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In:Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 11: Selected papers from the 44th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), London, Ontario
Edited by Silvia Perpiñán, David Heap, Itziri Moreno-Villamar and Adriana Soto-Corominas
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 11] 2017
► pp. 33–52

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Chapter 2
Towards a unified treatment of Spanish copulas

 | University of Greenwich
 | University of Tromsø
 | University of Lille 3
Published online: 19 October 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.11.02arc
Abstract
This paper sets the basis for a uniform account of the alternation between the two Spanish copulas (ser and estar) in adjectival and passive clauses. While the copular contrast has been attributed to the different properties of adjectives (e.g. individual vs. stage level) and to an eventive vs. resultative stative dichotomy in passives, this work shows that they all behave alike regarding their temporal interpretation. We derive such uniformity from the syntactic properties of the copulas themselves: estar includes an additional component ser lacks that makes everything it merges with stative, with particular temporoaspectual properties.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The temporal interpretation of copular clauses
  • 3.Aspect and tense in passive clauses
    • 3.1The imperfective interpretation
    • 3.2The aspectual role of the copulas
      • 3.2.1Predicates in combination with estar
      • 3.2.2The internal composition of estar
  • 4. Ser and estar with adjectives
  • 5.Some conclusions and loose ends for future research
  • Notes
  • References
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