la llengua antiga hem constatat que el fenomen ja existia en la llengua medieval (amb pronoms personals, noms propis i SN), de manera que, en aquest sentit, pot considerar-se un fenomen genuí. Ara bé, les dades diacròniques indiquen també diàfanament que a partir del segle xvi, quan la influència de l’espanyol esdevé una realitat cada cop més severa, el percentatge d’ús de la preposició a davant de CD augmenta exponencialment.
Si bé a inicis del segle xx la publicació de la normativa fabriana significà un abans i un després en l’aparició del fenomen en els textos escrits formals, el fet és que la comunitat catalanòfona no s’ha arribat a desprendre mai d’aquest recurs morfosintàctic, ans al contrari. Així ho confirmem a bastament a partir d’un estudi a gran escala sobre l’abast del fenomen en el conjunt dels dialectes catalans, basat en entrevistes individuals amb vora 400 parlants, que fan tasques tant de producció d’oracions com d’emissió de judicis de gramaticalitat.
Si bé a inicis del segle xx la publicació de la normativa fabriana significà un abans i un després en l’aparició del fenomen en els textos escrits formals, el fet és que la comunitat catalanòfona no s’ha arribat a desprendre mai d’aquest recurs morfosintàctic, ans al contrari. Així ho confirmem a bastament a partir d’un estudi a gran escala sobre l’abast del fenomen en el conjunt dels dialectes catalans, basat en entrevistes individuals amb vora 400 parlants, que fan tasques tant de producció d’oracions com d’emissió de judicis de gramaticalitat.
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The focus of this paper is a generally ignored counterexample to animacy/person scales (Hale 1972, Silverstein 1976, Aissen 2003, a.o.), which are often assumed to be universal (Kiparsky 2008, a.o.). Drawing from Old Romance differential... more
The focus of this paper is a generally ignored counterexample to animacy/person scales (Hale 1972, Silverstein 1976, Aissen 2003, a.o.), which are often assumed to be universal (Kiparsky 2008, a.o.). Drawing from Old Romance differential object marking (DOM) data, we analyse various scale reversals in Old Catalan and Old Romanian. We notice that, contrary to what the scales would predict, i) 3rd person pronouns surface with DOM to the exclusion of 1st and 2nd persons, and ii) proper names take DOM to the exclusion of pronouns. We propose to derive these unexpected patterns by evaluating i) micro-parameters in the composition of Romance DPs and pronouns, and ii) the presence of more than one licensing strategy for arguments. Scale reversals result from the introduction of a novel argument- licensing strategy based on animacy in languages where an older strategy for 1st/2nd persons was still active.
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In this paper we provide a comprehensive picture of differential object marking in Catalan, focusing on both the empirical facts and their theoretical contribution. We support some important conclusions. First, Catalan differential object... more
In this paper we provide a comprehensive picture of differential object marking in Catalan, focusing on both the empirical facts and their theoretical contribution. We support some important conclusions. First, Catalan differential object marking is quite a robust and widespread phenomenon, contrary to what prescriptive grammars assume. Second, we show that, from a formal perspective, Catalan differential object marking cannot be completely subsumed under hierarchical generalizations known as scales. The contribution of narrow syntax mechanisms and nominal structure is fundamental, supporting recent views by López (2012) or Ormazabal and Romero (2007, 2010, 2013a, b), a.o. Building on these works as well as on observations initially made by Cornilescu (2000) and Rodríguez-Mondoñedo (2007), a.o., we adopt an analysis under which canonical, animacy-based differential marking results from the presence of an additional (PERSON) feature, beyond Case. This structural make-up is not only a...
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This paper deals with a group of agentive verbs in Eastern dialects of Basque that show mixed unergative and unaccusative properties. Although they pattern with unergatives in certain aspects, they combine with an absolutive subject and... more
This paper deals with a group of agentive verbs in Eastern dialects of Basque that show mixed unergative and unaccusative properties. Although they pattern with unergatives in certain aspects, they combine with an absolutive subject and the auxiliary ‘be’, contrary to what one would expect for Basque unergative verbs. Additionally, they behave like unaccusatives in a number of other tests, such as in their inability to take cognate objects and in allowing partitive subjects. The analysis put forward in this paper accounts for the hybrid nature of these verbs. In particular, we claim that their subject is introduced in the specifier of vP, and that it is co- indexed with a thematic but non-pronounced argument of Voice. As a consequence, the subject shows both external and internal properties. This paper thus challenges the mutually exclusive external/internal division of the subject in intransitive verbs and argues that intransitive verbs can be classified into more groups than just two, as also argued elsewhere. Additionally, it argues that the different types of intransitive verbs are grammatically encoded and shaped by different versions of Voice and v. Thus, this analysis assumes the typology of Voice proposed by Schäfer (2008) and developed by Alexiadou, Anagnostopoulou and Schäfer (2015), and extends it to the functional head v.
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RESUMEN La existencia del marcaje diferencial de objeto (MDO) es un fenómeno bien conocido en muchas lenguas y variedades románicas, como el español o el rumano, donde este fenómeno aparece con distintos tipos de objetos directos (OD). En... more
RESUMEN La existencia del marcaje diferencial de objeto (MDO) es un fenómeno bien conocido en muchas lenguas y variedades románicas, como el español o el rumano, donde este fenómeno aparece con distintos tipos de objetos directos (OD). En el caso de otras lenguas de la familia románica, como el catalán, el MDO se ha considerado a menudo ausente con la excepción de los pronombres personales y unos pocos casos más-al menos desde la perspectiva de la gramática normativa. Sin embargo, en la mayoría de las variedades catalanas, el MDO puede aparecer con OD humanos, incluyendo nombres propios, definidos e indefinidos, e incluso ocasionalmente se extiende a plurales escuetos o a inanimados. Aunque se podría inicialmente asumir que esta situación es fruto de la influencia del español, también puede ser el caso que se trate, al menos en parte, de una evolución interna del catalán. De forma crucial, los casos de MDO eran notablemente abundantes en catalán antiguo, aunque a veces este hecho ha pasado desapercibido. Es decir, en los textos antiguos encontramos ejemplos de MDO con nombres propios y sintagmas nominales humanos (además de con pronombres personales), llegando al 50 % de las ocurrencias en algunos textos. El objetivo de este artículo es dar cuenta de la emergencia y el desarrollo del MDO en la diacronía del catalán, con el fin de mostrar los puntos en común con la lengua española vecina, así como las importantes diferencias que distinguen ambas lenguas. Nos basamos en un amplio estudio de corpus elaborado a partir del Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic y que comprende el período desde los primeros textos escritos hasta el siglo XVI. ABSTRACT The existence of differential object marking (DOM) is well established for several Romance languages and varieties, like Spanish and Romanian, where its use extends to several types of direct objects (DOs). For other languages in the Romance family, such as Catalan, DOM is often considered absent, except for personal pronouns and a few other cases-at least from the perspective of normative grammar. However, in most varieties of Catalan, MDO is found with human DOs generally, including proper names, definites and indefinites, and even occasionally extends to bare plurals or inanimates. While one may initially assume that this is the result of Spanish influence, it may actually be the case that such instances arose, at least partially, from the internal evolution of Catalan. Crucially, instances of DOM were remarkably abundant in Old Catalan, although this has gone quite unnoticed. That is, instances of DOM with proper names and human noun phrases (in addition to personal pronouns) are found in earlier Catalan texts, reaching 50% of occurrences in some texts. The aim of this paper is to offer an account of the emergence and development of DOM in the diachrony of Catalan, showing the commonalities with neighboring Spanish, as well as the important differences that distinguish these two languages. We achieve this through a large corpus study which is based on the Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic and comprises the period from the first written texts to the 16 th century.
This article presents empirical and theoretical arguments that challenge several received ideas regarding double-object constructions in Romance languages. First, I argue that the syntactic and semantic differences that, according to much... more
This article presents empirical and theoretical arguments that challenge several received ideas regarding double-object constructions in Romance languages. First, I argue that the syntactic and semantic differences that, according to much prior literature, hold between Spanish ditransitives with and without dative clitic doubling do not hold, at least for many speakers. Specifically, there are nondoubled Spanish ditransitives that are to be analyzed as double-object constructions, not as prepositional constructions; the optional presence of dative clitic doubling in double-object constructions reduces to a mere surface difference of spellout of the Low Applicative head that relates the indirect object and the direct object and is responsible for the transfer-of-possession interpretation. Next, I explore some theoretical consequences of these novel empirical observations regarding dative clitic doubling, showing that arguments for a base structure for Spanish/Romance double-object constructions in which the direct object is higher than the indirect object are not viable, since in the absence of dative clitic doubling it is not possible to account for the c-command facts. Lastly, I show that my analysis of double-object constructions extends to other languages in the Romance family where dative clitic doubling in ditransitives is optional, such as Catalan, as well as to Romance languages that do not have dative clitic doubling but arguably do have double-object constructions, such as French and Italian.
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ENGLISH BELOW Aquest article presenta l’experiència de Gramàtica comparada a l’aula, que constitueix una iniciativa per introduir als llibres de text de llengua catalana de l’educació secundària obligatòria un enfocament de l’ensenyament... more
ENGLISH BELOW
Aquest article presenta l’experiència de Gramàtica comparada a l’aula, que constitueix una iniciativa per introduir als llibres de text de llengua catalana de l’educació secundària obligatòria un enfocament de l’ensenyament gramatical a partir de la comparació del català amb altres llengües. Els materials que presentem han estat publicats en els llibres de text Llengua Catalana i Literatura. Construïm de l’editorial Cruïlla, de 1r a 4t d’ESO, en forma d’activitats addicionals a les pàgines dedicades a l’ensenyament de la gramàtica. Es tracta d’un projecte que pretén desvetllar l’interès dels alumnes pel funcionament de les gramàtiques de les seves llengües a través de la mobilització d’un seguit d’estratègies que van més enllà del saber teòric o de l’ensenyament mecànic de la gramàtica i que es nodreixen de la realitat de l’aula entesa com a espai multilingüe. La iniciativa parteix de l’explotació de les intuïcions i del patrimoni lingüístic dels alumnes com a coneixedors de diverses llengües per tal de captar l’atenció sobre diferents aspectes de la gramàtica, a partir d’exercicis basats en un ventall d’estratègies que inclou els parells mínims, la construcció d’exemples o l’anàlisi de seqüències agramaticals.
ENGLISH
This paper presents an experience entitled Gramàtica comparada a l’aula, an initiative aiming to provide obligatory secondary school (Educació Secundària Obligatòria) Catalan language textbooks with an approach to grammar teaching based on the comparison between Catalan and other languages. The materials we present have been published in the textbooks entitled Llengua Catalana i Literatura. Construïm published by Cruïlla and corresponding to the 1st to 4th courses of ESO (Educació Secundària Obligatòria). They consist of activities which are additional to the pages devoted to grammar teaching. This project aims at raising the students’ interests for the working of the grammar of their languages, by means of a series of strategies which go beyond theoretical knowledge or the mechanical teaching of grammar, and which feed off the classroom reality, understood as a multilingual space. The initiative builds on the students’ intuitions and their linguistic heritage in order to draw their attention with respect to several grammatical aspects, with exercicises based on a wide range of strategies including minimal pairs, building of examples and analysis of ungrammatical sequences.
Aquest article presenta l’experiència de Gramàtica comparada a l’aula, que constitueix una iniciativa per introduir als llibres de text de llengua catalana de l’educació secundària obligatòria un enfocament de l’ensenyament gramatical a partir de la comparació del català amb altres llengües. Els materials que presentem han estat publicats en els llibres de text Llengua Catalana i Literatura. Construïm de l’editorial Cruïlla, de 1r a 4t d’ESO, en forma d’activitats addicionals a les pàgines dedicades a l’ensenyament de la gramàtica. Es tracta d’un projecte que pretén desvetllar l’interès dels alumnes pel funcionament de les gramàtiques de les seves llengües a través de la mobilització d’un seguit d’estratègies que van més enllà del saber teòric o de l’ensenyament mecànic de la gramàtica i que es nodreixen de la realitat de l’aula entesa com a espai multilingüe. La iniciativa parteix de l’explotació de les intuïcions i del patrimoni lingüístic dels alumnes com a coneixedors de diverses llengües per tal de captar l’atenció sobre diferents aspectes de la gramàtica, a partir d’exercicis basats en un ventall d’estratègies que inclou els parells mínims, la construcció d’exemples o l’anàlisi de seqüències agramaticals.
ENGLISH
This paper presents an experience entitled Gramàtica comparada a l’aula, an initiative aiming to provide obligatory secondary school (Educació Secundària Obligatòria) Catalan language textbooks with an approach to grammar teaching based on the comparison between Catalan and other languages. The materials we present have been published in the textbooks entitled Llengua Catalana i Literatura. Construïm published by Cruïlla and corresponding to the 1st to 4th courses of ESO (Educació Secundària Obligatòria). They consist of activities which are additional to the pages devoted to grammar teaching. This project aims at raising the students’ interests for the working of the grammar of their languages, by means of a series of strategies which go beyond theoretical knowledge or the mechanical teaching of grammar, and which feed off the classroom reality, understood as a multilingual space. The initiative builds on the students’ intuitions and their linguistic heritage in order to draw their attention with respect to several grammatical aspects, with exercicises based on a wide range of strategies including minimal pairs, building of examples and analysis of ungrammatical sequences.
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In several Romance languages, including Catalan, Spanish, Asturian and Neapolitan, several verbs ('phone', 'answer', 'shoot', 'rob', among others) can take a dative-or accusative-marked complement. I argue that this alternation is indeed... more
In several Romance languages, including Catalan, Spanish, Asturian and Neapolitan, several verbs ('phone', 'answer', 'shoot', 'rob', among others) can take a dative-or accusative-marked complement. I argue that this alternation is indeed a transition from dative to accusative; that is, it is a process of syntactic change, with different stages of evolution depending on the dialectal or even idiolectal variety. The relevant verbs, being a priori dative-taking intransitive verbs, are analyzed as unergatives, made up of a light verb and a nominal, 'phone = do+phone call'. When the complement 'to somebody' is added, a ditransitive structure is obtained, where I assume that the direct ('phone call') and the indirect ('to somebody') objects are related via an applicative head. The properties of this functional applicative head allow me to explain the change from dative to accusative case in the first stages of syntactic change. Likewise, I show that the completion of the syntactic change results in a true transitivization of the structure.
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In this corpus study we make a first approach to different aspects of transitivity, understood as a phenomenon with multiple faces, in the texts corresponding to the beginning of Modern Catalan (17th century, with a especial emphasis on... more
In this corpus study we make a first approach to different aspects of transitivity, understood as a phenomenon with multiple faces, in the texts corresponding to the beginning of Modern Catalan (17th century, with a especial emphasis on the first half of the century). In particular, we deal with the case of several verbs showing an hesitating behaviour between the transitive and the intransitive use, and we undertake the study of this aspect from the point of view of diffe- rential object marking, since the alternations in these verbs may be confusing when analysing the pervasiveness of direct object introduced by a (see § 2). Next, also taking differential object marking as the reference point, we focus on the constructions that favour significantly the use of this marking in front of direct objects (see § 3). Finally, we briefly deal with some other inte- resting aspects of transitivity in the texts of the beginning of Modern Catalan, such as the use of unergative verbs in transitive patterns including a cognate direct object, or the causativization of intransitive verbs of motion (see § 4).
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This contribution aims at examining ditransitive constructions in Romance languages (especially Spanish and Catalan), and their interaction with dative clitic doubling. First, we show that the transposition of the so-called English dative... more
This contribution aims at examining ditransitive constructions in Romance languages (especially Spanish and Catalan), and their interaction with dative clitic doubling. First, we show that the transposition of the so-called English dative alternation, composed by the double object construction and the to-dative construction, onto Romance languages fails in a dramatic way if one wants to establish a parallelism between clitic doubled and non clitic doubled Romance ditransitives, as proposed for example for Spanish by Demonte (1995) and Cuervo (2003). An alternative approach to Romance ditransitives is proposed, where the absence or presence of clitic doubling boils down to the optional spell out of an applicative head. Finally, the discourse-related role of dative clitic doubling is further examined by analyzing the use of a singular dative clitic to double a plural IO, a phenomenon present in Spanish and Catalan, where the non-agreeing clitic seems to become a mere verbal affix.
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This paper focuses on the study of differential object marking at the beginning of Modern Catalan (17th century). The tendencies that appeared in the previous stage (Old Catalan) are now confirmed: in broad strokes, prominence in terms of... more
This paper focuses on the study of differential object marking at the beginning of Modern Catalan (17th century). The tendencies that appeared in the previous stage (Old Catalan) are now confirmed: in broad strokes, prominence in terms of animacy and/or definiteness is a key semantic factor that accounts for the scope and evolution of the phenomenon in the language, and that allows to account for the existence of a quite noticeable dialectal difference between Valencian varieties, on the one hand, and Eastern varieties, on the other.
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In this paper we present the Microvariació.cat initiative (www.microvariacio.cat), whose main goal is to identify, compile and systematically organise all the research done regarding Catalan syntax in order to design a website available... more
In this paper we present the Microvariació.cat initiative (www.microvariacio.cat), whose main goal is to identify, compile and systematically organise all the research done regarding Catalan syntax in order to design a website available to specialists and the general public. We reflect on the value of investigating the syntactic variation of languages and we prove how the Microvariació.cat initiative is the starting point for a major challenging study on the microsyntax of Catalan. We characterise the different aspects of the initiative and we describe the methodology followed to build up a database integrated by an exhaustive list of Catalan microvariation phenomena and a set of reference works on the different topics and areas listed.
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This contribution aims to study a phenomenon which has recently emerged in Catalan and which seems to contradict the foundations of referential cohesion. It is a phenomenon parallel to what in the Spanish linguistic tradition has been... more
This contribution aims to study a phenomenon which has recently emerged in Catalan and which seems to contradict the foundations of referential cohesion. It is a phenomenon parallel to what in the Spanish linguistic tradition has been dubbed le- for-les, that is to say, the use of a singular dative clitic when doubling a plural indirect object, as in Li[sg.] he donat el llibre als nens[pl.] ‘I have given the book to the kids’. I will show that this phenomenon, which is more and more present in Valencian vari- eties as well as in the Catalan spoken in the area of Barcelona, can be accounted for as an instance of depronominalization of the dative clitic pronoun, as a result of the generalization of dative clitic doubling which has occurred, precisely, in the mentioned varieties. As doubling becomes systematic, li looses its status of anaphoric pronoun and, deprived of any trace of agreement, it becomes just a grammatical marker in the verb, a sort of verbal affix whose sole function is to indicate the presence of a prominent argument in the sentence, the indirect object. I present a variety of factors that may create the conditions where such a verbal affix (the non-agreeing dative clitic) becomes necessary. Finally, I provide a formal analysis based on the assumption that doubling clitics are the realization of an applicative head, which is responsible of introducing the IO in the structure.
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In several works on grammaticalization, one of the authors of this paper has established a grammaticalization cline which posits three major Romance languages: French at one extreme, Spanish at the other, and Italian in between (Lamiroy... more
In several works on grammaticalization, one of the authors of this paper has established a grammaticalization cline which posits three major Romance languages: French at one extreme, Spanish at the other, and Italian in between (Lamiroy 1999, 2001, 2003, 2011, Lamiroy & De Mulder 2011, De Mulder & Lamiroy, 2012, Van de Velde & Lamiroy 2017). Our purpose is to place Catalan on this cline. To achieve our goal, we use data of Catalan related to several topics, viz. auxiliaries, past tense, existential sentences, mood and demonstratives. Catalan shows contradictory evidence: whereas the grammaticalization process in certain domains suggests that it parallels Spanish and Italian, in many others, it patterns with French. Thus the hypothesis for which we provide evidence here is the following cline : French > Catalan > Italian > Spanish.
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In this paper we analyse several verbs in Romance languages which, both intralinguistically and cross-linguistically, are subject to a dative/accusative case alternation. We focus especially on Catalan, as well as Spanish, Asturian and... more
In this paper we analyse several verbs in Romance languages which, both intralinguistically and cross-linguistically, are subject to a dative/accusative case alternation. We focus especially on Catalan, as well as Spanish, Asturian and Italian varieties. Our main contribution has to do with the analysis of these alternations as an instance of Differential Indirect Object Marking, since these are indirect objects that, in addition to the dative, may appear in the accusative, and are thus differentially marked. The verbs in question are agentive verbs with a Goal-like complement, as well as psychological verbs with an Experiencer-like complement.
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Artikulu honetan katalanaren bariazio sintaktikoa izango dugu hizpide. Katalanaren dialektoen deskribapen orokorra emango dugu, eta aldakortasunaren kasu zehatz batzuk aztertuko ditugu, hala nola, ezeztapena, aditz laguntzaileak eta... more
Artikulu honetan katalanaren bariazio sintaktikoa izango dugu hizpide. Katalanaren dialektoen deskribapen orokorra emango dugu, eta aldakortasunaren kasu zehatz batzuk aztertuko ditugu, hala nola, ezeztapena, aditz laguntzaileak eta datibo/akusatibo alternantziak. Bestalde, euskara eta katalana alderatuko ditugu, eta ikusiko dugunez, katalanez agertzen diren fenomeno aldakor batzuk, alternantziak adibidez, euskaran ere agertzen dira. 1. Katalana eta euskara: minorizatuak, baina desberdinak Artikulu honetan katalanaren bariazio sintaktikoa izango dugu hizpide. Lehenik eta behin euskara eta katalana alderatu nahi genituzke, ez hizkuntza bera, baizik eta egoera soziolinguistikoa. Bi hizkuntza minorizaturen aurrean gaude baina, aldi berean, bi egoera desberdinen aurrean.
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in: Llengua & Literatura: revista anual de la Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura
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In: Borealis. An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 2:1. 2013. Pg. 57-115.
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The existence of Differential Object Marking (DOM) is well-established in a number of Romance languages and varieties, such as Spanish and Romanian, where its use extends to several types of direct objects. For other languages in the... more
The existence of Differential Object Marking (DOM) is well-established in a number of Romance languages and varieties, such as Spanish and Romanian, where its use extends to several types of direct objects. For other languages in the Romance family, like Catalan, DOM is often considered to be absent, except for personal pronouns and a few other cases-at least from the perspective of normative grammar. However, in most varieties of Catalan, DOM applies to human direct objects generally, including proper names, definites and some indefinites, and even occasionally extends to bare plurals or inanimates. Although an exhaustive dialectal survey on the exact prevalence of DOM has yet to be carried out, it is clear that it is widespread and features in many dialects. While one might initially assume that this is the result of the influence of Spanish, such instances (at least partially) might in fact have arisen from the internal evolution of Catalan. Crucially, instances of DOM were remarkably abundant in Old Catalan, although this has sometimes gone quite unnoticed. That is, instances of DOM with proper names and human NPs are found in earlier Catalan texts (in the 13 th to 15 th centuries), and increase quite significantly from the 16 th century on, reaching very high percentages of occurrences in some texts. The aim of this paper is to offer an account of the emergence and development of DOM in Catalan over time, showing the commonalities with neighbouring Spanish, as well as the important differences that distinguish these two languages. This is a large corpus study, based on the Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic, and comprising the period from the first written texts to the 16 th century, with some notes on the 17 th century too.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the use of se with directed motion verbs in several Romance languages and varieties. Building on some observations that have been made for Spanish, we adopt a broader cross-linguistic perspective,... more
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the use of se with directed motion verbs in several Romance languages and varieties. Building on some observations that have been made for Spanish, we adopt a broader cross-linguistic perspective, bringing into discussion an element that has, until now, gone generally unnoticed (aside from descriptive works): the ablative locative clitic that appears, together with se, in Catalan, Italian and Aragonese varieties, as in tornar-se'n 'go back SE NE' from Catalan. Our data from different Romance languages and dialects allow us to refine the settings of the connection between pronominal directed motion verbs and the existence of a source component. In particular, we posit the existence of a locative head (here tentatively analysed as an applicative), which can be spelled out by an ablative locative clitic. We also argue that directed motion verbs can be conceived of by Romance speakers as simple, punctual events denoting the achievement of a particular position, but also as denoting a complex event that consists of a causing subevent and a resultant state (which is connected to achieving a new position and remaining there for some time, after having left behind the original location). In the latter case, these verbs can surface in their pronominal form, even if it does not happen always, since there is cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal variation regarding the availability of pronominal forms for these verbs, due to different lexicalization patterns.
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El marcatge diferencial d'objecte (d'ara endavant MDO) és un fenomen ben establert en moltes llengües del món, com ara l'hebreu, l'hindi o el turc, i també en diverses llengües i varietats romàniques, com l'espanyol, el sard o el romanès.... more
El marcatge diferencial d'objecte (d'ara endavant MDO) és un fenomen ben establert en moltes llengües del món, com ara l'hebreu, l'hindi o el turc, i també en diverses llengües i varietats romàniques, com l'espanyol, el sard o el romanès. Consisteix en la introducció dels objectes directes mitjançant l'ús d'una marca específica, diferencial. Aquesta marca s'ha identificat sovint amb una preposició (d'aquí que el fenomen també s'anomeni acusatiu preposicional), i en el cas de les llengües romàniques i moltes d'altres la marca és sovint coincident amb la que duen els objectes indirectes, és a dir, la de datiu. El MDO constitueix un dels fenòmens que més interès ha suscitat i suscita encara en la lingüística, tant en els enfocaments més tradicionals com en els més teòrics.
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En aquest treball parlarem de dos fenòmens sintàctics relacionats amb la (in) transitivitat, amb l’objectiu de veure com Fabra s’hi va referir i quin tracta- ment se’n fa en la normativa catalana actual (GIEC 2016). Els dos aspectes de la... more
En aquest treball parlarem de dos fenòmens sintàctics relacionats amb la (in) transitivitat, amb l’objectiu de veure com Fabra s’hi va referir i quin tracta- ment se’n fa en la normativa catalana actual (GIEC 2016). Els dos aspectes de la sintaxi catalana de què ens ocuparem són la concordança del verb "haver-hi" i l’ús de la preposició "a" davant del complement directe.
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This paper addresses a generally ignored counterexample to the Scales, comparing Old Catalan and Old Romanian on the one hand to Old Spanish on the other hand. Contrary to widely assumed marking hierarchies, Old Catalan/Old Romanian 3 rd... more
This paper addresses a generally ignored counterexample to the Scales, comparing Old Catalan and Old Romanian on the one hand to Old Spanish on the other hand. Contrary to widely assumed marking hierarchies, Old Catalan/Old Romanian 3 rd person pronouns show differential object marking, to the exclusion of or to a higher degree than 1 st /2 nd persons. We propose these patterns can be straightforwardly derived once we pin down micro-parameters in the composition of Romance DPs and the consequences various types of perspectival/sentience features have on the syntactic licensing of arguments.
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The purpose of this paper is to shed light on a particular behavior displayed by verbs of inherently directed motion, the availability of a causative transitive alternate, and how this phenomenon interacts with the presence of clitic se... more
The purpose of this paper is to shed light on a particular behavior displayed
by verbs of inherently directed motion, the availability of a causative transitive alternate, and how this phenomenon interacts with the presence of clitic se in the intransitive variant. Data from Catalan, Aragonese and Italian varieties, none of which have received much attention in the literature, will prove crucial for our proposal. We adopt an inter-Romance perspective and a nanosyntactic approach to lexicalization in order to refine the correlation Jiménez-Fernández and Tubino (2014, 2017) find for Spanish, where inherently directional motion verbs are claimed to be more easily causativized (entrar el coche ‘go in the car’) in varieties where the use of se in the intransitive forms is also more frequent (Juan se entró ‘Juan se went in’).
by verbs of inherently directed motion, the availability of a causative transitive alternate, and how this phenomenon interacts with the presence of clitic se in the intransitive variant. Data from Catalan, Aragonese and Italian varieties, none of which have received much attention in the literature, will prove crucial for our proposal. We adopt an inter-Romance perspective and a nanosyntactic approach to lexicalization in order to refine the correlation Jiménez-Fernández and Tubino (2014, 2017) find for Spanish, where inherently directional motion verbs are claimed to be more easily causativized (entrar el coche ‘go in the car’) in varieties where the use of se in the intransitive forms is also more frequent (Juan se entró ‘Juan se went in’).
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Studies on dialectal variation in Catalan are clearly scarce, that is, specific works or research projects dedicated to syntactic variation are near on non-existent. That is why in this article we have two main goals. On the one hand, we... more
Studies on dialectal variation in Catalan are clearly scarce, that is, specific works or research projects dedicated to syntactic variation are near on non-existent. That is why in this article we have two main goals.
On the one hand, we determine at what stage the research on dialectal variation of Catalan is, and we conclude that, although some descriptive generalizations on general properties have been made, and also some syntactic variations have been studied, there is still a lot to explore.
On the other hand, we point out the triple nature of the research in this field of grammar: (i) discovery of syntactic isoglosses, (ii) typological comparison of syntactic dialectal data and (iii) impact on codification. We exemplify all these interests through the research on two specific topics: the accusative/dative alternation and the expression of emphatic polarity.
Summing up, we aim to present the state of the art in the field of the syntactic variation in Catalan and the challenges that Catalan faces when not so well-studied data has to be interpreted. The truth is this data proves just how rich the syntactic variation of Catalan dialects is.
On the one hand, we determine at what stage the research on dialectal variation of Catalan is, and we conclude that, although some descriptive generalizations on general properties have been made, and also some syntactic variations have been studied, there is still a lot to explore.
On the other hand, we point out the triple nature of the research in this field of grammar: (i) discovery of syntactic isoglosses, (ii) typological comparison of syntactic dialectal data and (iii) impact on codification. We exemplify all these interests through the research on two specific topics: the accusative/dative alternation and the expression of emphatic polarity.
Summing up, we aim to present the state of the art in the field of the syntactic variation in Catalan and the challenges that Catalan faces when not so well-studied data has to be interpreted. The truth is this data proves just how rich the syntactic variation of Catalan dialects is.
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In: Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2012. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2014. Ed. by Stefania Marzo & Karen Lahousse.
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In: Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2011. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2013. Ed. by Sergio Baauw, Frank Drijkoningen, Luisa Meroni & Manuela Pinto.
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In: XX ConSOLE Proceedings, 20th Conference of the Student Organization of Linguistics in Europe. 2013. Ed. by E. Boone, M. Kohlberger & M. Schulpen.
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In: Actes del 26é Congrés de Lingüística i Filologia Romàniques (València, 6-11 de setembre de 2010). 2013. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, pg. 311-324.
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In: Estudios sobre variación sintáctica peninsular, ed. by Xulio Viejo. Oviedo: Trabe.
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Diachronic study of "steal"-verbs in Catalan
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In: Actas del XXIX Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística.
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Centre Universitari de Sociolingüística i Comunicació (CUSC), Universitat de Barcelona. 2007
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Llengua & Literatura: revista anual de la Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura (Barcelona), vol. 21, pg. 407-424.
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In: Llengua & Literatura: revista anual de la Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura (Barcelona), vol. 22 (2011-2012), pg. 171-184.
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In: Els Marges, 102 (2014).
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Dins del curs "Pompeu Fabra, seny ordenador de la llengua catalana", Universitat Catalana d'Estiu, agost 2018.
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Paper presented at the Anglia Ruskin - Cambridge Romance Linguistics Seminars
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In this talk I will focus on a particular behavior displayed by verbs of inherently directed motion, the availability of a causative transitive alternate, and how this phenomenon interacts with the presence of the clitic se in the... more
In this talk I will focus on a particular behavior displayed by verbs of inherently directed motion, the availability of a causative transitive alternate, and how this phenomenon interacts with the presence of the clitic se in the intransitive variant. Data from Catalan, Aragonese and Italian varieties, none of which have received much attention in the literature, will prove crucial for my proposal.
In particular, I adopt an inter-Romance perspective and a nanosyntactic approach to lexicalization in order to refine the correlation that has been found for Spanish, where motion verbs are claimed to be more easily causativized (entrar el coche ‘go in the car’) in varieties where the use of se in the intransitive forms is also more frequent (Juan se entró ‘Juan SE went in’). Adopting a broader cross-linguistic perspective, I deal with causativized verbs in several Romance languages and varieties, and crucially bring into discussion an element that has, until now, gone generally unnoticed (aside from descriptive works): the ablative locative clitic that appears, together with se, in Catalan, Italian and Aragonese varieties (e.g. Cat. tornar-se’n, dial. Cat. entrar-se’n, eixir-se’n, pujar-se’n, and so on). The data from different Romance languages and dialects will allow to refine the settings of the connection between pronominal verbs of motion and the existence of a source component. In particular, I will posit the existence of a locative head (that may be analysed as an applicative head), which can be spelled out by an ablative locative clitic.
I will also argue that verbs of inherently directed motion can be conceived by Romance speakers as simple, punctual events denoting the achievement of a particular position, but also as denoting a complex event that consists of a causing subevent and a resultant state (which is connected to achieving a new position and remaining there for some time, after having left behind the original location). In the latter case (that subsequently paves the way for causativization), the verbs of motion can surface in their pronominal form, even if it does not happen always. As will be shown in the talk, there is cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal variation regarding the availability of pronominal forms for these verbs, due to different lexicalization patterns.
In particular, I adopt an inter-Romance perspective and a nanosyntactic approach to lexicalization in order to refine the correlation that has been found for Spanish, where motion verbs are claimed to be more easily causativized (entrar el coche ‘go in the car’) in varieties where the use of se in the intransitive forms is also more frequent (Juan se entró ‘Juan SE went in’). Adopting a broader cross-linguistic perspective, I deal with causativized verbs in several Romance languages and varieties, and crucially bring into discussion an element that has, until now, gone generally unnoticed (aside from descriptive works): the ablative locative clitic that appears, together with se, in Catalan, Italian and Aragonese varieties (e.g. Cat. tornar-se’n, dial. Cat. entrar-se’n, eixir-se’n, pujar-se’n, and so on). The data from different Romance languages and dialects will allow to refine the settings of the connection between pronominal verbs of motion and the existence of a source component. In particular, I will posit the existence of a locative head (that may be analysed as an applicative head), which can be spelled out by an ablative locative clitic.
I will also argue that verbs of inherently directed motion can be conceived by Romance speakers as simple, punctual events denoting the achievement of a particular position, but also as denoting a complex event that consists of a causing subevent and a resultant state (which is connected to achieving a new position and remaining there for some time, after having left behind the original location). In the latter case (that subsequently paves the way for causativization), the verbs of motion can surface in their pronominal form, even if it does not happen always. As will be shown in the talk, there is cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal variation regarding the availability of pronominal forms for these verbs, due to different lexicalization patterns.
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Research Interests: Catalan Studies, Spanish, Catalan Language, Italian Studies, Spanish Linguistics, and 13 moreRomance Linguistics, Italian dialects, Locatives, Microvariation, Motion Verbs, Filologia Catalana, Neapolitan linguistics, Clitics, Syntactic Variation, Aragonese Language, Causative constructions, Ablative, and Applicatives
Handout, XXVIII Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza. Roma 18 - 23 luglio 2016
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Handout Cambridge Comparative Syntax 5, May 2016
Research Interests: Languages and Linguistics, Catalan Language, Language Variation and Change, Syntax, Spanish Linguistics, and 11 moreLinguistics, Comparative Romance linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics, Romance Linguistics, Italian dialects, Romance Languages, Generative Syntax, Catalan linguistics, Aragonese Language, Causative constructions, and Lexical Causatives
Workshop on Romance Se-Si. April 2016. University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Presentation at LSRL 46 (Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages) at Stony Brook University, New York.
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Workshop: Clitics: Areal and Genealogical Perspectives, SLE Leiden, 4 September 2015
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Presentation at: Workshop on Ditransitive constructions in a cross-linguistic perspective, Syntax of World's Languages (Pavia)
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Presentation at: Cambridge Comparative Syntax (CamCoS 3), University of Cambridge
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Presentation at: International Workshop The Syntactic Variation of Catalan and Spanish Dialects
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Presentation at: CASTL Spring Conference on Differential Object Marking (Tromsø)
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Presentation at: 23rd Colloquim on Generative Grammar (Madrid)
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Presentation at: Going Romance 2012, KULeuven (December 2012)
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Presentation at: SLE 45th Annual Meeting (Stockholm)
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Presentation at: ConSOLE XX. University of Leipzig (January 2012)
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Presentation at: Going Romance XXV - Workshop on Syntactic Variation (Utrecht)
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Invited presentation at: Wedisyn's Second Workshop on Syntactic Variation, Barcelona (February 2011)
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Presentation at the XXXIX Simposio Internacional de la SEL, Santiago de Compostela (February 2010)
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Invited presentation at CSIC-Madrid (November 2010)
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Catalan, like Italian and French, displays (notwithstanding certain complications) a pattern in causatives under facere such that the causee can be realized as dative only where its complement is “transitive.” We propose an analysis of... more
Catalan, like Italian and French, displays (notwithstanding certain complications) a pattern in causatives under facere such that the causee can be realized as dative only where its complement is “transitive.” We propose an analysis of this pattern based on Cyclic Agree. On our approach, transitivity‐sensitive dative arises where a probe agrees with a DP that requires case licensing, having previously probed (potentially defectively) a closer XP of any kind. Downward Cyclic Agree is possible, in this context, because neither goal c‐commands the other, which makes them both visible to a single higher probe. This model captures the basic transitivity‐sensitive pattern and the Strict Person–Case Constraint effects observed in this domain as well as the fact that dative is triggered not only by DPs requiring structural/dependent case but also by “defective interveners” (PPs, CPs, case‐marked DPs/clitics). We show that this Agree‐based account has potential advantages over competing dependent‐case approaches.
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Research Interests: History, Linguistics, Romance Languages, Romance, Catalan, and 4 moreLocative Case, Clitic, Aside, and Springer Ebooks
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This debate stems from Michal Starke’s keynote lecture at NELS 51, entitled “UM. Universal Morphology”. The video can be found at this link: https://michal.starke.ch/talks/2020-11_nels/nels_starke.mp4. In his talk, Starke... more
This debate stems from Michal Starke’s keynote lecture at NELS 51, entitled “UM. Universal Morphology”. The video can be found at this link: https://michal.starke.ch/talks/2020-11_nels/nels_starke.mp4. In his talk, Starke sketches a nanosyntactic analysis of French irregular verbs, with the aim of showing that irregularities in French verbal paradigms (and in general) are only apparent. We asked some prominent morphologists and morpho-syntacticians to comment on and provide replies to Starke’s proposal and arguments. Subsequently, the author wrote a reply to these comments. You can find them all here. We wish to thank the NELS 51 organizing committee for allowing us to use the talk as a starting point for the debate, Michal Starke for his availability, and the linguists who agreed to engage in this interesting and fruitful exchange. This keynote debate celebrates the first year of the new Isogloss, in the hope of having more occasions ...
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Research Interests: Philosophy and Clitic
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En aquest treball analitzem l’acusatiu preposicional del català tant des del punt de vista de l’evolució diacrònica del fenomen com des de la perspectiva de l’abast que presenta en el conjunt dels dialectes catalans avui dia. Primer, a... more
En aquest treball analitzem l’acusatiu preposicional del català tant des del punt de vista de l’evolució diacrònica del fenomen com des de la perspectiva de l’abast que presenta en el conjunt dels dialectes catalans avui dia. Primer, a partir d’un exhaustiu estudi de corpus de la llengua antiga hem constatat que el fenomen ja existia en la llengua medieval (amb pronoms personals, noms propis i SN), de manera que, en aquest sentit, pot considerar-se un fenomen genuí. Ara bé, les dades diacròniques indiquen també diàfanament que a partir del segle XVI, quan la influència de l’espanyol esdevé una realitat cada cop més severa, el percentatge d’ús de la preposició a davant de CD augmenta exponencialment. Si bé a inicis del segle XX la publicació de la normativa fabriana significà un abans i un després en l’aparició del fenomen en els textos escrits formals, el fet és que la comunitat catalanòfona no s’ha arribat a desprendre mai d’aquest recurs morfosintàctic, ans al contrari. Així ho co...
Research Interests: Humanities and Catalan
In this paper we present the Microvariació.cat initiative (www.microvariacio.cat), whose main goal is to identify, compile and systematically organise all the research done regarding Catalan syntax in order to design a website available... more
In this paper we present the Microvariació.cat initiative (www.microvariacio.cat), whose main goal is to identify, compile and systematically organise all the research done regarding Catalan syntax in order to design a website available to specialists and the general public. We reflect on the value of investigating the syntactic variation of languages and we prove how the Microvariació.cat initiative is the starting point for a major challenging study on the microsyntax of Catalan. We characterise the different aspects of the initiative and we describe the methodology followed to build up a database integrated by an exhaustive list of Catalan microvariation phenomena and a set of reference works on the different topics and areas listed.
This paper considers what happens when clause union meets restructuring by examining contexts where the causative FACERE verb takes a restructuring verb as its complement in Catalan, in comparison with French and Italian. We show that in... more
This paper considers what happens when clause union meets restructuring by examining contexts where the causative FACERE verb takes a restructuring verb as its complement in Catalan, in comparison with French and Italian. We show that in Catalan and Italian and to some degree also French, in such contexts, the case realisation of the causee as accusative/dative depends on the transitivity of the next clause down. We call this effect, first discussed by Burzio (1986) for Italian, ‘restructuring for transitivity’. We then move our attention to the interaction between restructuring for transitivity and other restructuring and clause union phenomena such as clitic climbing and se deletion, and discuss several theoretical challenges posed by these interactions.
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In this corpus study we make a first approach to different aspects of transitivity, understood as a phenomenon with multiple faces, in the texts corresponding to the beginning of Modern Catalan (17th century, with a especial emphasis on... more
In this corpus study we make a first approach to different aspects of transitivity, understood as a phenomenon with multiple faces, in the texts corresponding to the beginning of Modern Catalan (17th century, with a especial emphasis on the first half of the century). In particular, we deal with the case of several verbs showing an hesitating behaviour between the transitive and the intransitive use, and we undertake the study of this aspect from the point of view of differential object marking, since the alternations in these verbs may be confusing when analysing the pervasiveness of direct object introduced by a (see § 2). Next, also taking differential object marking as the reference point, we focus on the constructions that favour significantly the use of this marking in front of direct objects (see § 3). Finally, we briefly deal with some other interesting aspects of transitivity in the texts of the beginning of Modern Catalan, such as the use of unergative verbs in transitive ...
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This contribution aims at examining ditransitive constructions in Romance languages (especially Spanish and Catalan), and their interaction with dative clitic doubling. First, we show that the transposition of the so-called English dative... more
This contribution aims at examining ditransitive constructions in Romance languages (especially Spanish and Catalan), and their interaction with dative clitic doubling. First, we show that the transposition of the so-called English dative alternation, composed by the double object construction and the to-dative construction, onto Romance languages fails in a dramatic way if one wants to establish a parallelism between clitic doubled and non clitic doubled Romance ditransitives, as proposed for example for Spanish by Demonte (1995) and Cuervo (2003). An alternative approach to Romance ditransitives is proposed, where the absence or presence of clitic doubling boils down to the optional spell out of an applicative head. Finally, the discourse-related role of dative clitic doubling is further examined by analyzing the use of a singular dative clitic to double a plural IO, a phenomenon present in Spanish and Catalan, where the non-agreeing clitic seems to become a mere verbal affix.
In this paper we analyse several verbs in Romance languages which, both intralinguistically and cross-linguistically, are subject to a dative/accusative case alternation. We focus especially on Catalan, as well as Spanish, Asturian and... more
In this paper we analyse several verbs in Romance languages which, both intralinguistically and cross-linguistically, are subject to a dative/accusative case alternation. We focus especially on Catalan, as well as Spanish, Asturian and Italian varieties. Our main contribution has to do with the analysis of these alternations as an instance of Differential Indirect Object Marking, since these are indirect objects that, in addition to the dative, may appear in the accusative, and are thus differentially marked. The verbs in question are agentive verbs with a Goal-like complement, as well as psychological verbs with an Experiencer-like complement.
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EnglishIn Catalan, as well as in other Romance languages and Basque, there are several verbs which can take a dative- or accusative-marked complement of person, in Basque, a dative- or absolutive-marked one. This is the case of Catalan... more
EnglishIn Catalan, as well as in other Romance languages and Basque, there are several verbs which can take a dative- or accusative-marked complement of person, in Basque, a dative- or absolutive-marked one. This is the case of Catalan verbs trucar ‘phone’, telefonar ‘phone’, contestar ‘answer’, robar‘rob’, pagar ‘pay’, pegar ‘hit’ and disparar ‘shoot’, among others. This case alternation is indeed a transition from dative to accusative. We are dealing with a process of syntactic change which reflects different stages of evolution depending on the dialectal or even idiolectal variety. In order to analyse this alternation, or this change from dative to accusative, we assume the idea that an unergative intransitive verb such as trucar (made up of a light verb and a nominal, as in fertruc ‘make a phone call’) followed by a comple-ment denoting person actually corresponds to a ditransitive structure, this is to say, a structure with a direct and an indirect object (fertruca algu ‘make a...
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Research Interests: Philosophy and Romance
Resum: Els estudis sobre la variació dialectal del català presenten una descompensació evident, en el sentit que a l'àmbit sintàctic no s'hi han dedicat obres ni projectes específics. Per això, en aquest article ens plantegem dos... more
Resum: Els estudis sobre la variació dialectal del català presenten una descompensació evident, en el sentit que a l'àmbit sintàctic no s'hi han dedicat obres ni projectes específics. Per això, en aquest article ens plantegem dos objectius. D'una banda, determinem en quin punt es troba l'estudi de la variació sintàctica del català. Constatem que-tot i que s'han fet generalitzacions descriptives de les propietats generals de la llengua, i se n'han estudiat algunes variants sintàctiques-és encara un territori per explorar. De l'altra, repassem el valor triple de l'estudi d'aquesta parcel·la de la gramàtica: (i) la detecció d'isoglosses sintàctiques, (ii) la comparació tipològica de dades dialectals sintàctiques, i (iii) la repercussió en la codificació. Exemplifiquem aquests interessos a través de la prospecció de dos casos: les alternances de cas acusatiu/datiu i l'expressió de la polaritat emfàtica. En síntesi, plantegem un estat de la qüe...
The focus of this paper is a generally ignored counterexample to animacy/person scales (Hale 1972, Silverstein 1976, Aissen 2003, a.o.), which are often assumed to be universal (Kiparsky 2008, a.o.). Drawing from Old Romance differential... more
The focus of this paper is a generally ignored counterexample to animacy/person scales (Hale 1972, Silverstein 1976, Aissen 2003, a.o.), which are often assumed to be universal (Kiparsky 2008, a.o.). Drawing from Old Romance differential object marking data, we analyze a scale reversal setting in Old Catalan and Old Romanian. The puzzle is that 3rd person pronouns surface with differential object marking to the exclusion of 1st and 2nd persons, contrary to what the scales would predict. We propose to derive these patterns by examining i) micro-parameters in the composition of Romance DPs and pronouns; ii) the presence of more than one licensing strategy for arguments. The scale reversal results from the introduction of a novel argument licensing strategy based on animacy in languages where an older strategy for 1st/ 2nd persons was still active.
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espanolEn este articulo se presenta el ASinEs, una aplicacion con formato de atlas dedicada al estudio sincronico de la variacion sintactica de los geolectos del espanol. Este proyecto es innovador, ya que no existe ningun atlas dedicado... more
espanolEn este articulo se presenta el ASinEs, una aplicacion con formato de atlas dedicada al estudio sincronico de la variacion sintactica de los geolectos del espanol. Este proyecto es innovador, ya que no existe ningun atlas dedicado exclusivamente a investigar la variacion geolectal de la sintaxis de esta lengua. La versatilidad del ASinEs permite tambien el estudio de geolectos de otros estadios del espanol, asi como los de otras lenguas con las que esta actualmente en contacto. Todo ello proporciona una potente herramienta para la investigacion en el campo de la variacion de las lenguas romanicas y no romanicas (vasco, ingles, lenguas amerindias, etc.).El desarrollo de este proyecto cuenta con la colaboracion del Centre de Linguistica Teorica (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona), el Centro IKER con sede en Bayona (Francia) y la Real Academia Espanola. EnglishThis paper introduces the ASinEs1, an atlas-based application devoted to the study of the syntactic variation of Spanish...
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This book offers a comprehensive account of dative structures across languages –with an important, though not exclusive, focus on the Romance family. As is well-known, datives play a central role in a variety of structures, ranging from... more
This book offers a comprehensive account of dative structures across languages –with an important, though not exclusive, focus on the Romance family. As is well-known, datives play a central role in a variety of structures, ranging from ditransitive constructions to cliticization of indirect objects and differentially marked direct objects, and including also psychological predicates, possessor or causative constructions, among many others. As interest in all these topics has increased significantly over the past three decades, this volume provides an overdue update on the state of the art. Accordingly, the chapters in this volume account for both widely discussed patterns of dative constructions as well as those that are relatively unknown.
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In this paper we analyse several verbs in Romance languages which, both intralinguistically and cross-linguistically, are subject to a dative/accusative case alternation. We focus especially on Catalan, as well as Spanish, Asturian and... more
In this paper we analyse several verbs in Romance languages which, both intralinguistically and cross-linguistically, are subject to a dative/accusative case alternation. We focus especially on Catalan, as well as Spanish, Asturian and Italian varieties. Our main contribution has to do with the analysis of these alternations as an instance of Differential Indirect Object Marking, since these are indirect objects that, in addition to the dative, may appear in the accusative, and are thus differentially marked. The verbs in question are agentive verbs with a Goal-like complement, as well as psychological verbs with an Experiencer-like complement.
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This paper addresses a generally ignored counterexample to the Scales, comparing Old Catalan and Old Romanian on the one hand to Old Spanish on the other hand. Contrary to widely assumed marking hierarchies, Old Catalan/Old Romanian 3rd... more
This paper addresses a generally ignored counterexample to the Scales, comparing Old Catalan and Old Romanian on the one hand to Old Spanish on the other hand. Contrary to widely assumed marking hierarchies, Old Catalan/Old Romanian 3rd person pronouns show differential object marking, to the exclusion of or to a higher degree than 1st/2nd persons. We propose these patterns can be straightforwardly derived once we pin down micro-parameters in the composition of Romance DPs and the consequences various types of perspectival/sentience features have on the syntactic licensing of arguments.
En aquest estudi de corpus hem volgut fer una primera aproximació a diversos aspectes de la transitivitat, entesa com a fenomen amb diversos vessants, en els textos corresponents a l’inici del català modern (segle XVII, amb un èmfasi... more
En aquest estudi de corpus hem volgut fer una primera aproximació a diversos aspectes de la transitivitat, entesa com a fenomen amb diversos vessants, en els textos corresponents a l’inici del català modern (segle XVII, amb un èmfasi especial en la primera meitat de segle). Hem tractat, concretament, el cas de diversos verbs que presenten un comportament vacil·lant entre l’ús transitiu i l’ús intransitiu, i ens hem acostat a aquest fenomen des del vessant del marcatge diferencial d’objecte, atès que aquest règim vacil·lant és un factor que pot crear confusió a l’hora d’analitzar l’extensió dels objectes directes introduïts per a (v. § 2). A continuació, i encara mantenint el marcatge diferencial d’objecte com a punt de referència, ens hem fixat en les diverses construccions que afavoreixen notablement l’ús d’aquest marcatge davant dels objectes directes (v. § 3). Per acabar, hem tractat de manera succinta altres aspectes interessants de la transitivitat en els textos dels inicis del...
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This contribution aims to study a phenomenon which has recently emerged in Catalan and which seems to contradict the foundations of referential cohesion. It is a phenomenon parallel to what in the Spanish linguistic tradition has been... more
This contribution aims to study a phenomenon which has recently emerged in Catalan and which seems to contradict the foundations of referential cohesion. It is a phenomenon parallel to what in the Spanish linguistic tradition has been dubbed le-for-les, that is to say, the use of a singular dative clitic when doubling a plural indirect object, as in Li[sg.] he donat el llibre als nens[pl.] ‘I have given the book to the kids’. I will show that this phenomenon, which is more and more present in Valencian varieties as well as in the Catalan spoken in the area of Barcelona, can be accounted for as an instance of depronominalization of the dative clitic pronoun, as a result of the generalization of dative clitic doubling which has occurred, precisely, in the mentioned varieties. As doubling becomes systematic, li looses its status of anaphoric pronoun and, deprived of any trace of agreement, it becomes just a grammatical marker in the verb, a sort of verbal affix whose sole function is t...
Grammaticalization across Romance languages and the pace of language change. The position of Catalan. In several works on grammaticalization, one of the authors of this paper has established a grammaticalization cline which posits three... more
Grammaticalization across Romance languages and the pace of language change. The position of Catalan. In several works on grammaticalization, one of the authors of this paper has established a grammaticalization cline which posits three major Romance languages: French at one extreme, Spanish at the other, and Italian in between (Lamiroy, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2011, Lamiroy & De Mulder, 2011, De Mulder & Lamiroy, 2012, Van de Velde & Lamiroy, 2017). Our purpose is to place Catalan on this cline. To achieve our goal, we use data of Catalan related to several topics, viz. auxiliaries, past tense, existential sentences, mood and demonstratives. Catalan shows contradictory evidence: whereas the grammaticalization process in certain domains suggests that it parallels Spanish and Italian, in many others, it patterns with French. Thus the hypothesis for which we provide evidence here is the following cline : French > Catalan > Italian > Spanish.