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The Middle Voice and Connected Constructions in Ibero-Romance
A variationist and dialectal account
The reflexive constructions that are the focus of this book are the constructions broadly described with the term “middle”: i.e., those that can appear in all persons, and in which the reflexive marker (RM) cannot be understood as a full referential pronoun. One goal of this study is to provide a corpus-based typology of middle and related uses that allow us to compare the behaviour of the RM in these constructions with previous typological accounts, where competing models (based either on changes of diathesis or on the semantics of the verbal event) can be found. A second goal is to shed light on the evolution of the different functions of the RM, by exploring the factors that affect its productivity, with a specific focus on those verbs where reflexive marking is most variable, that is, anticausative verbs and verbs with no change of valency. These reflexive constructions show a notable difference in productivity in Spanish and Galician, although the languages are closely related and contiguous. The languages are thus good candidates for a contrastive and variationist analysis serving these two goals. The semantic class of the predicate, its aspectual properties and the animacy of the subject are some of the most relevant factors that are taken into account to understand the motivations behind the presence or absence of the RM. By relying on a corpus of interviews from rural communities across peninsular Spain (except Catalonia), space as a relevant extra-linguistic variable is taken into account, helping uncover previously unknown geographical patterns.
[Studies in Language Variation, 29] 2022. ix, 375 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 31 July 2022
Published online on 31 July 2022
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements | pp. ix–10
- Chapter 1. Reflexive constructions: An introduction | pp. 1–42
- Chapter 2. Methodology | pp. 43–58
- Chapter 3. The middle voice in Spanish | pp. 59–118
- Chapter 4. Anticausative verbs in Spanish | pp. 119–156
- Chapter 5. Reflexive intransitive verbs | pp. 157–214
- Chapter 6. Reflexive transitive verbs | pp. 215–280
- Chapter 7. Conclusions | pp. 281–288
- References
- Appendix 1. Localities interviewed with the corpus COSER | pp. 301–304
- Appendix 2. Questionnaire videos | pp. 305–310
- Appendix 3. Localities interviewed with the questionnaire | pp. 311–312
- Appendix 4. List of analysed verbs and their classification | pp. 313–368
- Appendix 5. List of verbs analysed in corpus eseuTenTen11 | pp. 369–372
- Index | pp. 373–375
“[A] significant contribution to studies of reflexive marking and the middle voice. It offers a firm basis for further research on the many relevant questions addressed and towards the development of cross-linguistically valid theoretical models of reflexivity as well as, more generally, of voice and diathesis.”
Miguel A. Aijón Oliva, Universidad de Salamanca, in Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana 42 (2023).
“Die Verfasserin deckt mit ihrer Arbeit eine beeindruckende Anzahl oft nur getrennt voneinander behandelter Phänomene ab und leistet für diese Phänomene eine empirische Beschreibung, die von sorgfältigen methodologischen Überlegungen getragen ist und für die das Prädikat umfassend eine klare Untertreibung ist (die Menge der erhobenen und analysierten Daten wurde oben bereits erwähnt). Die Arbeit knüpft an zahlreichen Stellen an die Diskussion sowohl in der hispanistischen als auch in der allgemein-sprachwissenschaftlichen/typologischen Literatur an (zur letzteren zum Beispiel in Kapitel 3 hinsichtlich der Konzeption der middle voice).”
Steffen Heidinger, in Romanische Forschungen 136, No. 2 (2024)
“[T]his book stands out for its scientific rigor, the clarity of its hypotheses, method and argumentation, and its impressive empirical foundation. It will undoubtedly prove an excellent reading not only for scholars interested in Ibero-Romance languages, but more generally to Romance and historical linguists, as well as typologists interested in voice phenomena.”
Guglielmo Inglese, Università di Torino, in Folia Linguistica 57:3 (2023)
“[E]ste estudio atiende al mismo tiempo a los aspectos sistemáticos de la sintaxis, los semisistemáticos de las clases conceptuales de verbos y los individuales de ciertas bases verbales especiales, esta monografía presenta un caso ejemplar de cómo abordar la conexión entre sintaxis y léxico sobre bases sólidas y sin tomar decisiones guiadas por requisitos internos de la teoría. Esta es, a mi juicio, la única forma en que se puede contribuir algo sólido y original al estudio de se en la actualidad.”
Antonio Fábregas Alfaro, University of Tromsø, in Philologia Hispalensis 37:1 (2023)
“Carlota de Benito Moreno (CdBM) afronta, sobre los pilares de un excelente conocimiento de los trabajos de tipología funcional más recientes sobre las distinciones diatéticas en las lenguas del mundo y con los pertrechos estadísticos de la metodología variacionista y dialectal más modernos, el estudio de la voz media en español –estudio que requiere una inusual dosis de intrepidez investigativa. A pesar de los ríos de tinta vertidos sobre los verbos, construcciones y oraciones pronominales, el objeto de estudio reclamaba un análisis monográfico como el que se ofrece en esta obra.”
Florencio del Barrio de la Rosa, in Revue de Linguistique Romane 88 (2024), 541-544
“Es, pues, lectura agradecida con la que se aprende (y mucho) sobre construcciones medias, pero también un buen ejemplo de cómo la lingüística de hoy se enfrenta a una variable gramatical compleja”
Cristina Peña Rueda, Université de Lausanne, in Revista de Filología Hispánica Vol.6 (2025)
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Heidinger, Steffen & Richard Huyghe
Heidinger, Steffen, Richard Huyghe, F. Neveu, S. Prévost, A. Montébran, A. Steuckardt, G. Bergounioux, G. Merminod & G. Philippe
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