Le-predicates and argument structure in Mexican Spanish Ía

Le-predicates and argument structure in Mexican Spanish
Ía Navarro Ibarra
In this talk I will present a process of complex predicate formation in Mexican Spanish
that consists in combining a non-referential le clitic form and a verbal base (cf. (1)a-c). I
will focus on the syntactic and semantic properties of the lexical structure of the verbal
bases. The goal of the talk is to identify the relevant components of the argument
structure that are involved in the complex predicate formation and to formally account
for the complex predicate composition.
(1) a. ¿Le cierro a la puerta? Es que entra mucho aire.
LE close at the door.OBL Is that enter much wind.
“Do I close-le at the door? There is a lot of wind coming in.”
b. Todavía hay
que caminarle un rato.
Yet
there-is that to-walkLE a while.
“We still must walk-le for a while.”
c. Este fin
que viene sí
le salimos.
This week-end that comes AFIRM LE go-out.
“Next weekend we do go out-le.”
My analysis is built on following assumptions: (i) both the configurational semantics
(i.e. l(exico)-syntactic structure) and the non-configurational semantics (i.e. the
semantic conceptual values associated whit the l-syntactic projections) are the
significant elements that define the grammatical meaning of the verbs (Mateu 2002). (ii)
The le clitic has grammaticalized a non-referential abstract goal and some agentive
implications that are typically associated with the Dative (Company Company 2006
inter alia). (iii) The use of le in complex predicates results from two bleaching
processes: weakening of argument status and weakening of pronominal status (Torres
Cacoullos 2002).
The following points are central in this analysis:
a) Following Cuervo (2003), we affirm that as a consequence of (ii) and (iii) the
syntactic status of le changes to that of a defective High Applicative Head. This head
introduce a function that relates the denotation of le (i.e. the non-referential abstract
goal and the presupposition of an agent) with an event denoted by a VP.
b) Complex predicates with le are formed when the clitic head takes a VP as its
complement and introduces an event modification by means of a semantic composition
process based on pseudo-incorporation (cf. Dayal 2003, Espinal & McNally 2007).
c) Complex predicates with le denote agentive and intransitive activities, even if the
verbal base is transitive or unaccusative.
I will argue that this because the highest verbal node in the syntactic structure, which is
the complement of the clitic ApplP, must have a semantic component compatible with
the denotation of activities and with an abstract goal inference (This structure is
represented in (2)).
(2) Syntactic structure of complex predicates with le.
VoiceP
DP
Voice
HApplP(defective)
le
VP
References
Company Company, C. (2006); “El objeto indirecto”; in Sintaxis histórica de la lengua
española, Vol 1: 479-573; UNAM, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico.
Cuervo, C. (2003); Datives at Large, PhD Diss, MIT.
Dayal, V. (2003); “A Semantics for Pseudo-Incorporation”, Rutgers University Ms.
Espinal, M.T. & McNally, L. (2007) “Bare singular nominals and incorporating verbs”;
In G. Kaiser & M. Leonetti (eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop. Definiteness,
specificity and animacy in Ibero-Romance Languages. Arbeitspapier, 122: 4562. Fachbereich prachwissenschaft. Konstanz: Universität Konstanz.
Mateu, J. (2002); Argument Structure. Relational Construal at the Syntax-Semantics
Interface; PhD Diss, UAB, Bellaterra.
Torres Cacoullos, R. (2002); A trabajarle: From pronoun to verbal intensifier.
Linguistics 40:2.285-318.