Josep Alba-Salas | College of the Holy Cross (original) (raw)

Papers by Josep Alba-Salas

Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 2017

This article examines the historical evolution of certain collocations with

Revista de Filología Española

Partiendo de un trabajo anterior sobre el origen de las colocaciones tipo caerle/venirle/entrarle... more Partiendo de un trabajo anterior sobre el origen de las colocaciones tipo caerle/venirle/entrarle en N‘agrado’ y su expansión en el Bajo Medievo y principios del Renacimiento, se examina la lexicalización y caída en desuso de estas estructuras a partir del Siglo de Oro. La pérdida de este patrón colocacional, que solo ha dejado vestigios como caerle en gracia, conllevó dos cambios relacionados que se discuten dentro del modelo construccionista diacrónico de Traugott y Trousdale: la construccionalización léxica y la obsolescencia de un subesquema construccional.

Boletín de Filología de la Universidad de Chile, 2019

Collocations of the type venirle en voluntad, a constructional pattern that seemed to be producti... more Collocations of the type venirle en voluntad, a constructional pattern that seemed to be productive in the Middle Ages, fell out of use and became lexicalized in the Golden Age, leaving behind only fossilized relics such as venirle en gana(s). The loss of this pattern involved two related changes that are discussed within Traugott and Trousdale’s (2013) diachronic model: the obsolescence and lexical constructionalization of a constructional subschema.

Scriptum Digital, 2019

RESUMEN Siguendo el modelo construccionista diacrónico de Traugott y Trousdale (2013), nuestro es... more RESUMEN Siguendo el modelo construccionista diacrónico de Traugott y Trousdale (2013), nuestro estudio de corpus investiga el origen y la expansión de la estructura caerle/venirle/(entrarle) en + nombre de 'agrado', que solo nos ha dejado vestigios lexicalizados. Estas expresiones, atestiguadas desde el Cid, constituyen un subesquema construccional formado por construccionalización a partir de la amalgama de dos Construcciones con antecedentes en el latín clásico. Su expansión tanto en tipos como en ocurrencias y por diferentes tradiciones discursivas entre finales del Medievo y principios del Renacimiento parece reflejar las tendencias latinizantes de la época y la influencia de otras lenguas romances. PALABRAS CLAVE: colocaciones, verbos de movimiento, Gramática de Construcciones, español diacrónico, tradiciones discursivas CAERLE/VENIRLE/(ENTRARLE) EN N 'LIKING' : ON THE ORIGIN AND EXPANSION OF AN OBSOLETE CONSTRUCIONAL SUBSCHEMA ABSTRACT Following Traugott and Trousdale's (2013) constructionist diachronic model, this corpus study examines the origin and expansion of the structure caerle/venirle/(entrarle) en + noun of 'liking', which has only left behind a few lexicalized remnants. These expressions, attested since the Cantar del mio Cid, constitute a constructional subschema that appeared via constructionalization from the amalgam of two Constructions whose origins go back to Classical Latin. Their expansion both in types and tokens and across different discourse traditions between the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance seems to reflect the latinizing trends of the period and the influence of other Romance languages.

La corónica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, 2004

Se examina la evolución histórica de ciertas colocaciones con venir que hoy incluyen un experimen... more Se examina la evolución histórica de ciertas colocaciones con venir que hoy incluyen un experimentador dativo (p. ej. venirle vergüenza), pero que en periodos anteriores también permitían un experimentador sujeto (venir en/a vergüenza) o locativo (venir vergüenza en alguien). El estudio de corpus revela que el dativo predominaba ya desde el XIII; el esquema locativo y de sujeto, preferido solo por algunos nombres, fue desapareciendo a partir del XVII. Estos cambios se atribuyen a las propiedades léxicas de venir y –al igual que en las colocaciones con entrar estudiadas en Alba-Salas (por aparecer) – al triunfo generalizado del experimentador dativo en las construcciones del español que designan procesos físicos o mentales involuntarios.

This study examines the historical evolution of three types of Spanish collocations formed with e... more This study examines the historical evolution of three types of Spanish collocations formed with entrar and state nouns: with dative experiencers (e.g. le entró temor), with subject experiencers (e.g. el caballero entró en temor), and with locative experiencers (e.g. entró temor en él). The locative construction, which predominated initially, was eclipsed by the subject structure in the 1600s, but datives prevail since the 1800s. This evolution follows from other, more general changes in Spanish, particularly the victory of dative experiencers in constructions indicating involuntary physical or mental processes.

Romanische Forschungen , 2013

Este estudio diacrónico explora el uso de cobrar en estructuras tipo cobrar importancia o cobrarl... more Este estudio diacrónico explora el uso de cobrar en estructuras tipo cobrar importancia o cobrarle afecto a alguien, donde cobrar aparecía (en periodos anteriores de la lengua) tanto con su sentido incoativo moderno de ‘adquirir’ como con su acepción reiterativa original de ‘recobrar’ o ‘recuperar’. El sentido reiterativo, documentado desde los primeros textos, predomina en el Medievo, pero a partir del XVI se impone la acepción de ‘adquirir’, que había ido generalizándose por difusión léxica desde su aparición dos siglos antes. En el XVIII el cobrar reiterativo deja de ser productivo y es sustituido por recobrar, mientras que el cobrar incoativo empieza a ceder terreno ante otros verbos. Estos cambios se inscriben dentro de un proceso de realineamiento paradigmático asociado no sólo con otros cambios importantes en la semántica léxica de cobrar, sino también con varios factores sociolingüísticos que afectaron el español del Siglo de Oro.

Scriptum Digital, 2013

This study examines the historical use of cobrar (both in its modern inchoative sense of ‘gaining... more This study examines the historical use of cobrar (both in its modern inchoative sense of ‘gaining’ and its original reiterative meaning of ‘regaining’) with nouns designating negative states or qualities (e. g. cobrar miedo/pesar), a possibility that no longer exists. While reiterative cobrar seemed to be incompatible with negative nouns, inchoative cobrar is documented with such nouns since the 1300s. Apparently, collocations of the type cobrar miedo represent an ephemeral extension of the more established use of cobrar with positive and neutral nouns (e. g. cobrar cariño/fuerza), since they spread between the 1400s and 1500s but gradually disappeared starting in the 1600s, presumably as a result of the extremely low productivity of cobrar with negative nouns, its general decline as an inchoative collocate, and increased competition from other verbs. Together with previous diachronic studies, this paper contributes to the recent debate on the directionality of lexical and semantic selection in collocations.

Romance Philology, 2012

Using data from the Corpus del español, this study traces the historical evolution of inchoative ... more Using data from the Corpus del español, this study traces the historical evolution of inchoative collocations of the type me dan celos ‘I get jealous’, which are synchronically related to a different type of collocations with dar ‘give’ (i.e., causative structures such as Luis me da celos ‘Luis makes me jealous’) through a productive alternation. The goal was not only to study the use of dar in the inchoative collocations, but also to determine whether in earlier periods such structures could also be formed with hacer ‘make’, since this verb competed with dar in the related causative collocations in Old Spanish. The results suggest that inchoative collocations with dar developed from their causative counterparts in the 1400s or 1500s through reanalysis and that this innovation spread through lexical diffusion. Unlike dar, hacer did not establish itself in inchoative collocations with state nouns because it had ceased to be productive as a causative collocate when reanalysis would have yielded new inchoative uses on a par with those of dar. The study confirms Alba-Salas’ (2007, 2009) claim that (i) collocations are subject to systematic processes of language change, and (ii) Spanish collocations have undergone a process of realignment and simplification unparalleled in other Romance languages.

Revista de Historia de la Lengua Española, 2012

This corpus study examines the historical rivalry between tomar and prender in inchoative colloca... more This corpus study examines the historical rivalry between tomar and prender in inchoative collocations with state nouns (e.g. tomarle miedo). Tomar clearly predominated in our structures since the 1200s, but after completely displacing prender in the 1400s, its frequency decreased considerably. While the initial rise of tomar apparently involves a case of lexical diffusion that could have contributed to the substitution of prender in other contexts, the subsequent decline of tomar seems to be the result of a general realignment of inchoative collocations with state nouns after the 1500s.

Lenguaje, 2011

This corpus study analyzes the use of three Spanish verbs meaning ‘to recover’ (recobrar, recuper... more This corpus study analyzes the use of three Spanish verbs meaning ‘to recover’ (recobrar, recuperar and –in earlier stages of the language– cobrar) with state and quality nouns (e.g. fuerza ‘strength’ and importancia ‘importance’) from the 1200s to the present day. The results show that cobrar –which predominated in Medieval Spanish– was replaced by recobrar in the 1700s, but recuperar became the most frequent verb from the 1900s. These changes apparently spread through lexical diffusion, culminating a process of lexical and paradigmatic realignment that affected not only the structures under consideration, but also other uses of cobrar, recobrar and recuperar.

Diachronica: International Journal for Historical Linguistics , 2007

This paper seeks to shed light on the diachronic evolution of collocations by studying Modern Spa... more This paper seeks to shed light on the diachronic evolution of collocations by studying Modern Spanish structures formed with dar “give” plus state nouns (e.g. dar miedo “frighten”, literally, “give fear”). Using the Corpus del español, I offer a quantitative and qualitative analysis of eighteen representative dar miedo-type collocations from the 1200s to the 1900s. The results show that although the basic properties of dar miedo-type structures have remained remarkably stable over the centuries, during the Middle Ages the verb hacer “make” was used here almost as often as dar –a competition apparently inherited from Latin. While different nouns show different patterns of loss of hacer, echoing the lexical diffusion of certain grammatical changes, the 1500s saw a very sharp decline in “make” cases across the board, leading to its complete disappearance from this context by the 1800s. The loss of hacer lead to a radical simplification of the collocational properties of state nouns in Spanish vis-à-vis Latin and other Modern Romance varieties. This process resulted both from language-internal factors mostly related to the lexical semantics of dar and hacer and from three key sociolinguistic processes in 16th-century Spanish: koineization, change of norm and increased standardization.

Este capítulo presenta una panorámica del estudio de la adquisición del español como segunda leng... more Este capítulo presenta una panorámica del estudio de la adquisición del español como segunda lengua. Primero ofrecemos una introducción general al campo de la adquisición de segundas lenguas. A continuación discutimos tres enfoques (generativo, cognitivo-funcional y sociocultural) que han guiado gran parte de la investigación en dicho campo, sobre todo en español. Después repasamos las áreas de investigación y los hallazgos empíricos más importantes en el estudio de la adquisición del español como segunda lengua, incluyendo la pronunciación, el tiempo y aspecto, el subjuntivo, los sujetos nulos, los pronombres clíticos, el sintagma nominal, el léxico, la estructura argumental y la pragmática. Como veremos a lo largo del capítulo, el estudio del aprendizaje del español como segunda lengua ha experimentado un auge espectacular en los últimos veinte años, con una expansión gradual de métodos, enfoques y áreas de investigación, pero todavía quedan bastantes preguntas por contestar.

SKY Journal of Linguistics, 2006

This article examines subject control into nominals, i.e. cases where a verb’s subject controls t... more This article examines subject control into nominals, i.e. cases where a verb’s subject controls the highest argument of an event noun in complement position. Building upon Jackendoff and Culicover’s (2005) Simpler Syntax framework and their analysis of control, I argue that cases of obligatory control into nominals in Spanish, Catalan and Italian, unlike cases of apparent non-obligatory control, involve a formal control relationship on a par with control into infinitivals and gerunds. Unlike non-obligatory control verbs, verbs that show obligatory subject control into nominals license an event complement linked to the noun predicate, binding its highest argument in Conceptual Structure. The analysis provides a descriptive typology and a formal analysis of each verb class, explaining some puzzling properties of verb + event noun structures. Moreover, the analysis supports Jackendoff and Culicover’s claim that predicates selecting voluntary action complements show obligatory control, but that there are other sources of obligatory control.

SKY Journal of Linguistics, 2004

This paper argues for the existence of lexically selected expletives, i.e. semantically vacuous e... more This paper argues for the existence of lexically selected expletives, i.e. semantically vacuous elements subcategorized for by a predicate. It draws primarily on evidence from weather expressions in Basque and Italian, but it also uses independent evidence from Spanish existential haber 'there is/are' and French falloir 'be necessary' structures. These constructions are problematic for an analysis based on either quasi-arguments (Chomsky 1981) or 'traditional' (i.e. non-subcategorized) dummies, but they are amenable to an account with lexically selected expletives. Besides offering a unified analysis of seemingly unrelated phenomena, the proposal developed here yields a parsimonious theory of expletives. Moreover, the account provides additional evidence for Postal and Pullum's (1988) claim that dummies can appear in strictly subcategorized positions, challenging the traditional assumption that syntactic licensing is necessarily concomitant with semantic role assignment.