Anna Pineda | Universitat de Barcelona (original) (raw)
Books by Anna Pineda
![Research paper thumbnail of Les fronteres de la (in)transitivitat. Estudi dels aplicatius en llengües romàniques i basc [(In)transitivity borders. A study of applicatives in Romance languages and Basque] [published and revised version of the PhD dissertation]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/47046677/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Versió publicada i revisada (2016) de la meva tesi doctoral, (defensada el 2014). Published and ... more 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).
![Research paper thumbnail of Basc per a catalanoparlants (O de com dues llengües tan diferents s'assemblen tant) [with Beatriz Fernández]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/50764764/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Si heu obert aquest llibre per qualsevol pàgina, ja us deveu haver adonat que, de fet, no es trac... 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.
Journal articles by Anna Pineda
An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 2024
This article presents a comprehensive description of auxiliary selection in Catalan. Specifically... more This article presents a comprehensive description of auxiliary selection in Catalan. Specifically, after explaining how the phenomenon worked in Old Catalan, we show what are the factors (such as the event/argument structure or the grammatical person, among others) that determine the use of BE and HAVE in those Catalan varieties that, although with some innovations, retain this distinction: (i) Algherese Catalan, (ii) Northern Catalan and some varieties of Central Catalan, (iii) Ribagorçan Catalan, and (iv) Balearic Catalan. Likewise, we show a series of theoretical considerations that we believe are relevant for the analysis of the patterns of variation found in Catalan and, by extension, in Romance.
Caplletra, 2023
En aquest treball analitzem l’acusatiu preposicional del català tant des del punt de vista de l’e... 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.
Linguistic Variation, 2021
The last two decades have seen much attention paid to the structure of the adpositional phrase (P... more The last two decades have seen much attention paid to the structure of the adpositional phrase (PP) in theoretical morphosyntax. Indeed, since at least Koopman's (1993/2000) seminal work on the structure of the Dutch PP, drawing on previous ideas by Jackendoff (1983), Generative Grammar left behind the era in which adpositions were characterised only by negative categorial features (Chomsky 1970), or were treated solely at the level of argument structure (Jackendoff 1983, Hale & Keyser 1993, 2002, Baker 1996). Thus, nowadays, the PP, or rather the pP, is standardly considered a distinguished member of the class of functional hierarchies (Cinque & Rizzi 2010) and counts among the categories associated with an external argument introducing head (Svenonius 2003; although see seminal ideas in Koopman 1993, apud Baker 1996). On the semantic side, works such as Zwarts & Winter (2000) and Zwarts (2005) have provided accurate tools to handle the semantics of the most prominent class of adpositions, namely those of spatial meaning. Finally, with respect to cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal variation related to adpositions, one issue in particular has been extensively dealt with, namely the kind of variation claimed to be responsible for Talmy's (2000) wellknown satellite-/verb-framed typology (see Acedo-Matellán & Mateu 2015 and Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2019 for recent overviews). Nevertheless, there is still much to explore in relation to this poor little sister in the family of lexical categories. This volume aims to offer a window into some of the P-explorations that are currently underway by presenting papers that provide new insights, from a formal perspective, into the structure of the PP and how it varies cross-linguistically. Variation, in fact, informs the whole volume. Languages as distant from each other as Latin and Pazar Laz are investigated alongside microvariationist studies and studies probing the micro-differences among
Journal of Historical Syntax, 2021
The focus of this paper is a generally ignored counterexample to animacy/person scales (Hale 1972... 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.
Linguistic Variation, 2021
In this paper we provide a comprehensive picture of differential object marking in Catalan, focus... 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...
Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 2020
This paper deals with a group of agentive verbs in Eastern dialects of Basque that show mixed une... 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.
Scriptum Digital, 2020
RESUMEN La existencia del marcaje diferencial de objeto (MDO) es un fenómeno bien conocido en muc... 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.
Syntax, 2020
This article presents empirical and theoretical arguments that challenge several received ideas r... 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.
ReGroc. Revista de Gramática Orientada a las Competencias, 2020
ENGLISH BELOW Aquest article presenta l’experiència de Gramàtica comparada a l’aula, que constitu... 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.
Probus. International Journal of Romance Linguistics, 2020
In several Romance languages, including Catalan, Spanish, Asturian and Neapolitan, several verbs ... 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.
Caplletra. Revista internacional de Filologia, 2019
In this corpus study we make a first approach to different aspects of transitivity, understood as... 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).
Linguisticæ Investigationes, 2020
This special issue aims at disentangling an intriguing fact regarding datives, which is cross-lin... more This special issue aims at disentangling an intriguing fact regarding datives, which is cross-linguistically robust but yet extremely puzzling. We are referring to the use of dative morphology to signal certain classes of structural (direct) objects, normally including animates, specifics, definites, or a combination thereof (
Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, 2019
This contribution aims at examining ditransitive constructions in Romance languages (especially S... 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.
eHumanista/IVITRA, 2018
This paper focuses on the study of differential object marking at the beginning of Modern Catalan... 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.
Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, 2018
In this paper we present the Microvariació.cat initiative (www.microvariacio.cat), whose main goa... 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.
![Research paper thumbnail of Pineda (2018) "Li-per-els[i]"o la despronominalització del clític datiu en català: un fenomen incipient (journal Quaderns de Filologia-Estudis lingüístics)](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/58286950/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Quaderns de Filologia-Estudis lingüístics (Special Issue: «Els mecanismes de referència en la interfície gramàtica-discurs. Cohesió, coherència i cognició»), 2018
This contribution aims to study a phenomenon which has recently emerged in Catalan and which seem... 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.
Lingvisticae Investigationes, 2017
In several works on grammaticalization, one of the authors of this paper has established a gramma... 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.
Revue roumaine de linguistique, 2017
In this paper we analyse several verbs in Romance languages which, both intralinguistically and c... 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.
Versió publicada i revisada (2016) de la meva tesi doctoral, (defensada el 2014). Published and ... more 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).
Si heu obert aquest llibre per qualsevol pàgina, ja us deveu haver adonat que, de fet, no es trac... 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.
An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 2024
This article presents a comprehensive description of auxiliary selection in Catalan. Specifically... more This article presents a comprehensive description of auxiliary selection in Catalan. Specifically, after explaining how the phenomenon worked in Old Catalan, we show what are the factors (such as the event/argument structure or the grammatical person, among others) that determine the use of BE and HAVE in those Catalan varieties that, although with some innovations, retain this distinction: (i) Algherese Catalan, (ii) Northern Catalan and some varieties of Central Catalan, (iii) Ribagorçan Catalan, and (iv) Balearic Catalan. Likewise, we show a series of theoretical considerations that we believe are relevant for the analysis of the patterns of variation found in Catalan and, by extension, in Romance.
Caplletra, 2023
En aquest treball analitzem l’acusatiu preposicional del català tant des del punt de vista de l’e... 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.
Linguistic Variation, 2021
The last two decades have seen much attention paid to the structure of the adpositional phrase (P... more The last two decades have seen much attention paid to the structure of the adpositional phrase (PP) in theoretical morphosyntax. Indeed, since at least Koopman's (1993/2000) seminal work on the structure of the Dutch PP, drawing on previous ideas by Jackendoff (1983), Generative Grammar left behind the era in which adpositions were characterised only by negative categorial features (Chomsky 1970), or were treated solely at the level of argument structure (Jackendoff 1983, Hale & Keyser 1993, 2002, Baker 1996). Thus, nowadays, the PP, or rather the pP, is standardly considered a distinguished member of the class of functional hierarchies (Cinque & Rizzi 2010) and counts among the categories associated with an external argument introducing head (Svenonius 2003; although see seminal ideas in Koopman 1993, apud Baker 1996). On the semantic side, works such as Zwarts & Winter (2000) and Zwarts (2005) have provided accurate tools to handle the semantics of the most prominent class of adpositions, namely those of spatial meaning. Finally, with respect to cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal variation related to adpositions, one issue in particular has been extensively dealt with, namely the kind of variation claimed to be responsible for Talmy's (2000) wellknown satellite-/verb-framed typology (see Acedo-Matellán & Mateu 2015 and Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2019 for recent overviews). Nevertheless, there is still much to explore in relation to this poor little sister in the family of lexical categories. This volume aims to offer a window into some of the P-explorations that are currently underway by presenting papers that provide new insights, from a formal perspective, into the structure of the PP and how it varies cross-linguistically. Variation, in fact, informs the whole volume. Languages as distant from each other as Latin and Pazar Laz are investigated alongside microvariationist studies and studies probing the micro-differences among
Journal of Historical Syntax, 2021
The focus of this paper is a generally ignored counterexample to animacy/person scales (Hale 1972... 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.
Linguistic Variation, 2021
In this paper we provide a comprehensive picture of differential object marking in Catalan, focus... 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...
Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 2020
This paper deals with a group of agentive verbs in Eastern dialects of Basque that show mixed une... 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.
Scriptum Digital, 2020
RESUMEN La existencia del marcaje diferencial de objeto (MDO) es un fenómeno bien conocido en muc... 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.
Syntax, 2020
This article presents empirical and theoretical arguments that challenge several received ideas r... 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.
ReGroc. Revista de Gramática Orientada a las Competencias, 2020
ENGLISH BELOW Aquest article presenta l’experiència de Gramàtica comparada a l’aula, que constitu... 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.
Probus. International Journal of Romance Linguistics, 2020
In several Romance languages, including Catalan, Spanish, Asturian and Neapolitan, several verbs ... 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.
Caplletra. Revista internacional de Filologia, 2019
In this corpus study we make a first approach to different aspects of transitivity, understood as... 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).
Linguisticæ Investigationes, 2020
This special issue aims at disentangling an intriguing fact regarding datives, which is cross-lin... more This special issue aims at disentangling an intriguing fact regarding datives, which is cross-linguistically robust but yet extremely puzzling. We are referring to the use of dative morphology to signal certain classes of structural (direct) objects, normally including animates, specifics, definites, or a combination thereof (
Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, 2019
This contribution aims at examining ditransitive constructions in Romance languages (especially S... 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.
eHumanista/IVITRA, 2018
This paper focuses on the study of differential object marking at the beginning of Modern Catalan... 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.
Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, 2018
In this paper we present the Microvariació.cat initiative (www.microvariacio.cat), whose main goa... 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.
Quaderns de Filologia-Estudis lingüístics (Special Issue: «Els mecanismes de referència en la interfície gramàtica-discurs. Cohesió, coherència i cognició»), 2018
This contribution aims to study a phenomenon which has recently emerged in Catalan and which seem... 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.
Lingvisticae Investigationes, 2017
In several works on grammaticalization, one of the authors of this paper has established a gramma... 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.
Revue roumaine de linguistique, 2017
In this paper we analyse several verbs in Romance languages which, both intralinguistically and c... 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.
Artikulu honetan katalanaren bariazio sintaktikoa izango dugu hizpide. Katalanaren dialektoen des... 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.
Llengua & Literatura: revista anual de la Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura, 2015
in: Llengua & Literatura: revista anual de la Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura
Differential Object Marking in Romance - The third wave, ed. by Johannes Kabatek, Philipp Obrist & Albert Wall. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021
The existence of Differential Object Marking (DOM) is well-established in a number of Romance lan... 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.
Unraveling the complexity of the SE clitic, 2021
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the use of se with directed motion verbs in several Roman... 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.
De llengua i societat: De la proposta fabriana a la reforma normativa de l'IEC. Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. 211-222. ISBN: 978-84-9965-586-4., 2021
El marcatge diferencial d'objecte (d'ara endavant MDO) és un fenomen ben establert en moltes llen... 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.
Pompeu Fabra, a la Universitat i de la Universitat, 2020
En aquest treball parlarem de dos fenòmens sintàctics relacionats amb la (in) transitivitat, amb ... 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.
Proceedings of the LSA, 2019
This paper addresses a generally ignored counterexample to the Scales, comparing Old Catalan and ... 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.
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 14. Selected papers from the 46th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Stony Brook, NY., 2018
The purpose of this paper is to shed light on a particular behavior displayed by verbs of inhere... 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’).
Publication: Manuel Pérez Saldanya & Rafael Roca i Ricart (ed.) (2017): Actes del XVIIè Col·loqui Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes: Universitat de València, 7-10 de juliol de 2015 [Recurs electrònic], 2017
Studies on dialectal variation in Catalan are clearly scarce, that is, specific works or research... 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.
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2012, 2014
In: Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2012. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2014. Ed. by Stefani... more In: Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2012. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2014. Ed. by Stefania Marzo & Karen Lahousse.
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2011., 2013
In: Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2011. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2013. Ed. by Sergio ... more In: Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2011. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2013. Ed. by Sergio Baauw, Frank Drijkoningen, Luisa Meroni & Manuela Pinto.
XX ConSOLE Proceedings., 2013
In: XX ConSOLE Proceedings, 20th Conference of the Student Organization of Linguistics in Europe... more In: XX ConSOLE Proceedings, 20th Conference of the Student Organization of Linguistics in Europe. 2013. Ed. by E. Boone, M. Kohlberger & M. Schulpen.
Actes del 26é Congrés de Lingüística i Filologia Romàniques , 2013
In: Actes del 26é Congrés de Lingüística i Filologia Romàniques (València, 6-11 de setembre de 20... more 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.
Estudios sobre variación sintáctica peninsular, 2012
In: Estudios sobre variación sintáctica peninsular, ed. by Xulio Viejo. Oviedo: Trabe.
Diachronic study of "steal"-verbs in Catalan
Actas del XXIX Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística. , 2010
In: Actas del XXIX Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística.
Centre Universitari de Sociolingüística i Comunicació (CUSC), Universitat de Barcelona. 2007
Llengua & Literatura: revista anual de la Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura (Barcelona), ... more Llengua & Literatura: revista anual de la Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura (Barcelona), vol. 21, pg. 407-424.
In: Llengua & Literatura: revista anual de la Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura (Barcelon... more In: Llengua & Literatura: revista anual de la Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura (Barcelona), vol. 22 (2011-2012), pg. 171-184.
In: Els Marges, 102 (2014).
Dins del curs "Pompeu Fabra, seny ordenador de la llengua catalana", Universitat Catalana d'Estiu... more Dins del curs "Pompeu Fabra, seny ordenador de la llengua catalana", Universitat Catalana d'Estiu, agost 2018.
Romance Linguistics Seminars, University of Cambridge (Anglia Ruskin - Cambridge) , 2017
Paper presented at the Anglia Ruskin - Cambridge Romance Linguistics Seminars
In this talk I will focus on a particular behavior displayed by verbs of inherently directed moti... 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.
Interim conclusion: Romance verbs of motion allow causativization.
Handout, XXVIII Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza. Roma 18 - 23 luglio ... more Handout, XXVIII Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza. Roma 18 - 23 luglio 2016
Handout Cambridge Comparative Syntax 5, May 2016
Workshop on Romance Se-Si. April 2016. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Presentation at LSRL 46 (Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages) at Stony Brook University, N... more Presentation at LSRL 46 (Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages) at Stony Brook University, New York.
Workshop: Clitics: Areal and Genealogical Perspectives, SLE Leiden, 4 September 2015
Presentation at: Workshop on Ditransitive constructions in a cross-linguistic perspective, Syntax... more Presentation at: Workshop on Ditransitive constructions in a cross-linguistic perspective, Syntax of World's Languages (Pavia)
Presentation at: Cambridge Comparative Syntax (CamCoS 3), University of Cambridge
Presentation at: International Workshop The Syntactic Variation of Catalan and Spanish Dialects
Presentation at: CASTL Spring Conference on Differential Object Marking (Tromsø)
Presentation at: 23rd Colloquim on Generative Grammar (Madrid)
Presentation at: Going Romance 2012, KULeuven (December 2012)
Presentation at: SLE 45th Annual Meeting (Stockholm)
Presentation at: ConSOLE XX. University of Leipzig (January 2012)
Presentation at: Going Romance XXV - Workshop on Syntactic Variation (Utrecht)
Invited presentation at: Wedisyn's Second Workshop on Syntactic Variation, Barcelona (February 2011)
![Research paper thumbnail of Les fronteres de la intransitivitat. Estudi dels aplicatius en llengües romàniques i basc [(In)transitivity borders. A study of applicatives in Romance languages and Basque]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/47047152/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](remerciements aussi à Béatrice Lamiroy (KU Leuven), qui m'a accueillie pendant mon séjour de rech... more remerciements aussi à Béatrice Lamiroy (KU Leuven), qui m'a accueillie pendant mon séjour de recherche en Belgique. Dank u wel, Vlaanderen. Ricardo Etxepareri (IKER-CNRS) eskertu nahi diot bere laguntza: mila esker zalantzak erantzuteagatik eta Baionan ni hartzeagatik nire bi egonaldietan. En aquest món nostre que és petit però alhora gran, també hi he trobat l'ajuda i la complicitat de l'Antonio Fábregas, des de Tromsø, i de la Beatriz Fernández, des de Gasteiz. Amb aquestes quatre ratlles només vull, en definitiva, dir moltes gràcies a totes les persones que, en un moment o altre, i d'una manera o altra, m'han fet desitjar que aquests primers anys d'immersió en el món de la recerca no siguin els darrers.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jul 18, 2016
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2016
Probus, 2019
In several Romance languages, including Catalan, Spanish, Asturian and Neapolitan, several verbs ... 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 ...
Syntax, Jan 17, 2023
Catalan, like Italian and French, displays (notwithstanding certain complications) a pattern in c... 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.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), May 22, 2017
Folia Linguistica, Sep 26, 2022
Romance languages and linguistic theory, Jul 22, 2018
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jul 7, 2022
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jan 26, 2017
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jun 26, 2017
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jan 19, 2017
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), May 5, 2016
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Mar 2, 2017
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Nov 2, 2016
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Feb 3, 2017
The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics