Cover not available

In:Atypical predicate-argument relations
Edited by Thierry Ruchot and Pascale Van Praet
[Lingvisticæ Investigationes Supplementa 33] 2016
► pp. 61–85

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

IO realizations in Spanish reverse psych verb sentences

 | University of Texas, Austin
Published online: 8 December 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lis.33.03nis
This paper examines the little-known morphosyntactic variation involving Spanish psych verbs that take an experiencer IO and a stimulus subject. With these verbs, a dative clitic duplicating the IO is widely assumed to be obligatory in the canonical [IO-V-S] order (A la gente joven LE/*Ø gustan los deportes ‘Young people like sports’). However, naturally occurring data from corpora show that clitic doubling is not obligatory in the non canonical [S-V-IO] order, yielding two variant constructions (Los deportes LE/Ø gustan a la gente joven ‘Sports appeal to young people’). Using written corpus data from Peninsular Spanish, the paper investigates two issues: (a) what is the overall distribution of clitic doubling in [S-V-IO] psych verb sentences?; (b) are there any systematic distributional differences between the two variants? With respect to (a), we found that for none of the 10 psych verbs surveyed was clitic doubling obligatory. With respect to (b), we found the presence of a clitic tends to restrict the referential properties of the lexical IO in terms of animacy, pronominality, individuality, and number. The findings of this study indicate that dative clitics, which are commonly analyzed as IO-V agreement markers, actually make a substantive contribution to the semantics of psych verb sentences.
References (38)
References
Ackerman, Farrell & John Moore. 2001. Proto-properties and grammatical encoding: A correspondence theory of argument selection. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aissen, Judith. 2003. Differential object marking: Iconicity vs. Economy. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 21. 435–483. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aranovich, Roberto. 2011. Optional agreement and grammatical fucntions: A corpus study of clitic doubling in Spanish. Doctoral thesis, University of Pittsburg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aranovich, Raúl. 2012. A lexical functional account of Spanish dative usage. In P. de Swart & M. Lamers (eds.), Case, word order, and prominence, 17–41. Berlin: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Belloro, Valeria A. 2007. Spanish clitic doubling: A study of the syntax-pragmatics interface. Doctoral thesis, State University of New York at Buffalo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bleam, Tonia. 2003. Properties of the double object constructions in Spanish. In R. Núñez-Cedeño et al. (eds.), A Romance perspective of language knowledge and use, 233–252. 
Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Casielles-Suárez, Eugenia. 2004. Syntax-Information structure interface. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Transitivity and grammaticalization of object. In G. Fiolentino (ed.), Romance objects, 216–260. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. El objeto indirecto. In C. Company Company (ed.), Sintaxis histórica de la lengua española. Primera parte: la frase verbal, 477–572. Mexico: UNAM & FCE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, William. 1990. Typology and universals. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuervo, María Cristina. 2003. The dative at large. Doctoral thesis, MIT.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Against Ditransitivity. Probus 22. 151–180. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Demonte, Violeta. 1994. Teoría sintáctica. Madrid: Síntesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1995. Dative Alternation in Spanish. Probus 7. 5–30. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Franco, Jon. 2000. Agreement as a continuum: The case of Spanish pronominal clitics. In F. Beukema & M. den Dikken (eds.), Clitic phenomena in European languages, 147–189. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ganeshan, Ashwini. 2015. Case marking in Spanish reverse psychological verbs: A lexical semantic perspective. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Texas, Austin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy. 1976. Topic, pronoun and grammatical agreement. In C. Li & S. Thompson (eds.), Subject and topic, 149–188. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guitiérrez-Bravo, Rodridrigo. 2007. Prominence scales and unmarked word order in Spanish. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 25. 235–271. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koontz-Garboden, Andrew. 2002. A quantitative analysis of Spanish indirect object doubling. In J.F. Lee et al. (eds.), Papers from the 4th hispanic linguistics symposium, 193–211. Somerville: Cascadilla.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuno, Sususmu. 1972. Functional sentence perspective: A case study from Japanese and English. Linguistic Inquiry 3. 269–320.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laca, Brenda. 2006. El objeto directo: la marcación preposional. In C. Company Company (ed.), Sintaxis histórica del español. Primera parte: La frase verba, 423–475. Mexico: UNAM & FCE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information structure and sentence form. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maldonado, Ricardo. 2002. Objective and subjective datives. Cognitive Linguistics 13(1). 1–65. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Masullo, Pascual. 1992. Incorporation and case theory in Spanish: A crosslinguistic perspective. Doctoral thesis, University of Washington.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nishida, Chiyo. 2012. A corpus study of Mexican Spanish three-participant constructions with and without clitic doubling. In E. van Lier (ed.), Referential effects on the expression of three-participant events across languages. Linguistic discovery 10(3). 208–240.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pylkkänen, Maliina. 2001. Introducing arguments. Doctoral thesis, MIT.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parodi, Teresa. 1998. Aspects of clitic doubling and clitic clusters in spanish. In R. Fabri (ed.), Models of Inflection, 85–102. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag GmbH. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parodi, Claudia & Marta Luján. 2000. Aspect in Spanish psych verbs. In H. Campos (ed.), Hispanic linguistics at the turn of the century, 210–221. Somerville: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Suñer, Margarita. 1988. The role of agreement in clitic-doubled constructions. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6(3). 391–433. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vanhoe, Henk. 2002. Aspects of the syntax of psychological verbs in Spanish. In M. Butt & T. H. King (eds.), Proceedings of the LFG Conference, 378–389. Stanford: CSLI Publication.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Lier, Eva. 2012. Referential effects on the expression of three-participant events across languages: An introduction in memory of anna sierwierska. Linguistics Discovery 10(3). 1–16.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vázquez Rozas, Victoria. 2006. Gustar-type verbs. In J.C. Clements & J. Yoon (eds.), Functional approaches to spanish syntax. Lexical semantics, discourse and transitivity, 80–114. Hampshire/New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vázquez Rozas, Victoria & Miguel García Salido . 2012. A discourse-based analysis of object clitic doubling in Spanish. In K. Davidse et al. (eds.), Grammaticalization and language change: New reflections, 271–297. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
von Heusinger, Klaus. 2008. Verbal semantics and the diachronic development of differential object marking in Spanish. Probus 20. 1–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weissenrieder, Maureen. 1995. Indirect object doubling: Saying things twice in Spanish. Hispania 78. 169–177. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corpus
Corpus de Referencia de Español Actual (CREA). Spanish Royal Academy. [URL]
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Ganeshan, Ashwini
2019. Examining agentivity in Spanish reverse-psych verbs. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 12:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 26 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue