Cover not available

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. 101–125

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

Chapter 5
Laísmo and “le-for-les”

To agree or not to agree

 | Michigan State University
 | University of Central Florida
Published online: 19 October 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.11.05aus
Abstract
This paper discusses and analyzes the syntactic correlation between three different phenomena in Spanish: The presence of the accusative clitic, the presence/absence of number agreement in the dative clitic (a phenomenon called “le-for-les”), and the presence/absence of gender agreement in the dative clitic in laísta dialects. Assuming that accusative clitics manifest exclusively an agreement morpheme and that dative clitics can be decomposed into an applicative morpheme and an optional agreement morpheme, we argue for a unified account of these structures as follows: The presence of the accusative clitic and obligatory agreement in the dative are reflexes of the realization of an agreement morpheme in the structure. The analysis we propose also accounts uniformly for the unavailability of “la-for-las” or partial agreement in laísta dialects.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.“Le-for-les” and the presence of accusative clitics: A common core
    • 2.1Background on “le-for-les” constructions
    • 2.2“Le-for-les” and the presence of accusative clitics: Evidence for a uniform treatment
    • 2.3Main assumptions and proposal
    • 2.4Accounting for “le-for-les” and the presence of accusative clitics
  • 3.Lack of agreement in laísta dative clitics
  • 4.A uniform account of “le-for-les” and “le-for-la”
    • 4.1Parallelism between “le-for-les” and “le-for-la”
    • 4.2A further prediction: Lack of “la-for-las”
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (22)
References
Alexiadou, Artemis. 2006. “Left dislocation (including CLLD).” In The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, ed. by M. Everaert and H. van Riemsdijk, 668–699. Malden: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bleam, Tonia. 1999. Leísta Spanish and the Syntax of Clitic Doubling. University of Delaware, doctoral dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boeckx, Cedric, and Youngmi Jeong. 2004. “The fine structure of intervention in syntax.” In Chungja Kwon and Wonbin Lee (eds), Issues in Current Linguistic Theory: A Festschrift for Hong Bae Lee, 83–116.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Casares, Julio. 1918. Crítica efímera. Madrid: Saturnino Calleja S.A.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuervo, María Cristina. 2003. Datives at Large, Ph.D. Thesis. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “Against Ditransitivity.” Probus 22 (2): 151–180. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuervo, Rufino José. 1907/1955. Apuntaciones críticas sobre el lenguaje bogotano, con frecuente referencia al de los países de Hispano-América (9th ed.). Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeMello, George. 1992. “‘Le’ for ‘les’ in the spoken educated Spanish of eleven cities,” Canadian Journal of Linguistics 37 (4): 407–430.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Demonte, Violeta. 1995. “Dative alternation in Spanish.” Probus 7 (1): 5–30. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fernández-Ordóñez, Inés. 1994. “Isoglosas internas del castellano: El sistema referencial del pronombre átono de tercera persona.” Revista de Filología Española LXXIV (1): 71–125. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fernández-Soriano, Olga. 1999. “El pronombre personal. Formas y distribuciones. Pronombres átonos y tónicos.” In Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, ed. by Ignacio Bosque and Violeta Demonte, 1209–1274. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huerta Flores, Norohella. 2005. “Gramaticalización y concordancia objetiva en el español: Despronominalización del clítico dativo plural.” Verba 32: 165–190.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín, Francisco Jesús. 2012. Deconstructing Catalan Objects, Ph.D. Thesis. New York: New York University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ormazabal, Javier, and Juan Romero. 2013. “Object Clitics, Agreement and Dialectal Variation.” Probus: International Journal of Latin and Romance Linguistics 25 (2): 301–344.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
RAE. 1885. Gramática de la lengua castellana. Madrid: G. Hernando.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
RAE & AALE. 2009. Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rinni, Joel. 1988. “A New Perspective on the Origin of le for les.” Journal of Hispanic Philology 12 (3): 207–219.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Romero, Juan. 2012. “Accusative Feminine Datives in Spanish.” In Variation in Datives: A Microcomparative Perspective, ed. by Beatriz Fernández and Ricardo Etxepare, 283–300. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sportiche, Dominique. 1996. “Clitic Constructions.” In Phrase Structure and the Lexicon, ed. by J. Rooryck and L. Zaring, 213–276. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sturgis, Cony. 1927. “Uso de le por les.” Hispania 10 (4): 251–254. 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): 391–434. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uriagereka, Juan. 1988. On Government. University of Connecticut, doctoral dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Giménez García, Roser
2023. A la gent els (hi) o li(s) agrada? La llengua inicial i el clític datiu de tercera persona del plural en un corpus oral adolescent. Revista de Llengua i Dret :79 ► pp. 264 ff. DOI logo
Ausin, Adolfo & Francisco J. Fernández-Rubiera
2021. Decomposing Spanish dative clitics. Borealis – An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 10:2 ► pp. 265 ff. DOI logo
Pineda, Anna
2020. Double‐Object Constructions in Romance: The Common Denominator. Syntax 23:3 ► pp. 203 ff. DOI logo
Pineda, Anna
2022. Jorge Vega Vilanova: Past Participle Agreement. A study on the grammaticalization of formal features . Folia Linguistica 56:s43-s1 ► pp. 329 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 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