Cover not available

Article published In: Spanish in Context
Vol. 15:1 (2018) ► pp.77–102

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

An investigation of unaccusativity and word order in Mexican Spanish

 | Oklahoma State University
Published online: 31 May 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.00004.rog
Abstract
Studies of unaccusativity and word order in Spanish have yielded conflicting results. This study further investigates unaccusativity by testing the ability of the ‘Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy’ (. 2000. “Gradients in Auxiliary Selection with Intransitive Verbs.” Language 76 (4): 859–890. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) to account for word orders with intransitive predicates in Mexican Spanish. The results of an oral production task show significant word order differences between verb categories and locate an unergative/unaccusative cutoff point midway along the hierarchy, situating unaccusativity in Spanish as being similar to Italian but trending in the direction of Dutch or French. Other variables affecting the word order are identified and ranked, including subject heaviness, definiteness, and the location of adverbial phrases. Greater inter-speaker variation at the syntax-discourse interface when compared with the syntax-lexicon interface shows that the Interface Hypothesis has application to native speakers of Spanish. The results of this study are important for current research on unaccusativity and syntactic interfaces.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Split Intransitivity Hierarchy and word order
    • 2.1Description of the Split Intransitivity Hierarchy
    • 2.2Studies of the SIH in Spanish
    • 2.3Research questions
  • 3.Materials and methods
    • 3.1Instrument
    • 3.2Participants
    • 3.3Data analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Variables related to word order
    • 4.2Ranking of factor groups related to word order
    • 4.3Word order and the SIH
    • 4.4Inter-speaker variation
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (55)
References
Aranovich, Raúl. 2003. “The Semantics of Auxiliary Selection in Old Spanish.” Studies in Language 27 (1): 1–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Mismatched Spanish Unaccusativity Tests.” In From Quirky Case to Representing Space: Papers in Honor of Annie Zaenen ed. by Tracy Holloway King and Valeria de Paiva, 33–45. CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Belletti, Adriana, Elisa Bennati, and Antonella Sorace. 2007. “Theoretical and Developmental Issues in the Syntax of Subjects: Evidence from Near-Native Italian.” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 251: 657–689. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight L. M. 1991. “Meaningful Word Order in Spanish.” In Essays on Spanish: Words and Grammar ed. by Joseph H. Silverman, 218–230. Newark, Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boyd-Bowman, Peter. 1960. El Habla de Guanajuato. Mexico: Imprenta Universitaria UNAM.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burzio, Luigi. 1986. Italian Syntax: A Government-Binding Approach. Dordrecht: Reidel. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cennamo, Michela. 1999. “Late Latin Pleonastic Reflexives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis.” Transactions of the Philological Society 97 (1): 103–150. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cennamo, Michela, and Antonella Sorace. 2007. “Auxiliary Selection and Split Intransitivity in Paduan: Variation and Lexical-Aspectual Contraints.” In Split Auxiliary Systems ed. by Raúl Aranovich, 65–100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Miguel Aparicio, Elena. 1993. “Construcciones ergativas e inversión en la lengua y la interlengua española.” In La Lingüística y el análisis de los sistemas no nativos ed. by J. M. Liceras, 178–195. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Miguel Aparicio, Elena, and Marina Fernández Lagunilla. 2004. “Un enfoque subeventivo de la relación entre predicados secundarios y adverbios de manera.” Revue Romane 39 (1): 24–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Delbecque, Nicole. 1988. “On the Subject Position in Spanish: A Variable Rule Analysis of Constraints at the Level of the Subject NP and of the VP.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 3 (3): 185–200. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harves, Stephanie. 2002. “Unaccusative Syntax in Russian.” Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hertel, Tammy Jandrey. 2003. “Lexical and Discourse Factors in the Second Language Acquisition of Spanish Word Order.” Second Language Research 19 (4): 273–304. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hinch Nava, Emily. 2007. “Word Order in Bilingual Spanish: Convergence and Intonation Strategy.” In Selected Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics ed. by Jonathan Holmquist, Augusto Lorenzino and Lotfi Sayahi, 129–139. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keller, Frank, and Antonella Sorace. 2003. “Gradient Auxiliary Selection and Impersonal Passivization in German: An Experimental Investigation.” Journal of Linguistics 39 (1): 57–108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kiss, Katalin É. 1998. “Identificational Focus versus Information Focus.” Language 74 (2): 245–273. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Legendre, Géraldine. 1989. “Unaccusativity in French.” Lingua 791: 95–164. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007a. “On the Typology of Auxiliary Selection.” Lingua 117 (9): 1522–1540. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007b. “Optimizing Auxiliary Selection in Romance” In Split Auxiliary Systems: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective ed. by Raúl Aranovich, 145–180. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Llompart, Miquel. 2016. “Subject-Verb Order Variation with Unaccusative Verbs of Change of Location in Mexico and Southern Arizona.” Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 9 (1): 143–173. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lope Blanch, Juan M. 2004. Cuestiones de Filología Mexicana. México, D.F.: Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, UNAM.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
López Meirama, Belén 1997. La posición del sujeto en la cláusula monoactancial en español. Santiago de Compostela: Servicio de Publicacións da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lozano, Cristóbal. 2006. “Focus and Split-Intransitivity: The Acquisition of Word Order Alternations in Non-Native Spanish.” Second Language Research 22 (2): 1–43. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Word Order in Second Language Spanish.” In The Handbook of Spanish Second Language Acquisition ed. by Kimberly L. Geeslin, 287–310. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lozano, Cristóbal, and Amaya Mendikoetxea. 2006. “Postverbal Subjects at the Interfaces in Spanish and Italian Learners of L2 English: a Corpus Analysis.” In Linking up Contrastive and Corpus Learner Research ed. by G. Gilquin, S. Papp and M. B. Díez-Bedmar, 85–125. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mateu, Jaume. 2009. “Gradience and Auxiliary Selection in Old Catalan and Old Spanish.” In Historical Syntax and Linguistic Theory ed. by Paola Crisma and Giuseppe Longobardi, 176–193. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mayoral Hernández, Roberto. 2004. “On the Position of Frequency Adverbs in Spanish.” USC Working Papers in Linguistics 21: 1–15.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mithun, Marianne. 1991. “Active/agentive Case Marking and Its Motivations.” Language 67 (3): 510–546. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montrul, Silvina. 2005. “Second Language Acquisition and First Language Loss in Adult Early Bilinguals: Exploring some Differences and Similarities.” Second Language Research 21 (3): 199–249. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. “On the Bilingual Competence of Spanish Heritage Speakers: Syntax, Lexical-Semantics and Processing.” International Journal of Bilingualism 10 (1): 37–69. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morales, Amparo. 2003. “Patrones sintácticos y pragmáticos en el orden de las unidades de la oración.” Español actual 801: 15–25.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ocampo, Francisco. 1991. “Word Order in Constructions with a One-Valency Verb, a Subject NP and a PP in Spoken Rioplatense Spanish.” Hispania 74 (2): 409–416. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. “On the Notion of Focus in Spoken Spanish: An empirical approach.” In Theory, Practice, and Acquisition: Papers from the 6th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium and the 5th Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese ed. by Paula Kempchinsky and Carlos-Eduardo Piñeros, 207–266. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ortiz López, Luis A. 2009. “El español del Caribe: Orden de palabras a la luz de la interfaz léxico-sintáctica y sintáctico-pragmática.” Revista internacional de lingüística iberoamericana 7 (2): 75–93.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Otheguy, Ricardo, Ana Celia Zentella, and David Livert. 2007. “Language and Dialect Contact in Spanish in New York: Toward the Formation of a Speech Community.” Language 83 (4): 770–802. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parafita Couto, María C., Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, and Hans Stadthagen-González. 2015. “Interface Strategies in Monolingual and End-State L2 Spanish Grammars Are not that Different.” Frontiers in Psychology 5 (1525): 1–17.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perlmutter, David M. 1978. “Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis.” In Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society February 18–20, 1978 ed. by Jeri J. Jaeger, Anthony C. Woodbury, Farrell Ackerman, Christine Chiarello, Orin D. Gensler, John Kingston, Eve E. Sweetser, Henry Thompson and Kenneth W. Whistler, 157–189. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Prévost, Philippe. 2011. “The Interface Hypothesis: What about optionality in native speakers?” Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 1 (1): 79–83. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pustejovsky, James. 1995. The Generative Lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rex, Scott M. 2001. “Unaccusativity in Spanish.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California-Davis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rivas, Javier. 2008. “La posición del sujeto en las construcciones monoactanciales del español: Una aproximación funcional.” Hispania 91 (4): 897–912.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosen, Carol G. 1984. “The Interface between Semantic Roles and Initial Grammatical Relations.” In Studies in Relational Grammar 2 ed. by David M. Perlmutter and Carol G. Rosen, 38–77. Chicago: University of Chicago.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shan, Chuan-Kuo, and Boping Yuan. 2007. “Is Gradience of Mapping between Semantics and Syntax Possible in L2 Acquisition?” In BUCLD 31: Proceedings of the 31st annual Boston University Conference on Language Development ed. by Heather Caunt-Nulton, Samantha Kulatilake and I-hao Woo, 567–575. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shannon, Thomas F. 1990. “The Unaccusative Hypothesis and the History of the Perfect Auxiliary in Germanic and Romance.” In Historical Linguistics, 1987: Papers from the 8th International Conference on Historical Linguistics ed. by Henning Andersen and E. F. K. Koerner, 461–488. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen. 1982. “Subject Expression and Placement in Mexican-American Spanish.” In Spanish in the United States: Sociolinguistic Aspects ed. by Jon Amastae and Lucía Elías-Olivares, 93–120. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorace, Antonella. 1993. “Unaccusativity and Auxiliary Choice in Non-Native Grammars of Italian and French: Asymmetries and Predictable Indeterminacy.” Journal of French Language Studies 3 (1):71–93. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000. “Gradients in Auxiliary Selection with Intransitive Verbs.” Language 76 (4): 859–890. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. “Gradience at the Lexicon-Syntax Interface: Evidence from Auxiliary Selection and Implications for Unaccusativity.” In The Unaccusativity Puzzle ed. by Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou and Martin Everaert, 243–268. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “Pinning Down the Concept of “Interface” in Bilingualism.” Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 1 (1): 1–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorace, Antonella, and Yoko Shomura. 2001. “Lexical Constraints on the Acquisition of Split Intransitivity.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 231: 247–278. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Torrego, Esther. 1989. “Unergative-Unaccusative Alternations in Spanish.” MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 101: 253–272.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tuttle, Edward F. 1986. “The Spread of ESSE as Universal Auxiliary in Central ltalo-Romance.” Medioevo Romanzo 11 (2): 229–287.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, Lydia. 2011. “Second language acquisition at the interfaces.” Lingua 121 (4): 577–590. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zaenen, Annie. 1993. “Unaccusativity in Dutch: Integrating Syntax and Lexical Semantics.” In Semantics and the Lexicon ed. by James Pustejovsky, 129–161. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zapata, Gabriela C., Liliana Sánchez, and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio. 2005. “Contact and Contracting Spanish.” International Journal of Bilingualism 9 (3–4): 377–395. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (7)

Cited by seven other publications

Hoot, Bradley
2025. Focus in bilingual Spanish. Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics 11:4 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Rivas, Javier
2025. VERB-INDIRECT OBJECT-DIRECT OBJECT and VERB-DIRECT OBJECT-INDIRECT OBJECT. Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics 11:5 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
McKinnon, Sean & Daniel Jung
2024. Cuando baja el sol. Spanish in Context 21:3 ► pp. 537 ff. DOI logo
Nishida, Chiyo, Adrián Rodríguez Riccelli & Casilde A. Isabelli
2024. Adult heritage speakers of Spanish in the US and subject placement in presentational unaccusative sentences: How are their grammars constrained?. Lingua 302 ► pp. 103630 ff. DOI logo
Heidinger, Steffen
2022. Corpus Data and the Position of Information Focus in Spanish. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 15:1 ► pp. 67 ff. DOI logo
Baird, Brandon O.
2021. Bilingual language dominance and contrastive focus marking: Gradient effects of K’ichee’ syntax on Spanish prosody. International Journal of Bilingualism 25:3 ► pp. 500 ff. DOI logo
Pulido, Manuel F.
2021. Remapping variable subject position in Spanish intransitives. Spanish in Context 18:2 ► pp. 257 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 december 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