The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs: Cognitive constraints on Spanish clitic clustering (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics)

The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs

Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics (SFSL) Taking the broadest and most general definitions of the terms functional and structural, this series aims to present linguistic and interdisciplinary research that relates language structure — at any level of analysis from phonology to discourse — to broader functional considerations, whether cognitive, communicative, pragmatic or sociocultural. Preference will be given to studies that focus on data from actual discourse, whether speech, writing or other nonvocal medium. The series was formerly known as Linguistic & Literary Studies in Eastern Europe (LLSEE).

Founding Editor

Honorary Editors

John Odmark

Eva Hajičová

Charles University

Petr Sgall

Charles University

General Editors Yishai Tobin

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Ellen Contini-Morava University of Virginia

Editorial Board Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

Jim Miller

Joan Bybee

Marianne Mithun

Nicholas Evans

Lawrence J. Raphael

Victor A. Friedman

Olga Mišeska Tomić

Anatoly Liberman

Olga T. Yokoyama

La Trobe University

University of New Mexico University of Melbourne University of Chicago University of Minnesota

University of Auckland University of California, at Santa Barbara CUNY and Adelphi University Leiden University UCLA

James A. Matisoff

University of California, Berkeley

Volume 61 The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs. Cognitive constraints on Spanish clitic clustering by Erica C. García

The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs Cognitive constraints on Spanish clitic clustering

Erica C. García

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdamâ•›/â•›Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Garcia, Erica C.   The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs : cognitive constraints on Spanish clitic clustering / by Erica C. García.       p. cm. (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, issn 0165-7712 ; v. 61) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1.  Spanish language--Syntax. 2.  Spanish language--Grammar. 3.  Linguistic analysis (Linguistics)  I. Title. PC4361.G373â•…â•… 2009 465--dc22

2009019498

isbn 978 90 272 1570 3 (hb; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 8910 0 (eb)

© 2009 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

To the memory of Charles F. Hockett and Dwight L. Bolinger

Table of contents Erica C. García: In memoriam Acknowledgements

xiii xv

chapter 1

Introduction 1.1 Absolute non-occurrences and the arbitrariness of syntaxâ•… 3 1.1.1 Pinker’s account of “negative” exceptionsâ•… 4 1.1.2 Syntactic and morphological non-occurrencesâ•… 7 1.2 Arbitrariness and conventionality in Usage-based Grammarâ•… 8 1.2.1 Constructions and syntactic arbitrarinessâ•… 9 1.2.2 Usage-based Grammar and relative frequency of useâ•… 10 1.3 Syntax as compositional routinesâ•… 12 1.3.1 Inference: the key to syntactic computationâ•… 13 1.3.2 Syntax as iconic mappingâ•… 14 1.3.3 Accounting for syntactic variation and “negative exceptions”â•… 16 1.3.4 Analytic implicationsâ•… 19 1.4 The non-arbitrary compositionality of Spanish clitic clustersâ•… 20

1

part i. The morphological roots of Spanish clitic syntax chapter 2 The problem: Unacceptable clitic clusters 35 2.1 The problematic clustersâ•… 36 2.1.1 Absolutely non-occurring cluster, with clitic alternative: *le loâ•… 37 2.1.2 Absolutely non-occurring cluster, lacking clitic alternative: *se seâ•… 37 2.1.3 Interpretation-dependent unacceptable clustersâ•… 37 2.1.3.1 *me leâ•… 38 2.1.3.2 *se leâ•… 39 2.1.3.3 *se me loâ•… 39 2.2 The nature of the problemâ•… 40 2.3 Previous handling of the issue(s)â•… 41 2.3.1 *le lo vs. OK spur. se loâ•… 41 2.3.2 *se seâ•… 42 2.3.3 *me (Acc) le (Dat) + non-coreferential subjectâ•… 42 2.3.4 *spur. se + le vs. OK refl. se + leâ•… 43 2.3.5 * spur. se + me (Dat) + lo (Acc)â•… 44 2.4 The challengeâ•… 44

 Motivated Constraints on Clitic Clustering

chapter 3

The communicative value of clitic reference 3.1 The verbal complex (= VC)â•… 50 3.2 The participancy oppositionsâ•… 51 3.2.1 Focusâ•… 52 3.2.2 Caseâ•… 52 3.2.3 Case and the nature of the eventâ•… 54 3.3 Case-categorizationâ•… 55 3.3.1. Central vs. Peripheral caseâ•… 55 3.3.2 Variably Peripheral involvementsâ•… 60

49

chapter 4

Basic clitic syntax 4.1 Double mention, role-levelling, and event-introversionâ•… 67 4.1.1 Introversion of transitive eventsâ•… 71 4.1.2 Introversion of intransitive eventsâ•… 72 4.1.3 Semantic versatility of double mentionâ•… 74 4.2 Clitic vs. non-clitic referenceâ•… 76 4.2.1 Lexical reference: Bare noun phrasesâ•… 76 4.2.2 Prepositional phrases, a-phrasesâ•… 77 4.2.3 “Understood” participantsâ•… 79 4.3 Cumulation of clitic and extra-verbal referenceâ•… 79 4.3.1 (Im)possibility of duplicate referenceâ•… 81 4.3.2 Pragmatic motivation of clitic duplicationâ•… 83 4.3.3 Factors conditioning reference-duplicationâ•… 84 4.3.3.1 Lexical vs. pronominal a-phraseâ•… 84 4.3.3.2 Variable obligatoriness of clitic reference with diverse Dat rolesâ•… 85 4.3.4 Clitic duplication as an inferential manoeuvreâ•… 87

67

chapter 5

Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 5.1 Participancy and case-categorizationâ•… 95 5.1.1 Participant vs. non-participant involvementâ•… 95 5.1.2 Central vs. Peripheral participationâ•… 97 5.1.3 Interpretation of case-neutral cliticsâ•… 99 5.2 The interpretation of clitic clustersâ•… 99 5.3 Centrifugal events: Dative + Accusative participantsâ•… 100 5.3.1 1st vs. 3*rd ps participantsâ•… 100 5.3.1.1 IInd vs. 3*rd ps Dative in me le clusterâ•… 101 5.3.1.2 Relative activeness of the Dat under single mention of the p.i.f.â•… 102

95



Table of contents 

5.3.1.3 Role of the 1st personâ•… 102 5.3.1.4 1st person as double mentioned p.i.f.â•… 103 5.3.1.5 Relative activeness of the Dat under double mention of the p.i.f.â•… 103 5.3.1.6 Person of the double-mentioned p.i.f., plus 3*rd ps Datâ•… 105 5.3.1.7 Asymmetry between 1st/2nd and 3rd person p.i.fâ•… 105 5.3.1.8 Person of the Dat with a distinct human DO, under single mentionâ•… 106 5.3.1.9 Clitic vs. a-phrase reference for distinct Dat vs. Accâ•… 106 5.3.2 1st vs. 2nd ps participantsâ•… 107 5.3.3 Distinct 3*rd ps participantsâ•… 108 5.3.4 Same 3*rd person in both Dative and Accusative rolesâ•… 108 5.4 Syntagmatic differentiation of Peripheral rolesâ•… 109 5.4.1 All Dat participants distinct from the p.i.f.â•… 110 5.4.2 Multiple Dat role/referent allotment under double mentionâ•… 113 5.5 Clitic clustering in centripetal eventsâ•… 115 5.5.1 Subject Complement (SC) plus Peripheral rolesâ•… 115 5.5.2 Distinct DO plus Object Complement (OC)â•… 116 5.5.3 Double mention of the p.i.f. and S/O Complementationâ•… 117 5.5.3.1 Subject Complement + double mention as Peripheral involvement of the p.i.f.â•… 118 5.5.3.2 Event introversion + Subject Complementâ•… 119 5.5.3.3 Double mentioned p.i.f in a DO role + Object Complementâ•… 119 5.6 Summary and partial conclusionsâ•… 121 chapter 6 Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se 131 6.1 The problem(s)â•… 131 6.1.1 Unsatisfactory accountsâ•… 132 6.2 The number of se’s in Modern Spanishâ•… 134 6.2.1 One vs. twoâ•… 134 6.2.2 Two or three?â•… 134 6.3 The unitary meaning of seâ•… 136 6.4 Three inferential routinesâ•… 136 6.4.1 Case-based identification of se’s positive referent: the se + lo clusterâ•… 137 6.4.1.1 “Spurious” se and the migrant pl. -sâ•… 140 6.4.1.2 The absolute non-occurrence of *le lo.â•… 141 6.4.1.3 Cognitive economy and the lelo/selo contrastâ•… 142 6.4.2 Self-salience of 3rd ps p.i.f.’sâ•… 143 6.4.3 Focus defeasing by impersonal seâ•… 145 6.4.3.1 The pragmatic value of imp. se.â•… 146 6.4.3.2 The morpho-syntactic need for seâ•… 146



Motivated Constraints on Clitic Clustering

6.4.3.3 The inferential mechanics of focus defeasingâ•… 147 6.5 Contrasting the analysesâ•… 150 chapter 7

Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se 7.1 The variable acceptability of se me lo V3â•… 157 7.1.1 Negative reference of se: imp. se + me loâ•… 158 7.1.2 Positive reference of Dat se: se lo + meâ•… 158 7.2 Non-uses of seâ•… 161 7.2.1 Impossible reference by se to a 3*rd personâ•… 161 7.3 Impossible *se se clustersâ•… 162 7.4 Context-dependence of se’s diverse interpretationsâ•… 163 7.4.1 se V3sgâ•… 163 7.4.2 se V3sg NPâ•… 164 7.4.3 se lo V3sgâ•… 164 7.4.3.1 se lo V3sg: imp. se vs. refl. seâ•… 165 7.4.3.2 se lo V3sg: imp. se vs. spur. seâ•… 166 7.5 The interpretation of se in non-finite VC’sâ•… 168 7.6 Independent support for the analysis of seâ•… 170 7.6.1 Clitic duplication and the positive/negative reference of seâ•… 170 7.6.2 Clitic orderâ•… 171 7.6.3 Cliticization of se in auxiliary periphrasesâ•… 171 7.7 Disjoint se.....se sequences in auxiliary periphrasesâ•… 174 7.7.1 Focus-defeasing se followed by positively referring seâ•… 175 7.7.2 Consecutive positive interpretations of seâ•… 176

157

part ii. Clitic distribution in complex Verb-Phrases chapter 8

The syntactic structure of AcI’s 8.1 Cliticization in complex VP’sâ•… 185 8.2 AcI’s as complex VP’sâ•… 186 8.3 Semanto-syntactic indeterminacy in AcI’sâ•… 187 8.4 AcI-roles: shared participantsâ•… 188 8.5 Clitic vs. lexical reference to AcI-rolesâ•… 190 8.6 Conflicting pressures on clitic clustering at Vxâ•… 192

185

chapter 9

Clitic syntax in AcI’s 9.1 Case-categorization in AcI’sâ•… 199 9.1.1 Context-sensitiveness of M’s case-variabilityâ•… 201 9.2 Concatenation vs. conflation of AcI’sâ•… 203

199



Table of contents 

9.2.1 Iconic concatenationâ•… 203 9.2.2 Pragmatic conflationâ•… 204 9.2.3 Non-equivalence of different AcI formulationsâ•… 205 9.2.3.1 A barrier to climbingâ•… 205 9.2.3.2 Semanto-pragmatic distinctness of conflated and non-conflated variantsâ•… 205 chapter 10

Clitic placement in AcI’s 10.1 AcI-role rankingâ•… 211 10.2 Role/referent allotment in dynamic transitive AcI’s: M + Oa clustersâ•… 212 10.2.1 Oa at Vx with a tacit Ÿâ•… 214 10.2.2 Uniconic backgrounding of Mâ•… 214 10.3 Conflation in static AcI’sâ•… 216 10.4 me le revisitedâ•… 217 10.5 Reference at Vx to the Od of dynamic Inf ’sâ•… 219 10.5.1 * M + Od (=IO) with a further DO (Oa)â•… 220 10.5.2 * M + Od with verbs of communicationâ•… 223 10.5.3 Od at Vx with a tacit Ÿâ•… 225 10.6 Summary: clitic clustering in centrifugal AcI’sâ•… 226 10.7 Clitic placement in AcI’s with copulative eventsâ•… 227 10.7.1 Parecer ‘to seem’ as Infâ•… 228 chapter 11 Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 11.1 Double-mention of Mâ•… 233 11.1.1 Variable double mention of Mâ•… 234 11.1.2 M’s double mention and clitic frontingâ•… 236 11.2 S in a non-focus AcI-roleâ•… 237 11.2.1 S = O, tacit Ÿâ•… 239 11.2.2 Heterogenous clusters with S in a non-focus AcI-roleâ•… 242 11.2.2.1 Static AcI: =SDr + Mâ•… 243 11.2.2.2 Static AcI: =SM + Drâ•… 243 11.2.2.3 Dynamic AcI: =SM + Oâ•… 244 11.2.2.4 Dynamic transitive AcI: =SO + Mâ•… 246 11.2.3 S = O, double mentioned Mâ•… 248 11.2.3.1 Static AcI’s: S = Drâ•… 248 11.2.3.2 Dynamic AcI’s: S = Oâ•… 249 11.2.3.3 Indeterminate double mention of Mâ•… 250 11.3 AcI’s and “clitic climbing”â•… 251 11.4 AcI’s and recursivenessâ•… 254

211

233

 Motivated Constraints on Clitic Clustering

chapter 12

Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes 12.1 The syntactic relation of Inf to Vxâ•… 265 12.2 Auxiliary periphrasesâ•… 268 12.2.1 Vx + [Z] + Inf auxiliary periphrasesâ•… 270 12.3 “Control” structuresâ•… 272 12.3.1 Vx + [Z] + Inf Control structuresâ•… 274 12.4 Between control structures and AcI’sâ•… 275 12.4.1 observar ‘to observe’â•… 275 12.4.2 mandar ‘to send, order’â•… 276 12.4.3 mirar ‘to look at, watch’â•… 278 12.5 The place of AcI’s in the syn-tactic landscapeâ•… 279 chapter 13 Summary and conclusions 13.1 Summaryâ•… 289 13.2 General discussionâ•… 291 13.3 The nature of syntax and the nature of languageâ•… 291 13.4 Conclusionâ•… 293

265

289

Abbreviations

297

Glossary

298

References

307

Corpus

326

Name index

329

Subject index

333

Erica C. García In memoriam

Erica C. García passed away on 4€July, 2009, not long after correcting the final proofs of the present book. For her friends, colleagues, and former students this was a grievous blow. We will remember her as a model of intellectual rigor and integrity, a penetrating critic, a passionate debater, and above all as a brilliant linguist with an unerring gift for understanding and explaining the workings of language from a neo-Saussurean and functionalist perspective. This volume is the culmination of a productive career during which Erica García wrote and co-authored numerous works primarily on Spanish and its dialects both present and past, but also on other Romance languages, Old and Modern English, Dutch, and Papiamentu. The topics she addressed ranged from syntax to acoustic phonetics to text analysis, but her long-term concern was an interrelated set of questions about how meaningful signs are used to communicate messages in interaction with context, and how synchronic variation feeds diachronic change. With regard to the former topic, she argues forcefully that syntax is inherently dynamic, open-ended, and context-sensitive. The only arbitrariness in language is that of the linguistic sign; phenomena which others have treated as manifestations of an arbitrary syntax can in fact be explained in terms of the meaning(s) of the sign(s) in question and the non-arbitrary compositional or interpretive routines motivated by those meanings. In order to explain both occurring and non-occurring combinations of signs, one must also consider the differential appropriateness of lexical and grammatical alternatives for the communication of a given message, and the effects of psycholinguistic processing, cognitive economy, and the socio-cultural factors that make some messages more useful than others to communicate. These considerations necessarily play a central role in language change: arbitrary units crystallize out of usage in which expressive alternatives occur with unequal frequency in different communicative contexts. Such unequal frequency is motivated: the most frequently used sign combinations are likely to be ones that constitute cognitively economical solutions to communicative problems. Such a combination may eventually be reanalyzed as a structurally “arbitrary” complex unit; however it does not follow from this that syntax is arbitrary. On the contrary, the development of units retrieved by rote recall rather than combined iconically during production reflects the competing cognitive costs of computation vs. memorization in the communication of messages.

 Motivated Constraints on Clitic Clustering

García’s special talent lay in her masterful argumentation, her fine-grained and exhaustive elucidation of the differential communicative values of expressive alternatives, and her careful attention to empirical validation of theoretical hypotheses. Speaking once of her revered Hockett’s text Man’s Place in Nature, she quoted Milton: “A good book is the precious life-blood of the master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond.” We think of this when we remember her. Ellen Contini-Morava Yishai Tobin The Editors

Acknowledgements This monograph has come into being thanks largely to 1. the diverse anonymous readers who commented on early versions of parts of the work, or on the whole book at different stages of its composition. Those who objected, prevented premature publication of inadequately formulated ideas, and those who approved, encouraged me to improve the analysis; 2. Arie Verhagen, who strongly urged me to develop an article that was to appear in Cognitive Linguistics into a book on clitic clustering, provided many insightful suggestions, and repeatedly proved himself a friend in need and in deed; 3. the library staff at Leyden University, in particular Isabel Brouwer, John Frankhuizen, Jan v.d. Luyt and James Terbeek; 4. Henk Boeke and Alessandro Scoscia gave invaluable advice on matters of computer software; 5. Marten Hofstede located much hard to find material and on repeated occasions searched both the net and Davies’ Computer Corpus for samples of syntactic arrangements, lexical items, and specific clitic clusters; 6. the many native speakers of different varieties of Spanish with whom, over more than a decade, I have checked my judgments of acceptable clitic clustering. The reactions of Dr. Paula Bertúa (Buenos Aires), Prof. A. Díaz (Buenos Aires), Dr. R. Gianzone (Buenos Aires), Dr. Gabriel Inzaurralde (Montevideo) and Dr. S. Centeno (Bogotá) proved most helpful; Dr. A. Elena Charola (Buenos Aires), Dr. Adriana Churampi (Huancayo), and Prof. Pilar Rodríguez (Madrid) stand out by patience and good will above and beyond the call of duty; 7. the staff at Benjamins, in particular Ms. Anke de Looper, who provided efficient and friendly assistance at all stages of the book’s production; 8. Yishai Tobin and Ellen Contini-Morava, the editors of the Series in which the volume appears, for their incisive and helpful observations; to Ellen in particular, Moyo tele shukurani, ulimi tamko zito.

chapter 1

Introduction Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi

It is generally admitted that “syntax involves the stringing together of independent subunits into a longer signal” (Hurford 2003:€43), and thereby allows an infinite number of such complex signals: finite listing is possible for the actual morphemes of a language, but it is ruled out for phrases or sentences (Aissen and Bresnan 2004:€581). That not every unobserved symbol arrangement is acceptable as a potential utterance is shown by the familiar pairs

(1.1) (1.2) (1.3) (1.4)

I never saw a fragile of (unacceptable) I never saw a fragile whale (acceptable) Furiously sleep ideas green colorless (unacceptable) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously (acceptable)

The challenge is thus to make sense of the unequal acceptability of sequences which have not been observed in actual use (cf. Stefanowitsch 2007:€63).1 On the basis of egg. (1.1–4),2 Chomsky argued that what critically matters is the sequence’s “grammaticality”, independently of its meaningfulness or frequency of use (1957:€ 16 et pass.). This presupposes that “somehow given in advance” is the set of grammatically well-formed sentences (Chomsky 1957:€85), claimed to be identifiable “on the basis of context-isolated acceptability judgments” (Newmeyer 1998:€59). The purpose of a generative grammar is thus to generate all – and only – the grammatical sentences of a language;3 in fact, formalist approaches to linguistic analysis are defined (Newmeyer 1998:€9,31; Stefanowitsch 2007:€62) by the attempt to posit[s] rules and principles capable of generating the set of grammatically wellformed sentences of a language (and their associated structural descriptions) independently of their meanings and functions. (Newmeyer 1998:€31).

This is why they take it for granted that syntax is autonomous. The so-called autosyn hypothesis (Newmeyer 1998:€23 et pass), involves three positions [...] listed below in order of increasing strength: a. At least some elements of syntax are arbitrary (arbitrariness) b. The arbitrary elements participate in a system (systematicity) c. That system is self-contained (self-containedness).” (Newmeyer 1998:€28)4



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Syntactic autonomy consequently claims, at least implicitly, that to some undefined extent human languages exhibit a systematic lack of functional motivation (Newmeyer 1998:€28–9).5 An instance of such arbitrariness is provided by so-called negative exceptions: some lexical items inexplicably fail to occur in a given syntactic pattern, as in the notorious case of the English “double-object Dative”, for “there are verbs that fit the semantics of the dative but cannot use it [sic], for example Tell/*Explain Bill the answer.” (Jackendoff 1997:€175, cf. also Pinker 1989:€9) Negative exceptions crucially test the assumption that syntax is autonomous vis à vis semantics and language use in that they pose a fundamental problem, known as “Baker’s paradox”: how do children learn to avoid apparently plausible but nonetheless unacceptable combinations, given that non-occurrences cannot be observed? (cf. Fodor 2001:€369–70; Stefanowitsch 2008)6 The fact that autosyn and “grammaticality” are circularly interdependent notions, equally lacking in empirical content and self-fulfilling in the analyses they foster (Matthews 1979:€210–13; Schütze 1996:€26, 29–30 et pass.; Wasow and Arnold 2005) does not exempt the analyst from accounting for the absolute unacceptability of some specific syntactic arrangements, or from determining whether “negative exceptions” are indeed grammatical vagaries. It is thus necessary to establish whether the syntactic arbitrariness implicit in autosyn (cf. Newmeyer 1998:€28) is identical with the one that characterizes lexical symbols (de Saussure 1959:€67; Keller 1995:€128, 146 et seq.; Deacon 1997:€79–101), for this bears on Goldberg’s claim that constructions should be recognized as distinct linguistic units (1995:€4), and on Bybee’s, that constructions provide the “appropriate level” for the exemplar representation of morpho-syntactic phenomena (2006:€712). In this monograph we hope to contribute to such basic questions by examining, in close detail, some theoretically possible Spanish clitic clusters, whose absolute nonoccurrence reflects no known syntactic principle (Piera and Varela 1999:€4399). Those non-occurrences will be related to the seldom noted fact that the acceptability of any clitic combination whatsoever depends on the interpretation intended, and/or on its morpho-syntactic environment. Very different views have been taken on how the non-occurrence of specific clitic combinations should be accounted for. For instance, Miller and Sag hold that Romance pronominal affixes “should be analyzed as lexically attached inflections rather than as postlexical clitics” (1997:€575), for this allows the impossible clusters to be seen as “an arbitrary gap in the set of combinations of pronominal affixes and verbs [such gaps being] typical of inflection and not of cliticization” (1997:€577). The same position is taken by Miller and Monachesi (2003:€106) and Monachesi (2005:€50), and a similar suggestion is advanced within the framework of Usage-based Grammar by Haspelmath (2004). We approach the problem from a neo-Saussurean perspective, arguing that what matters is the communicative value of individual signs, and the mental calculus required to interpret symbol combinations. We claim, in short, that the acceptability of a clitic combination depends on whether the cluster is interpretable in the sense suggested by



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction

its context, given the constraints imposed by real-time processing (Newmeyer 2005b:1669): this allows a principled account of the notorious rejected clusters.7 In this introductory chapter we address the general problem of absolute non-occurrences from two different theoretical approaches: generative vs. Usage-based Grammar, and then discuss the nature of syntax from a cognitive/communicative perspective, by stressing its essential iconicity, its acquisition through practice in communication, and the crucial role of variation in syntactic analysis. In Part I we provide an analysis of pronominal morphology in Standard Buenos Aires (Std. BA) Spanish, and define the semantic value of the different clitics; this allows us to explain the total non-occurrence in simplex Verb Phrases (VP’s) of some clusters, and the rejection of others under a specific interpretation. Complex VP’s, which contain two or more verbal forms, admit cliticization at more than one point: they are discussed in Part II, where we particularly concentrate on clitic placement in Accusative cum Infinitive structures (AcI’s), exemplified in (1.5) me hizo comer la sopa ‘he made me eat the soup’ (1.6) lo dejé ir al cine ‘I let him go to the movies’ (1.7) lo vi matar a. ‘I saw him kill’ b. ‘I saw him killed’ (1.8) a. me hizo comerla b. me la hizo comer ‘He made me eat it’ The internal organization of AcI’s has been the matter of long debate (Hernanz 1999:€2237–41);8 they deserve particular attention because they admit clusters, such as the one in (1.8b), where a clitic dependent on the finite verb combines with a clitic associated with the Infinitive.

1.1 Absolute non-occurrences and the arbitrariness of syntax Syntactic exceptions, particularly negative ones, provide prima facie evidence for the arbitrariness of an autonomous syntax, cf. Hudson et al.€(1996). Positive exceptions comprise items/arrangements which should not undergo a rule but in fact do undergo it, with the grammar marking the resulting output as ungrammatical.€Some of those proscribed combinations, however, do prove acceptable and occur freely in normal language use, and can thus be seen as counterexamples which invalidate the analysis that excludes them. This makes it hard to determine how





The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

far the alleged “positive exceptions” are actually “arbitrary”, and support the most basic claim of autosyn. Negative exceptions are, conversely, items/arrangements which fail to undergo a rule for which they are in principle eligible: the predicted “grammatical” output fails to be observed, and proves unacceptable to language users.9 A way out of the analytical quandary would be to view such unacceptable structures as merely semantically anomalous; but this solution is seldom adopted for the semantic anomaly, if any, does not involve reference, and is far from obvious. Identifying what is actually amiss in the rejected combination would probably require detailed lexical analysis, something not generally viewed as part of the autonomous syntactician’s task; ungrammaticality at some level is thus generally taken for granted, cf. Pinker (1989:€100, 102–3, 161 et pass.).10

1.1.1 Pinker’s account of “negative” exceptions11 A solution to Baker’s paradox is proposed in Pinker (1989), a work well summarized in Gropen, Pinker, Hollander, Goldberg and Wilson (1989): negative exceptions can be learnt only if a. children are conservative in their use, and adhere strictly to adults’ practice; or if b. adults provide negative feedback, by correcting children’s syntactic errors; or if c. “negative” exceptions turn out not to be random lists of lexical items which arbitrarily fail to undergo a syntactic rule (1989, ch. 1) Since (a) and (b) are demonstrably not the case, (c) must be true: the claim of arbitrariness must consequently be abandoned, or at least considerably weakened (Pinker 1989:€30, 118 et pass.). Thus, in the case of the much studied Dative alternation, syntactic arbitrariness is challenged by the fact that despite the apparent synonymy (Pinker 1989:€15) of (1.9) I gave John the book (1.10) I gave the book to John the different syntactic argument structures are “associated with characteristic semantic properties”, i.e. distinct thematic cores (1989:€73, cf. also 211–12).12 This suggests that a verb should not appear in a particular syntactic structure if it is “cognitively incompatible with [the] thematic core associated with the argument structure” (Pinker 1989:€98, cf. also 62, 64, 70). Now since it makes no sense for a syntactic rule to be semantically constrained, the “rule” responsible for the Dative alternation must be lexical rather than syntactic (Pinker 1989:€62 et pass.): it follows that the same [sic] verb used with two different argument structures actually consists of two distinct lexical entries sharing a morphological root and components of their semantic structures. A lexical rule, then, associates one kind of lexical entry



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction

with another; it can be seen as taking one lexical entry as input and producing a second as output. (1989:€71–2, emphasis in original)

Broad-range, “property-predicting” lexical rules (1989:€71–72, 100 et pass.) are thus “a set of semantic operations mapping an input thematic core onto an output thematic core” (Pinker 1989:€265).13 Syntactic form and semantic content are claimed to be connected by universal and innate “linking rules” (1989:€94–5, 248, 281), where the “syntactic realizations of arguments [are specified] indirectly, via grammatical functions, rather than directly in terms of surface positions or morphological markings” (Pinker 1989:€32)14 However, both dativizing15 and non-dativizing verbs fall into semantically or morpho-phonologically cohesive subclasses (Pinker 1989:€45, 48, 64–6, 110–20),16 which involv[e] a narrower range of meanings than that which is directly associated with the argument structure.[....] Syntactically relevant semantic subclasses depend on exactly which aspects of the event or state the verb’s semantic structure imposes conditions on. (Pinker 1989:€106–7)17

“Narrow-range” rules are thus required to ensure that only the right lexical items appear in the double-object structure; such rules contain the nodes in semantic structure that are either (a) dominated by the same nodes as the open arguments that get remapped by the broad-range lexical rule or (b) coindexed with such open arguments (Pinker 1989:€276)18

Pinker’s solution to Baker’s paradox clearly depends on the possibility of matching – in non-circular fashion – a verb’s meaning with the input of the narrow “existence predicting” lexical rule: unfortunately, “We currently have neither a format for the input structure of a rule nor a matching function by which a semantic structure for a word would be deemed to match or not to match a rule.” (1989:€213).19 The generalization imputed to the language learner, then, is no more than “if verb X alternates, other verbs with the same grammatically relevant semantic structure alternate, too” (Pinker 1989:€274),20 which leaves Baker’s paradox unexorcized: although I rejected itemwise conservatism in Chapter 1, I am forced to a classwise conservatism by the discussion in this chapter [....] languages tie speakers not to the exact verbs they have heard, but to the small family of verbs that are similar to the ones heard (Pinker 1989:€162, emphasis in original).

The theoretic problem is dwarfed, however, by the many positive exceptions to the predictions made by “classwise conservatism”, for both children and adults violate the semantic and morpho-phonological constraints claimed to curtail lexical dativizing rules (Pinker 1989:€ 21–22, 155–7; cf. also Bresnan and Nikitina 2003; Penke and Rosenbach 2004:€489; Stefanowitsch 2007:€65–68). Such violations, however, are not viewed as “a reason to abandon constraints on lexical rules, because [the violations at issue, EG] are undoubtedly deviant to my ears and those of most people I have shown

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The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

them to” (Pinker 1989:€160).21 Pinker’s narrow range lexical rules are thus incapable of accounting, in principled fashion, for what in fact are dubious negative exceptions. The failure may be due to the little attention Pinker pays to the unequal compatibility of different “narrow” lexical classes with a specific Dative structure. If “negative exceptions” result from the incompatibility of a verb’s meaning with the semantic implications of the double-object Dative pattern (1989:€64–65, 70 et pass.),22 negative exceptions [should] vanish. These criteria [which define alternating vs. non-alternating verb-classes, EG] should not be arbitrary, but should be motivatable in part in terms of an interaction between the meaning of a verb [sic] and the thematic core associated with the argument structure that the alternation yields. (Pinker 1989:€110)23

Unfortunately, only half a page is devoted to exemplifying that interaction. Pinker discusses two subclasses which refer to “instantaneous causation of motion”: Since throw to X verbs involve aiming in the direction of the receiver concurrently with causing the motion, whereas the action in pull to X verbs can be initiated without having the receiver in mind and can have an ever-changing goal throughout its duration, there is a sense in which the receiver is more involved in defining the action for throw and can be more naturally analyzed as a patient. So if we only knew that one of the two classes was dativizable, we could predict it would be the throw class. (1989:€118) (emphasis mine, EG)

In short: throw dativizes, but pull does not,24 because it is only with the former that the receiver can plausibly be seen as the patient of the event, for in the prepositional form, the transferred object is the patient; in the double-object form the recipient is the patient. Though seemingly a minor change, this is the representational distinction that underlies the differences discussed [...] It causes the pragmatic differences [...] and the entailment differences [...] and it provides a motivation for why certain subclasses are more likely to have been deemed dativizable in the language than others (e.g. the difference between the throw class and the pull class). (Pinker 1989:€211–2)

But if Pinker’s argument is to hold, the actual “surface” form of the double-object structure as against the prepositional Dative is surely critical to so-called dativization. That inevitably triggers a further question: is the mapping of thematic cores onto actual surface syntax arbitrary or not? Is it simply a historical accident that the English double-object structure has the value “X causes Y to have Z”, rather than “X causes Y to go to Z”? What prevents the different thematic cores and syntactic structures from being “linked” in reverse fashion? That elementary question, left unaddressed by Pinker, is viewed as critical by Jackendoff (1990:€245), who judges the problem insoluble in the absence of a “theory of semantics within language” (Jackendoff 1990:€279).25



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction

In short: rather than claiming that (1.11) *Explain Bill the answer is ungrammatical, it might be wiser to state that – out of context – it is less easily interpretable than either (1.12) Explain the answer to Bill (1.13) Tell Bill the answer. To account for the relative uninterpretability of (1.11) requires 1. correct analysis of the syntactic structures at issue and of the various lexical choices, attention being paid to the language-specific form of the competing structures, and 2. consideration of the actual communicative context in which the choice is made.26 As Mark Smith observes, Perhaps the flexibility and creativity evinced in the production of syntactic structure by speakers is such that the attempt to determine the set of possible legal syntactic structures within a language is as futile as the attempt to determine all of the polysemous meanings of a word. (2000:€351)

1.1.2 Syntactic and morphological non-occurrences In characterizing (1.11) as a negative exception to a lexical or syntactic rule, the analyst equates the acquisition of syntactic non-occurrences with the learning of lexically idiosyncratic morphological irregularities (Bowerman 1988, 1996; Roberts, Onnis and Chater 2005:€334): Jackendoff in fact claims that “marked rules deviate from the unmarked case qualitatively in just the way irregular verbs deviate from regular forms.” (2002:€191) Such an identification is very questionable: while it is possible to list the irregular plurals of English, or the irregular past tenses in English and in Spanish, there is simply no way of listing all the possible or, a fortiori, the impossible English double-object structures (Aissen and Bresnan 2004:€581).27 It is perhaps more useful to compare negative syntactic exceptions with the gaps in defective paradigms, which are essentially due to semantic incongruity (cf. Newmeyer 1998:€196; Carstairs-McCarthy 1998:€324; Bybee 1985:€86). Paradigmatic gaps thus admit synchronic explanation, while “positive” morphological irregularities reflect the rote-learning of highly frequent forms (Werner 1987:€599; Fertig 1998), and can be explained diachronically. Genuine ungrammaticality can properly be claimed for Sp. *hació ‘he did, made’, vs. OK pació ‘it grazed’, the reason being, simply, that hacer ‘to do, make’ has the irregular Preterite hizo ‘he did, made’, just as in English the regular plural *mouses,

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The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

formed on the analogy of houses, is overridden by the pre-existing irregular mice. But that is not why solió, i.e. the Preterite of the Sp. aspectual auxiliary soler ‘to use to, to be wont’, absolutely fails to occur (Bello 1980:€195 #597; Alcoba 1999:€4968).28 We tried to elicit this morphologically regular form by presenting four native Spanish speakers from Buenos Aires, Huancayo, Madrid and Montevideo with the utterance (1.14) Durante sus primeros tres años en Francia, Juan todavía ____ en pipa; luego se acostumbró al cigarrillo y a las Gauloises. ‘During his first three years in France, John still ____ a pipe; later he got used to cigarettes and to Gauloises’ and asking them to fill in the blank with a form of fumar ‘to smoke’: they all unhesitatingly produced the Preterite fumó ‘he smoked’. When requested to use the auxiliary periphrasis soler fumar ‘be wont to smoke’, they either resorted to an Imperfect (solía fumar), or ignored the instruction to use soler, by omitting the auxiliary and again filling in fumó.29 Spanish speakers unquestionably “know” that the Preterite form of soler is solió, just as they know that the Preterite of an imaginary toler would be tolió. Actual use of tolió, however, is not possible as long as toler’s meaning remains unknown; recourse to solió, conversely, is impossible because Spanish speakers do know the meaning of soler, i.e. ‘be wont to’: its inherent lack of limitation in time clashes with the temporal delimitation enforced by the Preterite.30 Syntactic negative exceptions, such as the failure of explain and donate to occur in the double-object pattern, resemble the avoidance of *solió far more than the non-existence of *hació: if they appear to be arbitrary, it is only because syntax itself is assumed to be self-contained, and the semantic effects of symbol-combination, in interaction with context, are ignored as irrelevant.

1.2 Arbitrariness and conventionality in Usage-based Grammar Scholars who adopt autosyn generally hold that “knowledge of language and the use of that knowledge must be distinguished; to fail to do so would be a category error” (Wasow 2002:€140; cf. also Newmeyer 2003, 2006), but it has long been a matter of scholarly debate whether linguistically significant generalizations can abstract away from language users’ limitations of memory and attention and other cognitive traits (Chomsky 1965:€3), and whether language users’ knowledge of their language can be plausibly distinguished from their encyclopedic knowledge, assumptions as to the world they live in, their understanding of the social context, etc.31 autosyn is consequently rejected by scholars who highlight the fact that grammars emerge from use, as successive generations of language learners abduct competence/langue from performance/parole (Bybee and Hopper 2001; Hurford 2003:€54; Kirby, Smith and Brighton 2004:€592, 597, 603 et pass.),32 and by those who view



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction

The structure of language [as] shaped by the properties of the mechanism that puts it to use. [...] Language is the way it is because it satisfies processing constraints in probabilistic fashion. (Berg 1998:€278)

Some scholars adopt an even stronger position, claiming that linguistic knowledge is properly modelled by a connectionist network (cf. Hare, McRae and Elman 2003:€296 et pass.), which constitutes “both a representation of linguistic knowledge and a processing mechanism” (Seidenberg and MacDonald 1999:€577).

1.2.1 Constructions and syntactic arbitrariness Usage-based Grammar is characterized by a strong interest in the frequency-based internalization of complex units for this allows “[the] uniform representation of all grammatical knowledge in the speaker’s mind in the form of generalized constructions” (Croft and Cruse 2004:€155, 102, et pass.; Bybee 1999:€213; Culicover 1999:€33, 194; Sag and Wasow 1999:€ 369, 382, 383; Wray 2002:€ 15, Stefanowitsch and Gries 2003:€209–11 et pass.). “Constructions” are generally defined as form-meaning pairs, some aspect of one or the other being not strictly predictable from the construction’s component parts, or from other previously established constructions (Goldberg 1995:€4). That makes them symbolic units, comparable to, or even identifiable with, conventional lexical signs (cf. Kay 1997:€123; Langacker 2005:€140–43; Croft and Cruse 2004:€247; Stefanowitsch and Gries (2003:€209–11 et pass.).33 Now if to a large extent, the units of usage are the units of storage and access [...] the units of memory and processing contain [...] multiple words [... but...] even though complex units are stored and accessed, their component parts are also identified in the categorization and storage process. (Bybee and Hopper 2001:€8–9; emphasis in original)

it is not only natural to conceive of “constructions as the basic unit of morphosyntax” (Bybee 2006:€714 et pass.), but also easy to conclude that “a string of words or morphemes that is used with some frequency would also be considered a construction even if its form and function or meaning are entirely predictable” (Bybee and Eddington 2006:€328). However, if constructional status rests only on frequency of use, the retrieval of “preferred strings” stored as a unit becomes indistinguishable – other than circularly – from their preferential composition in response to frequent communicative needs (Wray 2002:€7, 12, 27; Erman and Warren 2000:€33).34 Even more critical is the fact that the expression side of a construction consists of a linear arrangement of lexical or grammatical symbols, each of which boasts a signifiant and signifié of its own: that

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The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

makes it necessary to ask how far “the meaning of [the unit can be] computed from the meanings of the individual words and the way they are arranged” (Pinker 1998:€220). Independent symbolic status cannot be claimed for a construction simply on the basis of frequency or conventionality before it is clear whether, and to what extent, the signifiés of the individual parts fail to add up to the alleged signifié of the con-structed whole: this kind of demonstration is sorely lacking in “construction” or “Usage-based” discussions of grammar.35

1.2.2 Usage-based Grammar and relative frequency of use The usage-based approach to language has shed considerable light on phenomena such as the acquisition of phonology and morpho-phonological change, realms where, by definition, a finite number of discrete units is at issue (Bybee 2001; Pierrehumbert 2001; 2003). Its value is far less evident in the study of morphology (Pinker 1998) and, a fortiori, of open-ended syntax (Newmeyer 2003, 2005a), where it is impossible to identify a finite set of types (cf. Newmeyer 1998:€135; Sampson 2001:€170–2, 174–5, 178; Goldberg 2002:€340–41; Hawkins 2004:€16 fn. 1; Manning 2003:€312). Bod, Hay and Jannedy note that speakers’ well-formedness judgments of words and sentences are extremely well predicted by the combined probabilities of their subparts (2003:€1), but such probabilities cannot be established unless it is possible to tell what tokens fall under one or another of a finite number of types. The sub-parts of morphologically complex words are finitely listable morphemes, but the immediate constituents of sentences are not morphemes, or even words, but syntactic con-structs in their own right: and such “syntactic subtrees” (Bod, Hay and Jannedy 2003:€9), like the sentences they help make up, are not susceptible of finite listing. The very nature of recursive com-positionality (Hinzen and van Lambalgen 2008:€117) makes it impossible for syntactic relations to be finitely listable. In short, a quantitative and/or probabilistic approach to syntax must somehow be able to identify, on the basis of clear and definable criteria, a strictly “syntactic” unit across different occasions of use.36 And though In a probabilistic approach [...] it is not necessary to categorically divide verbal dependents into subcategorized arguments and freely occurring adjuncts. Rather, we can put a probability function over the kinds of dependents to expect with a verb or class, conditioned on various features (Manning 2003:€302)

this does not specify the exact types of syntactic relation actually instantiated in language use: but that must be possible if syntactic tokens are to be counted and assigned to specific syntactic types.37 In fact, Manning admits that while language mostly acts like a discrete symbol system [...] there is considerable evidence that the hidden structure of syntax defies discrete classification. People continually stretch the “rules” of grammar to meet new communicative needs, to



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction

better align grammar and meaning, and so on. Such leakage in grammars leads to gradual change. (2003:€313)38

Like Manning (2003:€309), Bod, Hay and Jannedy (2003) see the quantitative analysis of language use as basically dependent on, and complementary to, categorical linguistics, but, like Seidenberg and MacDonald (1999), Bybee and Hopper (2001) do not distinguish between the storage and the use of linguistic “units”, thus implicitly denying any essential difference between langue and parole, or between synchrony and diachrony. That position has much in its favour, but it requires that sense be made of the syntactic variation observed in language use.39 It has long been held that an important generalization is missed if only the obligatory use of an option is imputed to competence, with quantitative preferences dismissed as a matter of mere performance, cf. Guy (1994:€ 134); Kemmer and Israel (1994:€ 165); Schütze (1996:€ 62–71); Hawkins (2001:€2, 2004:€4); Bresnan and Aissen (2002:€81–82); Wasow (2002:€139), Wasow and Arnold (2003:€148–9); Clark (2005:€210). For instance, “datiziving” verbs appear in the double-object structure with variable frequency,40 so that the alleged absolute nonoccurrence of donate, explain, etc. can be seen as simply an extreme decrease in the frequency of a given arrangement, relative to a competing option.41 The acceptability of an expression is similarly relative, for it critically depends on the intended reading. Newmeyer points out that “overwhelmingly in structures of the form ‘the gerund of NP’, the NP is interpreted as the object of the gerund, not as the subject” (2003:€697). Clearly relevant is the fact, which Newmeyer does not note, that the converse preference holds for the structure “NP’s gerund” as in the hunters’ shooting: in the absence of context, it strongly favours a subjective, agentive reading of the NP. Now generalizing over the variable and the obligatory use of an expressive option clearly requires that a reason be given for the non-uniformity of variable use and/or relative acceptability. However, after noting that the semantic differences associated with the two constructions involved in the dative alternation [...] are subtle and seem unlikely to account for all the lexical variation in ordering preferences, (Wasow and Arnold 2003:€133)

Wasow and Arnold “provisionally [...] conclude that speakers’ mental lexicons include information about the tendency of particular verbs to appear more or less frequently in various syntactic contexts” (2003:€133) and claim, as a result, that “people’s knowledge of language does include probabilistic information” (2003:€150).42 That language users have some knowledge of frequency of use is very likely, for the frequency with which events occur appears to be automatically encoded (Hasher and Zacks 1984; Bod, Hay and Jannedy 2003:€3). But it does not follow that internalized probabilities therefore account for the greater frequency in actual language use of the double-object Dative pattern with give than with sell (Wasow and Arnold 2003:€133; Bresnan 2006), or for the higher proportion of animate NP’s in cases of NP’s Gerund than of Gerund of NP; such a conclusion cannot be drawn without first establishing

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The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

whether the difference in pragmatic effects between the two Dative patterns is the result of an arbitrary convention, and to what degree the association of Subjective vs. Objective readings of the NP with NP’s Gerund vs. Gerund of NP is motivated or not. After all, the quantitative skewings which are imputed to internalized lexical biasses might merely reflect the interaction between the grammar and grammar-external “performance” factors (Kiparsky 1971:€603). Not surprisingly, Green argues that “arbitrary lexical bias [...] is not so much an explanatory factor as it is an effect in search of an explanation” (2004:€330), while Verstraete observes that “Frequency effects as such do not constitute an explanation but are themselves an effect of more general and processing-related principles” (2005:€501). Their remarks were anticipated by Naro: From the point of view of linguistic theory, it would be much more interesting if patterned behavior in linguistic variation could be shown to be a result of linguistic competence, rather than just a part of it, in the same way as the regular behavior of a coin upon flipping is a result of its physical structure. (1980:€165; emphasis in original)

So far, however, the Usage-based approach has focussed almost exclusively on the lexicalization of highly frequent collocations; this sheds little light on actual syntactic productivity, or on such syntactic problems as why diverse extensions and extrapolations of the fat lady’s singing prove immediately acceptable (Barlow 2000), while this fails to be the case with the much discussed (1.15) He donated Harvard University his priceless manuscripts If the inequalities in relative frequency or acceptability are seen as a grammar’s explanandum, rather than part of the grammar itself, the first and most basic question for the syntactician can only be “What aspects of an utterance must be stored in longterm memory, and what aspects can be constructed online in working memory?” (Jackendoff 2002:€152; emphasis in original). The recognition of compositional structure lies at the very heart of syntax, for it is presupposed by the very nature of text (Wray 2002:€12), and the interpretation of symbol-combinations inevitably involves cognitive processing in real time (de Saussure 1959:€70; Deacon 2003:€116, 120).43 The computation of syntactic structure is too manifestly involved in the composition and interpretation of novel utterances, the very raison d’être of syntax, to take second place to the reproduction of memorized clichés, no matter how great the frequency of the latter.

1.3 Syntax as compositional routines Being understood to reflect communicative/informative intentions (Sperber and Wilson 1986:€ 29), signals require interpretation (Keller 1995:€ 113–18 et pass.): the



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction

addressee must figure out a reason why a particular signal has been produced in a given context. In human languages, multi-symbol signals are resorted to because the different messages which men desire to convey are too manifold to be memorized as individual symbols, which would prove too many and too hard to distinguish in use: the co-location of symbols is what allows humans to overcome the cognitive bottleneck of shortterm memory (Miller 1956) or, as the Urdu proverb more pithily has it, “one and one is eleven”. Speakers are thus forced, most of the time, to resort to iterative compositionality; Hearers must consequently learn to take apart, i.e. “parse”, complex signals. The Speaker’s task is to project a non-linguistic experience onto a complex linguistic expression, i.e. to match the conventional value of linguistic symbols with some aspect of the amorphous global content he has in mind, thus chunking the experience into a small number of “things talked about” (Gentner 1983, 1988).44 Such experiential chunks and the relation in which they stand to each other must be structurally mapped (Gentner 1983, 1988; Gentner and Markman 1997, Gentner, Bowdle, Wolff and Boronat 2001; Fisher 2000:€26; Kako 2006), i.e. projected onto a sequence of signs (de Saussure 1959:€112). In order to recognize the “things talked about” in their proper interrelation, and thus retrieve the Speaker’s message, the Hearer must engage, as it were in reverse, in the same kind of cognitive mapping.45 Repeated recourse to the same chunking of private mental content in correlation with the same chunking of expression eventually results in tried and true linguistic symbols (Tomasello 2003b:51), i.e. stably shared recurring partials: that is what Martinet refers to as “first articulation” (1965:€4–6, 15–16).46 Even more, the long practice in specific (re)chunking manoeuvres which results in stable, shared conceptual categories, may eventually itself come to guide the “chunking” of experience (cf. Loucks and Baldwin 2006:€253).47

1.3.1 Inference: the key to syntactic computation Diversified combination of different signs allows all sorts of communicative needs to be satisfied, but does so only partially, for In our words we can never give more than an abstract of our thought and feeling, and this abstract can only be a weak outline. Human speech demands of the listener that he take careful note of the reality which it expresses, but which it cannot completely retain (Schmaus 1966:€194).48

The Hearer must integrate the new information evoked by the Speaker’s sparse hints with his own background knowledge (Sperber and Wilson 1986:€153, 186; Bransford and Franks 1972:€221–5 et pass.; Sanford 1999:€304; Garrod and Pickering 1999:€3), and draw from the whole a contextually coherent conclusion (cf. Elman, Hare and MacRae 2005:€111 et pass).

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The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Linguistic communication is possible because human beings are very good at problem solving (Maratsos 2005), i.e. at combining a variety of clues, and at drawing conclusions from the way in which clues are combined (Levinson 2000:€29). Since complementary feats of creative imagination must be engaged in by Speaker and Hearer (Le Goffic 1994:€49; Touretsky 1994:€235–6, Johnson 1992:€350), metaphor and metonymy cannot help but make part of all language use (Quine 1978:€160; Johnson 1987:xv). Human languages owe their communicative versatility to their users’ ability to draw inferences (Ertel 1977:€145 et pass.; Hörmann 1983:€233 et pass; Bransford, Barclay and Franks 1972; Bransford and McCarrell 1977:€ 393–98; Johnson-Laird 1981:€118).49 That, however, renders symbol-combinations interpretable only in context (Deacon 2003:€125, 129–133 et pass.): Joos’ “semantic axiom number one” justly claims that a linguistic form is maximally supportive and supported in its situation” (1972:€263; emphasis in original).50 What amount or part of context is relevant to the interpretation of a particular syntagm is itself context-dependent, and becomes clear only in the process of formulating or interpreting an utterance (Sperber and Wilson 1986:€137–42 et pass.; SpiveyKnowlton and Tanenhaus 1994:€428). The inferential process understandably becomes both harder and more time-consuming the more context the Hearer has to take into account (Bornkessel, Schlesewsky and Friederici 2002:B22). Precisely because inference and context play so crucial a role in language use, the syntactic structure of an utterance is inherently indeterminate, for a sentence is “parsed” only as far as required for its interpretation in context. “The hidden structure of syntax defies discrete classification” (Manning 2003:€313) simply because the syntax of human languages presupposes com-position, com-position requires computation, and the interpretive inferential “calculus” is necessarily context-dependent.

1.3.2 Syntax as iconic mapping The Speaker’s articulation of the content he wishes to convey is facilitated the more directly the chosen sequence of symbols maps the experience to be communicated (Bock 1982:€ 6,13,35; Fisher 2000:€ 19–20, 30, 38; Newmeyer 2001:€ 104; Deacon 2003:€124).51 Similarly, the Hearer’s analytical task becomes simpler to the extent that the Speaker’s com-posite signal directly prefigures the intended content: the more iconic the expression, the easier its computation.52 That is why the com-position of symbols characteristically exhibits motivational or “diagrammatic” iconicity (Kleiber 1993:€ 106; Haiman 1983, 1985:€ 9 et pass.; Hollmann 2005:€ 288–90):53 as Slobin remarks, “we keep finding iconicity because there is no other way for a semiotic system to be created and used by human beings without a close fit between form and function” (2005:€320). It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the term iconicity applies not to a formal arrangement, but to the semiotic relation between expression and intended message, with some cognitive dimension common to both allowing the latter to be mapped



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction

onto the former (cf. Gentner 1983:€156, 1988:€48; García 1990:€308). That is self-evidently the case for the most basic and iconic mapping of all: the sequencing of speech forms, themselves ordered in time, normally replicates the temporal sequence of the “real world” events referred to (Haiman 1985:€4). Though syn-tactic iconicity is a familiar concept, it is so central to our later argumentation that one very clear exemplification of its relational nature will be indulged in. The expressions get hot under the collar and flip one’s lid refer, both, to the process of ‘becoming angry’; they differ in suggesting that the anger is achieved differently: a higher and more overt degree of ire is achieved more rapidly when one flips one’s lid, than when one gradually proceeds to get hot under the collar (Gibbs 1990:€440). It is not by accident that each expression conveys one particular type of irritation: the kinds of real-world anger, and the events by which they are suggested, both involve temporal development. The difference between a sudden vs. a developing anger, developing rapidly vs. slowly, also distinguishes a sharp flip from gradual increase. A violent reaction to increasing irritation is thus suggested more graphically by “flipping one’s lid”, which refers to a sudden sharp action, than by the gradual process evoked by “growing hot under the collar”. Since the structural mapping of the two contents on the two linguistic expressions is straightforward, it is cognitively non-arbitrary (Reid 2004:€114).54 Less usual – and thus less expected – messages stand in particular need of both combinatorial iconicity and strong contextual support. That is why, out of context, (1.16 ) **Himself killed him is normally viewed as a totally unacceptable way of conveying (1.17) He killed himself Nonetheless, the formal arrangement in (1.16) proves perfectly acceptable in (1.18) Egoist 489 We have the phrase, that a man is himself under certain trying circumstances. There is no need to say it of Sir Willoughby; he was thrice himself when danger menaced, himself inspired him. and there it is far more appropriate than the flat (1.19) He inspired himself What makes (1.18) the right expressive choice is the contextual support provided by Meredith’s work as a whole, which manifests Sir Willoughby’s morbid dependence on the image others are to have of himself.55 The traditional definition of the sentence as a “complete thought”, and its characterization by de Saussure as “the ideal type of syntagm” (1959:€124) suggest, in combination, that this much discussed syntactic unit essentially optimizes the relation of inferential costs to cognitive returns,56 while words

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The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

are privileged [as a unit of mental representation EG] not because of special ontological status, but because the word is the size of unit which maximizes a trade-off between frequency of usage and constancy of interpretation (Harris C. 1994:€211; emphasis in original).

In learning a language, then, children acquire knowledge not so much of complex forms, but rather of how to com-pose expressions, i.e. how to articulate an inherently fuzzy thought by means of linguistic symbols (Slobin 1996:€76 et pass; 2000). The constant practice of communication allows the novice communicators to learn lexical items in a variety of syntactic arrangements (Bowerman and Choi 2003:€408), and to become gradually better both at the composition of different linguistic items (AbbotSmith and Tomasello 2006:€284–85, 287) and the computation of meaning (Tomasello 2003:€193 et pass.) Syntactic competence, in short, is simply the proficiency achieved in computing sign-combinations of diverse types: syntactic routines are “known” as the way in which lexicon and morphology can be used.57 It follows that the acquisition of language involves far more than the memorization of a huge number of semi-productive clichés or idioms: essentially, it is learning to guess how “the others” think, till that becomes “the way one thinks”.58 Since compositional calculus is always available as a default processing mode, expressive iconicity is the natural option in the production and interpretation of syntactic arrangements (cf. Krug 2001:€313, 316, 322). The basic question for syntactic analysis, then, is not whether memory or calculus counts more in linguistic use, but rather what significant generalizations underlie that use, and ensure the stability of the grammar shared by the speech-community (Hurford 2000; Kirby 2000; Kirby, Smith and Brighton 2004; Bybee 2007:€692).

1.3.3 Accounting for syntactic variation and “negative exceptions” Manning suggests that the (in)frequency continua that culminate in the absolute nonoccurrence of one or the other variant can be formally modelled within a probabilistic syntactic framework (2003:€319–22). Linguistic analysis, however, cannot confine itself to such modelling, but should rather aim at substantive motivation of the skewed distributions:59 so-called “constraints” merely label a non-occurrence, but do not explain it (cf. Jurafsky 2003:€93–94). It is necessary to determine why “constraints” takes the form they do, i.e. not only why a given conditioning factor favours one outcome rather than another, but why one factor favours it to a greater or less extent than does another (cf. Scholz and Pullum 2007:€721; for an attempt at such substantive motivation, cf. García 1996). A parallel can perhaps be drawn between syntactic processing and the production of phonetic sequences: it is not difficult to understand why the brief and complex gestures necessary for the production of consonants happen to precede a stable vocalic



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction 

articulation more often than another, equally rapid, consonantal gesture. Valid articulatory or perceptual considerations also explain why only some of the many theoretically possible consonant clusters actually occur, and why the ratio of observed to theoretically possible clusters falls almost exponentially with an increase in the size of cluster. Similarly, it is no accident that the actually observed clusters should differ in their list frequency, cf. the number of distinct Russian lexemes respectively beginning with /pr-, pl-, ps-, pn-, pt-/: consonant clustering is substantively constrained, both intra- and cross-linguistically, by the unequal difficulty of the different articulatory transitions.60 While syntax unfortunately cannot provide for its constructs the kind of substantive motivation possible in phonetics/phonology (cf. Browman and Goldstein 1992; Lindblom, Guion, Hura, Moon and Willerman 1995; Lindblom 1999; Pierrehumbert 1999:€ 295; Broe and Pierrehumbert 2000:€ 7),61 linguists need not be deterred from seeking explanations where they must necessarily lie, i.e. in the unequal cognitive cost of different linguistic formulations.62 When syntactic variants differ in such easily measurable properties as their length or relative “weight”, which cannot but affect linear processing in real time, the cognitively more economic alternative is clearly favoured in use (Hawkins 2004). The same kind of preference may be expected for expressive alternatives which differ semiotically, i.e. in the transparency with which a cognitive content is mapped onto a symbolic expression. Com-position of symbols should prove increasingly unacceptable the larger the number of cognitive dimensions involved in the processing, the shorter the time available for the computation, and/or the clearer the conflict between subcomputations. Referentially equivalent syntactic variants by definition involve different computations: they are therefore likely not only to differ as to cognitive cost, but also to present the scene referred to from different perspectives (MacLaury 1991, Stubbs 1996:€215). Competing syntactic alternatives are thus likely to prove unequally congruent with different contexts, in which they are consequently likely to be unequally frequent (Maiden 2004:€253 fn. 52). If absolute non-occurrences are claimed to be not arbitrary, but indeed to constitute the limiting case of a decrease in frequency, sense must be made of that continuum: success in such an account will not only explain why, as a rule, a given arrangement fails to occur, but also why, in an exceptional context, and for a very infrequent communicative need, the proscribed combination does indeed occur (cf. Stefanowitsch 2007:€68). A good example is provided by one of the few certainties in Spanish grammar, namely the fact that a Present Indicative is ruled out after the subordinating conjunction como si ‘as if ’, which “always tak[es] the [Past] Subjunctive” (Butt and Benjamin 1988:€234). Now como si clearly includes the conjunction si ‘if ’, which does admit the Pres Ind. or the Past Subj. in respectively “real” vs. “irrealis” conditional clauses, with the choice



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

between the two depending on how probable the event is taken to be. In fact, native speakers from different Spanish-speaking areas rated the Pres Ind. progressively less “acceptable”, as the event at issue was presented as increasingly unlikely by introductory leaders of unequal assurance, such as Está demostrado que ‘it has been shown that’, No cabe duda que ‘there can be no doubt that’, Me imagino que ‘I imagine that’, Sospecho que ‘I suspect that’, Quizá ‘Perhaps’, Dudo que ‘I doubt that’, No es probable que ‘It is not probable that’, to Es poco probable que ‘it’s unlikely that’. Not surprisingly, the acceptability of the Past Subj. concomitantly rose, along the same continuum (Klein F. 1980:€18–19).63 The complex como si ‘as if ’ lies beyond Klein’s (un)likelihood continuum, for since the subordinate event never took place at all, it is not at all probable, thus justifying categorical recourse to the Past Subj. But precisely because it is simple common sense that lies behind the categorical use of the Past Subj. with como si,64 the Pres Ind. is nonetheless resorted to in (1.20) Sábato 79–80 [Background information: the novelist and essayist Sábato discusses, in a newspaper article, the relation between the writer and his creation] El escritor se siente frente a un personaje suyo, que emana de la inconsciencia, como un espectador ineficaz frente a un ser carnal; puede ver y hasta prever sus actos, pero no los puede evitar. Hay en ellos algo irresistible que no es posible impedir. Lo curioso, lo ontológicamente asombroso, es que ese personaje es una prolongación del autor, y todo sucede como si una parte de él es testigo de la otra parte, y testigo impotente. Este oscurísimo problema es el que intenté describir en mi última novela, Abaddón, el exterminador. ‘With respect to one of his own characters, who emanates from the unconscious, the writer feels like an ineffectual spectator in front of a living being: he can see and even foresee his deeds, but not forestall them. There is in them something irresistible which it is imposible to prevent. The strange, the ontologically amazing thing is that the character is an extension of the author, so that everything happens as if one part of him is [Pres Ind.] a witness of the other part, and an impotent witness. This extremely obscure problem is the one I attempted to describe in my last novel, Abaddón, el exterminador’ Sábato resorts to the Pres Ind. because, no matter how frequently used, como si is not one sign, but two: como ‘as’ can introduce, as term of the comparison, a conditional si ‘if ’ clause that refers to an actual non-hypothetical event. Sábato com-poses como with si while discussing the fact that in his book Abaddón he himself appears as one of the novel’s characters, a mixing of levels of considerable interest to Sábato qua literary critic. The unexpected, but highly appropriate combination of como plus si plus the assertive Pres Ind. es, highlights the vividness of the unusual creative experience: use of the Past Subj. would misrepresent it as imaginary and unreal.€The difference in value between Pres Ind. and Past Subj. thus simultaneously



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction 

explains both the regular recourse to the latter tense after como si, and the acceptable occurrence of the former for Sábato’s complex and unusual message, iconically mapped onto the com-posed sequence como + si.

1.3.4 Analytic implications To the extent that the unequal relative frequency and/or acceptability of competing syntactic variants is motivated by considerations of cognitive economy, it must be the analyst’s task to specify what properties of a particular arrangement favour its frequent use in a particular context, or its greater acceptability over an alternative, rather than taking both frequency and acceptability for granted. Unfortunately, Work in grammatical analysis has traditionally paid insufficient attention to how phrases and constructions actually receive the properties they do, simply taking the end product as a grammatical fact. We need to look more closely at the differences between minimal and explicit forms and ask how properties are assigned in processing. (Hawkins 2004:€49)

True sense cannot be made of frequency and/or acceptability continua, unless the syntactician comes to grips with the calculus that links complex syntactic expression to intended content, and accordingly develops interrelated hypotheses as to a. the difference in form that distinguishes competing variants; b. the specific difference in communicative value that results from (a): syn-tactic analysis cannot be undertaken in the absence of specific claims as to the semantic value of different signs;65 c. the different semantic/pragmatic implications that follow from (b), and consequently make the competing variants unequally appropriate in different contexts;66 d. the inferential path liking (b) to (c): this cognitive connection must be as plausible as possible, and should at least not fly in the face of known psychological facts.67 Jakobson’s analysis of Russian cases in terms of Gesamtbedeutungen (1966) has been objected to because Formulas like “+peripheral, -affected” are not self-explanatory [...] and [...] have very limited predictive power, and insofar as they do have predictive power, the predictions they generate are often incorrect. [...] A person who does not know Russian cannot learn to use the Russian cases on the basis of Jakobson’s formulas (Wierzbicka 1980:€157–8; emphasis in original).

In our opinion, Wierzbicka’s critique is misplaced: the object of a grammatical analysis is not to serve as a teach-yourself-X method, but to shed light on the use of linguistic forms, e.g. on why – in such and such a context, and with such and such a semantic



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

effect – an Instrumental is resorted to instead of an Accusative, or a Nominative, or a Dative, or a particular Prepositional phrase (Culicover 2004:€140). Jakobson can – and should – be criticized: not for having postulated Gesamtbedeutungen, but for having done only part of the linguist’s job. He largely ignored points (c) and (d) above, and never did spell out exactly how which grammatical feature of a given Russian case led to its use for the actual communication of a specific content. Jakobson probably took it for granted that his readers knew Russian, and may have assumed that the link between Gesamtbedeutung and actual use of a case was self-evident: but the risk of circularity remains, unless the connection is actually spelled out to the greatest extent possible. Had Jakobson set the necessary example in 1936, and worked out the way in which meanings are contextually transmuted into interpretations (Croft and Cruse 2004:€101), we might be closer to the goal envisaged by Naro (1980:€165) (cf. Sect. 1.2.2).

1.4 The non-arbitrary compositionality of Spanish clitic clusters If a motivated account is provided of syntactic variation along the lines sketched in Sect. 1.3.4 (for exemplification cf. García 1985b, 1996, 2004; Fox and Thompson 2007:€309), absolute non-occurrences should follow naturally from the correct linguistic generalizations (cf. Yang 2008:€220–21), rather than reflect the grammaticalization of arbitrary constraints (Culicover 1999:€222–24). Systematic avoidance in use should thus be the lot of essentially non-computable arrangements, i.e. such as are so hard to interpret, and/or require so much contextual support, that a different expressive alternative serves the Speaker’s communicative ends just as well, at considerably lower cognitive cost for him and the Hearer alike (cf. Newmeyer 2005b:1669; Culicover makes a similar point in terms of language acquisition 2004:€136). The ideal test for this claim is provided by the absolute non-occurrence of arrangements at the borderline between syntax and morphology, such as impossible combinations of Spanish pronominal clitics. The grammaticalized status of Spanish clitics is evident from their fixed position with regard to the verbal stem on which they depend, and the fixed order in which they follow; this, however, does not render a specific (non-)combination arbitrary or conventional, for what clitics actually do come together in a cluster reflects a synchronic communicative need. If the clustering of forms as unquestionably grammaticalized as clitics can be shown to be constrained in substantively motivated fashion, there is little chance that the run-of-the-mill syn-tax of words and phrases will prove arbitrary or merely conventional. What actually constrains the combination of clitic with clitic has largely been ignored (Anderson S. 1995; Sportiche 1996; Wanner 1999; Grimshaw 1997:€195; 2001),68 though the clustering of pronominal clitics has long challenged the alleged autonomy of syntax (Anderson S. 1988:€ 165, 167). All attempts to distinguish syntactically



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction 

between acceptable and unacceptable clusters have, so far, proved uniformly unsuccessful (Luján 1980:€384;467; Treviño 1994:€144; Fernández Soriano 1999:€1267): “for more than a quarter century, French pronominal affixes (indeed Romance pronominal affixes in general) have posed a dilemma for generative grammar” (Miller and Sag 1997:€573). The task of accounting for impossible clitic clusters has consequently been relegated to a functional dimension external to the formal grammar proper (Wanner 1994:€30), or assigned to a distinct and autonomous morphological component (Bonet 1995, Harris J. 1996, 1997). Different views have been taken of the various non-occurring clusters, with formalists ignoring functionalists’ accounts, and vice-versa: Bonet (1995) and Harris J. (1996) view the absolutely impossible clitic clusters *le lo, *se se as evidence for the autonomy of a specifically morpho/phono-tactic component, while Miller and Sag regard them as gaps in irregular inflectional morphology (1997:€575, 577). The ungrammaticality of *me le, which depends on its interpretation, is viewed by Wanner (1994) and Haspelmath (2004) as reflecting the acquisition of clitic clusters as pre-fab dyads. A question that has seldom been asked is whether those impossible clitic combinations resemble the irregular hizo, the absence of regular *hació, or the non-occurrence of *solió (cf. Sect. 1.1.2). We shall argue that the total unacceptability of the three starred clusters is neither arbitrary nor necessarily conventional, and that it rather follows from the same principles that underlie the acceptable use of le, se, me and other clitics, whether alone or in clusters. Since Spanish clitics differ as to their informative content, they naturally trigger different inferential processes, and it will be our task to identify and motivate those routines. In order to determine why a specific cluster is acceptable or not, and what particular interpretation(s) it admits, we will discuss the cognitive mechanics of clitic syntax in general: Spanish speakers are not tempted to force their interlocutors’ interpretative capacity by combining incompatibles, or pointing in two opposite ways at the same time.69 In short, we hope to demonstrate that clitic clusters do add up semantosyntactically: rather than learning individual clitic groups as distinct constructs, Spanish children learn when and how far to group clitics. Our explanandum will consist of native speakers’ judgments as to the relative acceptability of different clusters,70 under specific interpretations, in diverse contexts (cf. Henry 2005).71 Language users’ intuitions about sentences fundamentally concern the appropriateness of a given syntagm as the expression of a content, i.e. the communicative viability of a particular expression-content pairing. Such judgments involve the implicit comparison of competing alternatives (Keller 1995:€ 180–81), and are thus truly relative. Our task will be to motivate, in substantive cognitive terms, the unequal appropriateness of different formal alternatives as the expression of a particular content. A difference in processing cost can in any case be expected to follow from the striking difference in phonological bulk between clitics and their most obvious morpho-syntactic alternative, i.e. non-clitic reference. We stress, finally, that our analysis is strictly



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

linguistic: we make no claim as to how the relevant parts of Spanish grammar are actually represented in native speakers’ minds;72 our analysis concerns only what is represented (cf. Bod 2006:€295). In short: our goal is to identify as closely as possible the linguistic generalizations that underlie the communicative use of clitics by speakers of Std. BA Spanish, for these should ideally suffice to explain specific clitics’ failure to cluster, whether absolutely, or under particular communicative circumstances (Bod, Hay and Jannedy 2003:€8). Our objective is best described in Hockett’s words: I surely do not suppose that a Potawatomi hearer, in order to understand, need go through the sort of exegesis inside his head that we have gone through above, nor that a Potawatomi speaker has to encode in the stepwise fashion we have demonstrated. But, in each case, the native speaker and hearer could proceed in the fashion described. The characterization [...] is correct in the sense that it specifies exactly the machinery maximally available to speaker and hearer. Whatever slick tricks and shortcuts speaker and hearer may actually use must be compatible with this machinery. This degree of realism ought to be our aim whenever we try to take a language apart. (1966:€73; emphasis in original).

Notes to Ch. 1 1.

We are not concerned with social or normative (un)acceptability.

2. Examples are referred to by the number of the chapter in which they occur – in this case 1 – followed by a period (.), and by the number of the example itself within the respective chapter. 3. If a grammar succeeds in specifying what is “grammatically” possible, what is impossible could go without saying, for not only should ungrammatical utterances fail to occur, but there should be no need for any independent statement of the fact (Chomsky 1957:€14 fn. 1; Culicover 1999:€194, 131; 2004:€131). Under “generative grammar” we understand formalizing approaches in general, cf. Wasow (2002:€115 fn. 1). The claim that grammaticality is central to linguistic analysis was early – and tacitly – abandoned, with significant effects for the generative programme, cf. Schütze (1996:€35 et pass.), Chomsky (1993:€44 fn. 7). 4. Newmeyer’s claim that it is possible to generate “the set of grammatically well-formed sentences of a language [...] independently of their meanings and function” (1998:€31) is clearly at odds with the frequently used caveat that a particular sentence or structure is (un)grammatical only “under the intended interpretation,” cf. Fanselow (2004:€79). 5. This has been explicitly claimed for the “interesting” properties of language (Chomsky 1971:€44,46; Koster 1987:€376). 6. Roberts, Onnis and Chater point out that Baker’s Paradox is critically dependent on the APS, i.e. the Argument from the Poverty of the Stimulus to which language learners are exposed (2005:€338–9). The APS, according to Wexler, is Chomsky’s “most unique argument [and lies] at the foundation of linguistic theory” (1991:€268), cf. also Bod, Hay and Jannedy (2003:€6).



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction  7. Our current treatment differs significantly from the analysis presented in García (1975) in such respects as the attention paid to syntactic processing, the discussion of clitic clustering in both simplex and complex Verb Phrases (VP’s), and the specific analysis of the clitics se and le. 8. Pountain (1998) characterizes the “Accusative and Infinitive” construction as “non-coreferential infinitive complementation” (1998:€170–171); Hernanz refers to it more accurately as an “Infinitive with a Subject in the Accusative” (1999:€2236), recalling the term Accusativus cum Infinitivo familiar from Latin grammar (Wilson 1968:€83–86; Pearson 1933:€158 # 329 et pass; Wheelock 1963:€ 117). We adopt Pountain’s abbreviation AcI for the corresponding Spanish structure. 9. Negative exceptions reflect a grammar’s excessive generative power: the problem, of course, is to isolate the strictly formal criteria which rein in that power so that it can adequately render language users’ acceptability judgments. 10. Pinker points out that the negative exceptions he discusses “are not obviously ungrammatical, at least not in the same sense as Furiously sleep ideas green colorless or Walks the boys” (1989:€160) 11. Pinker regards “verbs that should not passivize, dativize, and so on, according to the constraints, but do” as unproblematic, provided (a) they are learned conservatively, that is, on a verb-by-verb basis from positive evidence; and (b) they are few enough in number, compared to the obedient alternating verbs, that the child will not be tempted to discard the criteria altogether as ineffective. It is hard to assess the truth of either of these escape hatches. (1989:€57) 12. The same point is made by Wierzbicka (1988); Jackendoff (1990:€195, 197); Davidse (1996) and Groefsema (2001); cf. also Newmeyer (2003:€697) on syntactic variants generally. 13. Pinker does not say whether a broad lexical rule impartially mediates between two thematic cores, or actually derives one from the other. In his representation of the broad lexical rules responsible for the alternation between prepositional (to- or for-) and double-object Datives, a double-pointed arrow connects the two semantic structures (1989:€211, 220), thus suggesting the first alternative. However, Pinker concerns himself only with “the process that converts from the prepositional form to the double-object form” (1989:€213), failing to ask why a child who has a. learnt that give and tell alternate between double-object and prepositional Datives, and b. has further been exposed to

(i) Mary forgave Peter that sin

still fails to produce (ii) *Mary forgave that sin to Peter Perhaps Pinker views “double-object only” verbs as essentially positive exceptions (1989:€57), i.e. as members of a finite list (cf. Bybee 2006:€716); in any case, he explicitly – albeit incorrectly – claims (1989:€65) that such verbs share the “thematic” core attributed to the “dativized” (1.9) 14. Tomasello points out that innate universal linking rules are both untenable and unnecessary, and that they improbably assume that language learners disregard the language-specific “surface” properties to which they are actually exposed (2005:€185–87, 191–94). In any case,



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs if there is a grammar module, then the parts of this module map in very different ways to different grammatical operations, depending on the relative importance of positional or inflectional tricks for cuing grammatical decision in different languages (Deacon 1997:€307). We return to this crucial point below, in Sect. 1.3.2. 15. The term “dativizing” refers to a verb’s potential for occurring in the double-object (or “ditransitive”) structure illustrated by eg. (1.9). 16. The implications of this fact for the acquisition of syntax are highlighted by Goldberg (1999, 2002), who rejects rule-governed syntactic alternation as the object of learning. 17. According to Pinker, verbs’ semantic structures constitute an autonomous level of linguistic representation, not reducible to syntax or cognition. Like other linguistic representations, they contain semiarbitrary language-particular features while obeying formal and substantive universals (1989:€357) 18. Pinker specifically claims that “the grammar [...] cannot see most cognitive distinctions, of which the real-world color of arguments’ referents is perhaps the most paradigmatic” (1989:€277). This is contradicted by the triad (i) I was about to shave him clean, but he asked me to leave him his whiskers, of which he is ever so proud (*to-, *for-) (ii) In my will I am leaving him my famous false whiskers (OK to-, *for-) (iii) Be sure to tell John I left him his false whiskers with the stage-manager (*to-, OK for-) In this connection, cf. Stefanowitsch and Gries (2003:€222). 19. Nor is any attempt made to specify the device that blocks the Latinate members of various semantically impeccable dativizable narrow-range verb classes (Pinker 1989:€118–123, cf. Groefsema 2001:€528), or to account for its acquisition. 20. If different narrow-range semantic plans did actually underlie the Dative alternation, as Pinker claims (1989:€64), there would be far more agreement as to what verbs actually dativize (cf. Pinker 1989, Wierzbicka 1988, and Levin 1993). Under “non-alternating double-object Dative only” verbs, Levin includes appoint, designate, nominate, proclaim, brand, call, believe, declare, find (1993:€47), which according to Goldberg (2002:€351 fn. 9) enter into a distinct “predicate” construction. Pinker ignores the question whether (i) She made him a good husband (ii) She made him a good wife share the same syntactic structure (1989:€163); cf. the ambiguity of (iii) Name me the King of poets (iiia) Dub me the King of poets (predicate structure) (iiib) Name to me the King of poets (Dative structure) 21. According to Pinker, it is the grammar’s task conservatively to curtail language users’ innovations. “Perception and cognition are flexible, and this causes a problem” (1989:€101); consequently, Language guards its verbs’ grammatically relevant semantic structures vigilantly [...] Only certain relatively narrow classes of verb meanings are given the privilege of being reconstruable as having new, related verb meanings (1989:€102; cf. also 1989:€162–3)



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction  22. Groefsema (2001) argues that Pinker’s criteria are inadequate; a given verb can combine with a certain syntactic pattern if the two do not conflict in the perspective they independently project on the event referred to (cf. 2001:€536 fn. 11). The point was made earlier, and much better, by Wierzbicka (1988:€375 et pass.); it has more recently been reasserted by Stefanowitsch (2007:€66) as well as by Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2008:€129). 23. At no point, however, does Pinker discuss how “the meaning of a verb” relates to the distinct lexical entries claimed to appear in different argument structures (Pinker 1989:€71–2). 24. It does in the pub, when you tell the barmaid “Pull me a beer”. Note that Pinker’s account of why throw dativizes, while pull does not, is put in strictly relative terms: the two verbs are paired off with the two syntactic structures in terms of respectively greater appropriateness, rather than in terms of strict ungrammaticality. 25. The issue can be circumvented as long as linking rules are viewed as part of innate UG; note that while claiming the innateness of linking rules (1989:€94–5), Pinker posits new ones as needed (1989:€211, 220, 222). 26. This is what critically undermines the autonomy of syntax; the number of lexical/ referential/pragmatic variables relevant to the Dative alternation is so large and open-ended, that an indefinite number of analogical syntactic re-creations becomes possible (Sampson 2001:€169,172). 27. Correspondingly, overgeneralization is quite common with morphological patterns but comparatively rare in syntax (Howe 2002:€882). The pre-emptive blocking of an “ungrammatical” generalization is clearly operative in the learning of inflection (Braine and Brooks 1995:€359– 60), but is not characteristic for syntax, where “correct” usage of a lexical item may coexist for years with syntactic overgeneralization (Bowerman 1996:€461–3). Brooks and Tomasello show that in its conservatism, the very first acquisition of syntax does resemble morphological learning (1999:€736), but their claims with regard to overgeneralization, and to the psychological reality of narrow verb-classes, are far less convincing. 28. Unlike hacer, soler ‘to be wont’ has no irregular Preterite. Bello claims that solió, soliste ‘3rd ps sg., 2nd ps sg. Pret. soler’ are “very rarely used” (1980:€195 #597), but provides no example of actual usage, as he normally does for rare forms or constructions. We have never run across any Preterite of soler, in either Modern or older forms of Spanish. 29. All four informants adamantly rejected the alternative solió fumar ‘was wont to smoke [Pret]’, but were very puzzled at their own apparent inconsistency in the choice of Past tense. 30. The Preterite is equally rejected with saber ‘to know’ in those areas (NW Argentina, Perú) where this verb has replaced soler as the expression of habitual action. ACh, from Huancayo, finds the Preterite supo fully acceptable in the sense ‘he knew, learnt, found out’, as in (i) Ayer supo que había muerto su madre ‘Yesterday he learnt that his mother had died’ but rejects it most absolutely in the durative sense implicit in (ii) *Mientras estuvo encinta supo beber Coca Cola, que normalmente no le gusta ‘While she was pregnant she used to drink Coke, which she normally does not like’ Here she admits only the Imperfect sabía. Cf. also Stefanowitsch and Gries (2003:€230–1) on lexical (dis)preference with the Eng. progressive form be...ing.



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs 31. For instance, Hankamer and Sag note that a thorough attempt to account for anaphora “would probably take us out of linguistics, and into the study of human knowledge, perception, belief, the nature of the physical universe, and everything else.” (1976:€426) 32. The quantitative aspects of language use have – understandably – been systematically ignored by analysts committed to autosyn (Chomsky 1957:€16–7; 1966:€36 et pass.; Newmeyer 1998:€34; Smith N. 1989:€85; Harris J. 1996:€194 fn. 1; Scholz and Pullum 2007:€715); they conversely play a pivotal role in Usage-based Grammar. Frequency of use is crucial to language acquisition, and in fact does away with the need for an innate UG/language acquisition device (Redington, Chater and Finch€1998; Rohde and Plaut 1999:€105; Marcus 1999; Culicover 1999:€197; Mintz, Newport and Bever 2002; Tomasello 1995, 2000, 2003a; Smith L. 2001). Diachronically, the entrenchment of an extremely frequent collocation (Bybee and Thompson 1997:€382) may favour categorical recourse to it, and eventually lead to the non-analyzability of the unit (Lüdtke 1980; Bybee 2006:€714–16). 33. Goldberg and Jackendoff even claim that “Constructions are any stored pairings of form and function; according to this definition, words and morphemes are technically constructions as well” (2004:€533 fn. 1). Bybee and Eddington take exception to this position (2006:€327 fn. 4) as does also Van Valin jr. (2007:€236); cf. an early objection by Newmeyer: “from the assumption that the lexicon is the repository of irregularity, many lexicalists seemed to derive the conclusion that language is one great trove of irregularity” (1991:€219). 34. A far from trivial question is what constitutes the critical level of use-frequency, and how it is established, cf. Yang (2008:€209 fn. 5). It is not clear whether the relevant frequency involves the instances of a given “construction” per so many words, clauses, or sentences of running text/ discourse, or is established in relation to the potential occasions of use, i.e. to other communicative alternatives (Wray 2002:€30–31; Hay 2001:€1066, 1044–46; Croft 2008:€51–52). 35. Postulating that frequent sign-combinations are automatically internalized as “constructions” ignores the compositionality of utterances and eludes the discussion of both units and calculus (Bybee and Eddington 2006:€328). 36. It is unclear, for instance, on what non-circular basis the “Subject-Verb” inversion observed in Have you been working late? (Newmeyer 1998:€46–49) can be distinguished from that in (i) Under no circumstances will I take a day off (ii) Had he lived longer, he would have seen Rome burn (iii) So tall is Mary, that she can see into a second storey window Newmeyer (1998:€46–49, esp. fn.11) claims that “a different type of English inversion structure” is observed in (iv) Outside stood a little angel but unfortunately does not specify what distinguishes (iv) from (i) – (iii), nor does he say whether (iv) instantiates the same, or a different type of inversion from that/those observed in (v) Long like the Queen! (vi) Green grow the rushes, oh! (vii) Is he wrong!! (viii) People 232 Also absent […] from prehistoric art prior to the agricultural revolution is depiction of war. The issue is carefully skirted in Croft and Cruse (2004:€308–13, esp. p.€310).



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction  37. The distinction between type- and token-frequency, which is unproblematic in the case of phonological or morphological units, rapidly blurs when applied to the indeterminate units of syntax (Winters 1990:€290). This is why in the acquisition of morphological items, whose number is finite and where the choice between mutually exclusive alternatives is obligatory (Jakobson 1959, Slobin 1997:€305–9), the sheer frequency of one option can block out a competing expression, thus explaining the latter’s non-occurrence: such pre-emptive blockage is far less likely in the case of syntactic variants. 38. The same point was already made by Hockett: Sandlot chess [an imaginary game without formal rules, that resembles language in not being well-defined, EG] differs from our chess not merely in that the rules are implicit instead of explicit, but in that, in the formal sense, there are no rules – only a changeable consensus. If a hundred years pass during which no one takes a pawn en passant, that feature is extinct because no one alive remembers it (of course, it might be reinvented or reintroduced by borrowing). Anyone can invent a new move if he can persuade his opponent to let him get away with it; when he can, perhaps it is because the opponent will then feel free to use the same move later, to his own advantage. (1968:€85–87; emphasis in the original) as well as by Sampson: It is not that the English language (or any other language) presents us with a fixed finite range of constructions which rigidly constrains our linguistic behaviour; rather, our speech and writing make heavy use of the best-known patterns of the language, but we are free to adapt these and go beyond them as we find it useful to do so, and there are no such things as word sequences which are absolutely “ill formed in English” – only sequences for which it is relatively difficult to think of a use, or for which no one happens yet to have created a use (2001:€166) 39. According to Ross (1999:€298), gradient properties, such as acceptability, constitute more interesting and informative explananda than categorical ones, like (un)grammaticality; Stefanowitsch and Gries (2003:€235) note that such gradient data present “a huge problem for rulebased approaches to language”. 40. Deny and grudge, for instance, are claimed to admit only the double-object Dative pattern, while mutter would be a “non-alternating”, to- only verb, and give, pull, push, sell, and tell are characterized as “alternating” (Levin 1993:€47). Since all these verbs are actually attested in both prepositional and double-object Dative structures, it is only the extremely high vs. negligible frequency with which they appear in the latter pattern that distinguishes the first two from the third set of verbs (cf. Stefanowitsch and Gries 2003:€237, fn. 13). 41. Taking an alternative into account guarantees the existence of a bona-fide communicative need; this makes “absolute non-occurrences” analytically interesting, for they cannot be blamed on mere communicative uselessness (Newmeyer 2006). 42. Other scholars as well assume that grammars internalize performance factors, or attribute to grammaticalized constraint strengths the relative infrequency of a given item in different environments, cf. Bresnan and Aissen (2002:€83); Hare, MacRae and Elman (2003:€282, 296); Gries (2003:€174, 2005:€377–80); Gahl and Garnsey (2004:€769, 2006:€405); Haspelmath (2004); Clark (2005:€212–3), Bresnan and Hay (2008:€246, 256). This position is not incompatible with the Usage-based assumption that the same cognitive representation accounts for processing in use and stored linguistic knowledge; differences in use-frequency internalized in the course of



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs language acquisition can consequently be seen as part of convention (cf. Bresnan and Aissen 2002:€83–4). 43. It is also part of the processing of word morphology (Marslen-Wilson and Tyler 2005:€270– 75). 44. Self-corrections suggest that linguistic production involves analysis by synthesis, i.e. a matching of the global content to be articulated with the result of interpreting an envisaged articulation (Keller 1995:€180–181). 45. Every language user alternatively plays the role of Speaker and Hearer, and benefits, while carrying out one mapping, from his knowledge of the syn-tactic manoeuvres relied on for the other (cf. Hurford 2003; Hawkins 2004:€25). 46. Since the symbols at issue are language-specific categories abducted by the general cognitive skill of pattern finding (Tomasello 2005:€191–94; Bowerman and Choi 2003:€407–09), there is no need to assume that “the structure and principles of CS [conceptual structure] are present in the learner prior to the task of language acquisition” (Culicover and Nowak 2003:€11), cf. also Levinson (2001; 2003:€35–37 et pass.). The availability of language itself, and in particular the existence of relational terms, promotes comparison, inductive inference and the perception of relational commonalities (cf. Gentner 2003:€219, 221; Gentner and Loewenstein 2002:€94–96, 101, 106; Gentner and Kurtz 2006). As Gentner and Loewenstein point out, “language both invites specific comparisons and reifies the resulting abstractions” (2002:€89). 47. In fact, as Pinker puts it “[Whorf] was probably correct in a much weaker sense: one’s language does determine how one must conceptualize reality when one has to talk about it” (1989:€360), cf. also Lucy (1992:€275); Lucy and Gaskins (2003); Gentner and Goldin-Meadow (2003: 10–11); Tomasello (2003b:53–54); Gentner (2003:€225–28). 48. As Wright observes, “there is no guarantee other than the ‘utterer’s’ and ‘hearer’s’ common satisfaction over their mutual pragmatic success that they are taking their meanings in the same way” (1976:€519). 49. According to Bransford and McCarrell, words are merely “abstract constraints that guide meaning-making acts” (1977:€396). 50. Considerable experimental evidence shows that the Hearer’s re-construction of a communicative whole becomes much easier when the context confirms his inferences, cf. Murray and Liversedge (1994:€366–8); Tyler and Marslen Wilson (1977:€684–5); Tanenhaus and Trueswell (1995:€ 231, 239–41); Boland (1997:€ 609–10); Britt, Perfetti, Garrod and Rayner (1992:€ 302); MacDonald, Pearlmutter and Seidenberg (1994:€678). The fact that discourse context can guide and facilitate interpretive processing [....] suggests that intransentential factors such as syntax are not autonomous from contextual processing, contrary to the modularity hypothesis. (Grodner, Gibson and Watson 2005:€275) 51. This is automatically the case in communications which combine non-linguistic signals with linguistic forms (Postal 2004:€181–90). 52. Minimizing the cost of “processing enrichment” (Hawkins 2004:€44–48) is the key to easy and successful communication (cf. Newmeyer 2005b:1669): note that the easier inference is for the Hearer, the less explicit the Speaker need be (Hawkins 2004:€45). 53. Goldberg argues, for instance, that the relative ordering of Subject re Object, and of Indirect Object re Direct Object in the double-object Dative, iconically parallel the pragmatic ranking of



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction  the participants respectively at issue (2006:€ 199–200), cf. also Levin and Rappaport Hovav (2005:€216–19). This may be one reason why English-speaking children had great difficulty in learning the nonce syntagm “X norped Y of Z” as referring to a situation where X actually sent Y to Z (Pinker 1989:€29). The unequal cross-linguistic “perceptual [...] salience and clarity of form-meaning mapping of the formal cues to the semantics of the construction concerned” can thus be expected to shed light on the acquisition of the respective corresponding structures (Abbot-Smith and Tomasello 2006:€286–87). 54. Not surprisingly, experimental subjects found the two idioms unequally acceptable in contexts which suggested different degrees of anger: congruent embeddings, where both context and idiom coincided in suggesting the same type of irritation (quick and explosive, vs. slow and simmering) proved more acceptable than non-congruent couplings, where context and idiom pointed in contrary directions (Gibbs 1990:€440–41 et pass; cf. also Richards 1977). 55. The converse and equally “ungrammatical” (i) *hei loves himi is more frequently attested – and likewise iconically appropriate – in (ii) Albee 189 (More or less to herself) I disgust me. I pass my life in crummy, totally pointless infidelities... (Laughs ruefully) would be infidelities [emphasis in original] (iii) International Herald Tribune; Dec. 11, 2008, p.€6 [Remark by the Governor of Illinois, Mr. Blagojevich, with respect to the assignment of B. Obama’s Senate seat] I’ve got this thing it’s [blank] golden. And I’m just not giving it up for [blank] nothing. I’m not going to do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there. (iv) Wink 259 ‘You remember the Hoopers?’ ‘Who could forget them? Oh, excuse me, they could forget them’ (emphasis in original) It is clear from the context that the Hoopers, who have Alzheimer’s disease, are pathologically forgetful, even of them(selves). 56. This might explain a puzzling fact originally reported by Miller and Isard (1963), namely that “words that form a sentence simply sound clearer, and are more resistant to interference than the same words in a list or in an ungrammatical sentence.” (Townsend and Bever 2001:€185). 57. This is confirmed by every bilingual’s experience. Just as one’s hearing becomes dull to unfamiliar or unpractised sound differences (Pierrehumbert 2003:€138–39), not using a language inevitably results in loss of syn-tactic proficiency: one begins to find it hard to recall the right word or turn of phrase. 58. The cultural values held by the language-community in turn determine the type of message likely to be communicated (cf. García 2004); that, too, is mastered in the process of “acquiring syntax”. Different languages do single out different aspects in the segmentation of experience (Loucks and Baldwin 2006; cf. also Pederson, Danziger, Wilkins, Levinson, Kita and Senft 1998; Boroditsky 2001:€20; Lucy and Gaskins 2001:€280 et pass; and Slobin 2005:€320 et pass.). 59. Both corpus analysis and experimental work show that the relative frequency of syntactic alternatives varies significantly along continua of semantic, syntactic, lexical, and phonological



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs factors (Hawkins 2001; Wasow 1997; Wasow and Arnold 2003; Gries 2003; Arnold, Wasow, Asudeh and Alrenga 2004; Lohse, Hawkins and Wasow 2004; Gries and Stefanowitsch 2004). The choice of ’s vs. of “genitives”, for instance, depends on the relation understood to hold between the two entities, and thus on such factors as relative topicality, animacy, concreteness, etc. (cf. Deane 1987, Rosenbach 2003, and Stefanowitsch 2003). 60. A critical role is played by the relative mobility of the articulators in play and, for a given articulator, by the relative degree of articulatory precision required; cf. Menzerath (1954) for an early foray into this well-researched area. 61. Henry points out that substantive conditioning of syntactic variation has received very little attention (2002:€267, 277). 62. Kirby (1998:€365–66) notes that structures that are easier to process are cross-linguistically more frequent; similarly, familiar, statistically probable and/or prototypical items receive higher grammaticality judgments than unprototypical ones (Manning 2003:€ 301–02; Bybee and Eddington 2006:€349–52; Scholz and Pullum 2007:€715; Stefanowitsch 2008:€527). Colorless green ideas sleep furiously (eg. 1.4) is easier to process than (1.3) Furiously sleep ideas green colourless, because (1.4) can be related to frequently observed patterns. Not all unprototypical patterns, however, rate equally low (cf. Dabrowska 2004:€199, paralleling the results on normal, anomalous and scrambled prose discussed by Martin 2001:€355–56). It is the middle range of acceptability that is of greatest analytic interest. 63. Pres. Ind. and Past Subj. proved equally acceptable at Quizás ‘May be, perhaps’, which is as close as one can come to a 50–50 chance. The etymology of quizás is ¿qui(én) sabe? ‘who knows?’. 64. The prevalence of the Preterite over the Present after as if is unquestionable in English, cf. Jespersen (1966:€255, #24.2.2). 65. Cf. Croft and Cruse’s postulation of a linguistic form’s “purport” (2004:€100). 66. The explanatory enterprise will fail altogether if the diverse semantic/pragmatic effects that attend the use of one variant as against a rival expression are characterized incorrectly: the “end products” of interpretation are too often taken as grammatical fact and not examined further (Hawkins 2004:€49). 67. To the extent that inferential routines involve the semantic value of signs, they are language specific. Grammatical meanings emerge as obligatory contrastive categories from the frequency with which a particular categorization is made (cf. García and van Putte 1987); they are consequently rooted in language-specific evaluations (Dryer 1997, Levinson 2001, Fortescue 2002, Everett 2005). Any universality in content reflects the similarity of communicative needs across human communities, just as formal universals reflect semiotic constraints (Deacon 2003:€126– 134). 68. Considerable attention has conversely been paid (Anderson S. 1992:€ 210–11; 221–3 et pass.) to such morphological phenomena as the fixed order of clitics, and their placement in pro- vs. enclisis (cf. Anderson S. 1988:€166; 2005). 69. Relative ease of parsing appears to constrain the combination of derivational affixes, whose ordering, however, is not as rigidly fixed as that of clitics (Hay and Plag 2004:€565, 578–80, 583, 588). 70. We resort to the familiar symbols (OK, ?, ??, *, **) and combinations such as OK/?, or ?/* to indicate degrees of relative (un)acceptability (cf. Schütze 1996:€45); ? marks either unanimity as



Chapter 1.╇ Introduction to questionable acceptability, or disagreement among informants as to the cluster’s acceptability. The judgments are in the first place our own, and reflect our native dialect, Std. Buenos Aires (BA) Spanish. These have been checked, in doubtful or marginal cases, with informants from other regions, all of them highly literate speakers of Standard Spanish, but none of them trained in linguistics. Different varieties of Spanish unquestionably diverge in phonology and lexicon, and may differ as to the pronominal system and/or the strategies of clitic exploitation, but we expect the relative acceptability of different clitic clusters, under different interpretations, not to differ across dialectal boundaries, for what is at issue is computation. 71. Quantitative analysis of a specific corpus is neither at issue nor required; when appropriate, frequency data will be adduced, with indication of the relevant source. Individual attested cases of unexpected, rare, or obsolete interpretations, whether from BA Spanish or other dialects or languages, will be presented as necessary; the relevant sources are listed after the references, under the heading Corpus. 72. We do however hope to achieve a psychologically realistic evaluation of the cognitive costs involved in processing alternative symbol combinations as the expression of a specific communicative content (cf. Matthews 1991:€196–97).



part i

The morphological roots of Spanish clitic syntax

chapter 2

The problem Unacceptable clitic clusters

A credible account of the syntagmatic combinability of clitics cannot ignore their paradigmatic value.1 The Spanish clitics not only contrast with each other but, as a set, stand in opposition to free tonic pronouns as well as to possessive and prepositional forms, with which we will be concerned only in passing. For the benefit of non-Hispanist readers, Table 2.1 presents the traditional conception of the pronominal paradigm for Peninsular Spanish, which is more familiar and more prestigious than Latin American varieties.2 Table 2.1╇ The Spanish pronoun system Person Sg.

Tonic form (Subject)

Verbal clitic (Object)

1st 2nd 3rd

yo tú él (masc.) ella (fem.) ello (neutre)



nosotros, nosotras (fem.) vosotros, vosotras (fem.)



nos



os

me te se le

Reflexive Dat: Non refl. non fem. lo Acc. fem. la

Pl. 1st 2nd

3rd

ellos, ellas (fem.)

Reflexive Dat: Non refl. unn Acc. . fem.

se les los las



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Clitic pronouns are morphotactically constrained in that 1. pro- or enclisis is determined by the verb’s mood: the former is obligatory with Infinitives, Gerunds, Imperatives and the polite use of the Subjunctive to convey an order to a formally addressed 2nd person, cf. (2.1) a. ¡Tráelo! ‘Bring it (you sg.: familiar, Imperative)’ b. ¡Tráigalo! ‘Bring it! (you sg.: respectful address, Pres. Subj.) Proclisis holds for all other uses of the Subjunctive, and with all tenses of the Indicative (Butt and Benjamin 1988:€126–30; Fernández Soriano 1999:€1260–61). 2. each clitic can attach to a verbal form but once: this rules out clusters such as *me me, *te te, etc.; 3. they follow in a fixed order, i.e. se – 2nd ps – 1st ps – 3rd ps l- clitic.3 This rigid sequencing derives historically from the ordering predominant in Old Spanish (Rini 1995, Enrique-Arias 2005:€71 et pass.) A four-clitic cluster is thus possible, and marginally acceptable, cf. (2.2) ¡Se te me lo dijo! Y yo que esperaba que nunca te enterarías... ‘So you were told it! [lit: «one» (se) told it (lo) to you (te) “on” me (me)] I was hoping that you would never find out...’ As pointed out in Sect. 1.4, what specific functions can be acceptably signalled by a particular clitic cluster is a strictly syntactic question, for it is always possible to avoid an uninterpretable cluster by replacing one clitic by another, or by an expression involving a tonic pronoun.

2.1 The problematic clusters Clitic clusters fall into three classes, depending on 1. whether the unacceptability depends or not on a specific interpretation; 2. the expressive alternative resorted to is a. a different clitic cluster b. non-clitic reference c. dissociation of the clitics, in the case of complex VP’s We begin by considering unacceptable clitic clusters in simplex VP’s.



Chapter 2.╇ The problem 

2.1.1 Absolutely non-occurring cluster, with clitic alternative: *le lo4 In all varieties of Spanish, any combination of 3rd ps Dative (Dat) plus 3rd ps Accusative (Acc) clitics gives way to a cluster where se stands in lieu of Dat le(s) (Piera and Varela 1999:€4399); in that case se, allegedly a reflexive clitic, is generally referred to as spurious se (abbr. spur. se), cf. (2.3) a. * les la di b. OK se la di ‘I gave it (fem) to them’ The non-occurrence of le + lo combinations in Spanish is quite striking, in view of the cognate clusters le lui and glielo, which do occur in French and Italian.

2.1.2 Absolutely non-occurring cluster, lacking clitic alternative: *se se The fact that no clitic can be iterated is generally viewed as a sufficient reason for the non-occurrence of a *se se cluster in whatever combination of senses (Piera and Varela 1999:€4399). But more than morphotactics is at issue: for while no analyst postulates more than a single me or te, at least two se’s are generally recognized, since spur. se is pervasively viewed as homonymous with a genuinely “reflexive” se (refl. se), cf. Wanner (1994:€19–20), and refl. se – or a further homonym – serves as an impersonalizing affix referred to as “impersonal” se (imp. se) (Mendikoetxea 1999:€1652). No reason has ever been proposed why imp. se should be syntactically incompatible with refl. or spur. se, but such clusters are nonetheless totally unacceptable: (2.4) *se se lo dijo ‘Someone said it to him’ (imp. se + spur. se) (2.5) Tarde o temprano *se se arrepiente del mal hecho en la vida ‘Sooner or later one repents (oneself) of the evil one has done’ (imp. se + refl. se) *Se se has no all-clitic equivalent under either interpretation, but the non-specific agent invoked by imp. se can be alluded to by non-clitic means: (2.6) Se lo dijeron ‘They told him of it’ (2.7) Tarde o temprano uno se arrepiente del mal hecho en la vida ‘Sooner or later one repents of the evil one has done’

2.1.3 Interpretation-dependent unacceptable clusters As will now be shown, diverse clitic clusters prove unacceptable under one interpretation but not another.



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

2.1.3.1 *me le The combination most often discussed is me/te le (cf. García 1975:€436–39; Bonet 1994; Haspelmath 2004); it is unacceptable when 1. the 1st or 2nd person plays the role of Direct Object (= DO), with a 3rd person cast as Indirect Object (= IO); and 2. the DO is referentially distinct from the Subject, cf. (2.8) *me le presentaste ‘You introduced me (DO) to him (IO)’ (2.9) *te le recomendé ‘I recommended you (DO) to him (IO)’ The cluster conversely proves acceptable under one or the other of the following conditions: 1. the 1st or 2nd person plays a role other than that of DO,5 cf. (2.10) Cuentos 87 ¿No se dió güelta pal lao de la mujer y ¡zás! me le largó un revés con la zurda que me la hace trastabillar medio azonzada? ‘Didn’t he turn towards the woman and – wham! – paste me her a blow with his left hand that made her stumble (‘on’ me) half dazed? (me, Dative of interest [abbr. Di])’ 2. the clitics me/te co-refer with the Subject (Bello 1980:€ 282 #939, #941; López García 1998:€496), cf. (2.11) Segundo 113 me le enhorqueté al Comadreja, proponiéndome sacarme pronto el mal humor. ‘I mounted Comadreja with a leap [lit.: I forked myself (me) onto Comadreja (le)], intending to get rid of my ill humour.’ (2.12) Segundo 57 me les dejé caer encima ‘I let myself fall on them’ (2.13) Mex Pop 109/15 Yo no sé qué santo me ayudó, pero...este...[los policías] se entretuvieron, y me fui. Yo no sé cómo me les escapé. ‘I don’t know what Saint helped me, but...eh...[the policemen] weren’t paying attention, and I left. I don’t know how I got away from them’ (lit: I escaped “myself ” them [Dat]) (2.14) Cuatro 98 Y ya me le puse al lado, le agarrré un brazo ‘Right away I stepped beside her (lit.: placed myself [DO] her [Dat] to the side), I seized her arm’



Chapter 2.╇ The problem 

3. the 3rd ps clitic le refers to the formally addressed 2nd ps IO.6 We have observed no actual instance of this third condition, but our informants AECh and PB, both from Buenos Aires, as well as PR (Madrid) accepted the cluster unhesitatingly when le refers respectfully to the 2nd person, while rejecting it absolutely when le = 3rd person, cf. readings (a) vs. (b): (2.15) a. Context: minor Argentine attaché addresses Mexican minister of Foreign Affairs at a diplomatic reception: Temo que Su Excelencia no me recuerde: me le presentaron en Toronto hace tres años, en la conferencia de la FAO. ‘I fear that Your Excellency will not remember me: I was introduced to You (lit: they introduced me [DO] to You [IO]) three years ago in Toronto, at the FAO conference.’ b. Context: minor Argentine attaché addresses Colombian colleague, in referring to the Mexican minister of Foreign Affairs: Temo que Su Excelencia no me recuerde:**me le presentaron en Toronto hace tres años, en la conferencia de la FAO. ‘I fear that his Excellency will not remember me: I was introduced to him (lit: they introduced me [DO] to him [IO]) three years ago in Toronto, at the FAO conference’ No informant found (2.15b) better than (2.15a). 2.1.3.2 *se le Se le is unacceptable when se “spuriously” refers to some 3rd or respected 2nd person who plays a Dat role, and, like le’s referent, is distinct from the Subject, cf. (2.16) **se le vendí la casa a. ?‘I sold her (spur. se) his (le) house b. ?‘I sold him (se) her (le) house’ As in the case of me le, se le is fully acceptable when se corefers with the Subject; it is also extremely frequent under that interpretation, cf. (2.17) Se le cayó ‘It fell down (refl. se ) ‘on’ him (le)’ 2.1.3.3 *se me lo The interpretation of se determines the acceptability of the three-clitic se me lo cluster (Perlmutter 1971:€29, 70), cf. (2.18) se me lo compró a. OK ‘”Someone” (imp. se) bought it (lo) for me (me); it was bought for me’ b. * ‘She bought it (lo) for him (spur. se) “on” me (me) [Di]’



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

2.2 The nature of the problem Clusters whose acceptability depends on their interpretation – specifically me le in (2.8) and se le in (2.16) – were early recognized as a serious challenge to generative analyses (Perlmutter 1971:€28, fn. 15; Seuren 1976:€23; Postal 1980; Barnes 1980:€282; Monville-Burston 1981:€246). Unlike *le lo and *se se, they cannot be filtered out with a template, for this would eliminate the acceptable (2.10), (2.11) and (2.17) as well. Nor is it feasible to rule out (2.8) and (2.16) at some higher semantic level, for the intended messages can be, and regularly are expressed, by resorting to pronominal but nonclitic reference for the 3rd ps Dative, cf. (2.19) me presentaste a él ‘You introduced me to him’ (2.20) a. le vendí la casa de él b. le vendí su casa ‘I sold her his house’ What must be explained, then, is why the clusters are ruled out only under a particular interpretation. The obviously semiotic nature of the problem makes it unlikely that the clusters’ unacceptability should be arbitrary, and rather suggests processing difficulties are at issue. That surmise is supported by the fact that the type of verb-phrase in which the clitic combination occurs further affects its acceptability: it makes a big difference whether two se’s cluster in a simplex VP, as in eg. (2.4), or appear disjoint in an auxiliary periphrasis, such as poder + Inf ‘to be able to, can V’, where a clitic can attach either to the finite Auxiliary, or to the Infinitive main Verb, cf. (2.21) En esta playa *se se puede bañar ‘On this beach one can bathe (oneself)’ (2.22) En esta playa ??/*se puede bañarse ‘Here it is possible/allowed to bathe (oneself)’ Moreover, a cumulation of se’s becomes fully acceptable under coordination of the main Verbs, as in (2.23) En esta playa se puede tomar el sol y bañarse ‘Here one can enjoy the sun and bathe (oneself)’ Such manoeuvres prove totally ineffective, however, in the case of *le lo: (2.24) a. *le lo puedo dar ‘I can give it to him’ b. **le puedo darlo ‘I can give it to him’



Chapter 2.╇ The problem 

c. *le puedo traer el libro y darlo ‘I can bring him the book and give it (him)’ But le and lo can cliticize to distinct verbal forms in an Accusative cum Infinitive (AcI) structure, cf. (2.25) la oí hablarle ‘I heard her (la) talk to him (le)’ (2.26) le hice visitarla ‘I made him (le) visit her (la)’ Final proof that the issue goes far beyond morphotactics is provided by the cluster me lo, which is invariably acceptable in a simplex VP, but becomes as interpretation-dependent as me le in an AcI: (2.27)

me la oíste presentar ‘You heard a. OK her introduced to me (by someone) b. ? me introduce her c. ** her introduce me’

Clitic placement in complex VP’s, particularly in AcI’s, will be dealt with in Part II.

2.3 Previous handling of the issue(s) The problems sketched in Sect. 2.1 have not escaped analysts’ attention, but – to our knowledge – no solution has yet been found that does justice to morphological, syntactic and semantic facts alike. We begin by briefly discussing the failed attempts to account for unacceptable clusters in simplex VP’s, and examine the problematic clitic combinations in order of decreasing attention received.

2.3.1 *le lo vs. OK spur. se lo The absolute non-occurrence of *le lo is circularly predicted by a template where Dat and Acc clitics fill the same morphotactic slot (Schroten 1972:€12 fn.3, 18 fn.7), but this account does not explain the systematic recourse to se for le. For thorough discussion of the literature on spur. se we refer the reader to García (2003b); a summary is provided in Chapter 6.



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

2.3.2 *se se This cluster should in principle be interpretable as combining syntactically distinct senses of se, eg. the le-”allomorphic” spur. se with refl. se and/or imp. se. Its non-occurrence automatically follows if a morphological template stipulates the presence of only one se, whatever its syntactic status or source (Perlmutter 1971; Otero 1975:€169–170; Bonet 1995:€638; Harris 1996:€188; Heap 1998). In his (1994) and (1999) papers Wanner bypasses the question why the two homonyms fail to occur; *se se is likewise ignored in Seuren’s functional calculus, aimed at “constrain[ing] the transformational rules of Clitic Movement” (1976:€7–8); it is seen as an unsolved problem in Grimshaw (1997:€195), and not discussed at all in Grimshaw (2001). Gerlach invokes a ban on the co-occurrence of “alliterating and homophonous clitics” to rule out the combination of imp. and refl. se (2002:€38, 133, 183). The fact that the cluster is characterized as a RFL RFL sequence suggests that the two se’s are grammatically not distinct (2002:€133 [12a]): nothing is said, however, as to how the single “RFL” value of se can yield a distinct homophonous imp. se (cf. 2002:€183).7

2.3.3 *me (Acc) le (Dat) + non-coreferential subject Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian) generally eschew me (1st ps Acc) + illi (3rd ps Dat) clusters (Gerlach 2002:€148–9), a combination that has proved intractable in purely formal terms. The problem is ignored in the discussion of clitic sequences by Wanner (1994), Harris J. (1996) and Grimshaw (1997, 2001); the facts are stated incompletely, and in part incorrectly, by Parodi (1998:€ 94, 97), Suñer (1999:€236–7) and Franco (2000:€179).8 In order to rule out the cluster, most formalists invoke ad hoc constraints (Perlmutter 1971:€26, 62; Seuren 1973:€318–19; Laenzlinger 1993:€255–6; Bonet 1994:€36; Fernández Soriano 1999:€1266–7), constrain the applicability of clitic-forming transformations (Bastida 1976:€70) or the ranking of constraints (Gerlach 2002:€ 151), or postulate paradigmatic gaps in verb-inflection (Miller and Sag 1997:€575).9 García attributes the unacceptability of the cluster to the inferential complexity of the intended message (1975:€436–39): the ranking of the cases at issue (Dative and Accusative) is at odds with that of the persons to whom they are assigned, so that the role-allotment “runs counter to the natural fit between person meanings and case roles, [....], and [...] consequently [results in] an incoherent, unnatural message” (García 1975:€439).10 That incongruence leads native speakers to reject the cluster. Haspelmath (2004) provides a carefully worked out and well-documented Usagebased account of the cross-linguistically biassed preference for one matching of person with case-role over the other, and invokes a “harmonic association” of person- and role-scales as the ultimate reason for a Ditransitive Person-Role Constraint (2004:€20–21). Since Animacy and Topicality mediate between the two scales of per-



Chapter 2.╇ The problem 

son and role (2004:€34, 48), Haspelmath might appear tacitly to endorse García’s (1975) functional explanation: this is however not the case, for “harmonic” is “a simple synonym of ‘likely to occur’ or ‘natural’” (Haspelmath, 2004:€34). Haspelmath in fact invokes a diachronic link “between patterns of language use and grammatical structure” (2004:€25), in that “when free pronouns undergo grammaticalization [...] only the most frequent combinations survive as grammatical patterns” (Haspelmath 2004:€37). Since the unequally frequent occurrence of “harmonic” vs. “non-harmonic” utterances allows only the former to be grammaticalized in the course of time, Haspelmath claim[s] that the bound-pronoun combinations blocked by the DPRC [i.e. Ditransitive Person Role Constraint, EG] do not occur (in the languages with DPRC effects) because they have not been grammaticalized due to their less frequent occurrence, compared with the other combinations. (Haspelmath 2004:€31)11

The “grammatical structure” of Spanish would consequently involve not only individual clitics, but also specific clitic dyads: All conventionalized linguistic structures, whether phrasal patterns, clitic groups or morphologically complex words are in a sense grammaticalized, i.e. they are part of speakers’ internal grammatical knowledge (Haspelmath 2004:€41; emphasis mine, EG)12

According to Haspelmath’s diachronic account of clitic grouping, MoSp. language users resort to one or another of an unspecified number of homonymous me le clusters; what legitimates the synchronic postulation of homonyms is not gone into by Haspelmath.

2.3.4 *spur. se + le vs. OK refl. se + le The possibility of combining spur. se with le as in eg. (2.16) is ignored by Wanner, Fernández Soriano, Hewson, Heap, Bonet, Grimshaw, Seuren (1976), and even by Laenzlinger: since he claims that case-marked le must become se before case-marked lo (1993:€ 250–5), recourse to spur. se would be particularly in order for the doubly case-marked combination of two 3rd ps Datives, i.e. *le(s) le(s). Franco and Landa discuss this cluster à propos of AcI’s (1995:€110), arguing that it is ruled out by Rivas’ [*Dat Dat] clitic filter (1995:€111) which, however, would not apply to Datives of interest (Di’s). J. Harris’ negative filters (1996:€188) rule out both l- l- and se se combinations, but incorrectly allow me me and te te. It is unclear whether they prevent the spur. se + le cluster, because Harris ignores potential combinations of two non-reflexive 3rd ps Datives: like Laenzlinger, he allows spur. se to arise only from a Dat + Acc sequence.



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

2.3.5 * spur. se + me (Dat) + lo (Acc) The three-clitic cluster in (2.28) se me lo dijiste ‘You went and told it to him (spur.se) “on” me (Di)’ is ruled out by Perlmutter (1971), whose pseudo-se rule stipulates the morphological adjacency of le to lo; the same holds for Bastida (1976:€ 78) and Fernández Soriano (1999:€1257). Seuren notes that (2.28) involves an “ethical” Dative, but that “not only the facts are unclear, but also the issues involved” (1976:€23). Taking comfort in the fact that “under any count, the total functional load on the clitic cluster [...] would be too high,” he hedges on its grammaticality. Laenzlinger ignores the cluster, and fails to see the relevance of (2.28) to his syntactic analysis of spur. se: if what actually “incorporates” syntactically is se rather than le (1993:€255), se lo might be generated as usual, with me later interpolated as a Di. J. Harris takes no stand on the ungrammaticality of three-clitic clusters (1996:€168– 70), though according to Perlmutter (2.29) se me lo permitió ‘Some one (imp. se) allowed it to me; I was allowed it’ is perfectly grammatical (1971:€29). Harris’ negative filters exclude neither (2.28) nor (2.29).

2.4 The challenge The accounts hitherto given of the non-occurring clusters, or of the disallowed interpretations, achieve neither descriptive nor explanatory adequacy; in particular, they bypass such questions as: 1. is it a coincidence that the acceptable replacements for both *me le V3 and *le lo are respectively me (Acc) V3 a él (Dat) and se (Dat) lo (Acc), rather than le (Dat) V3 a mí (Acc) and se (Acc) le (Dat)? In both instances it is the Dative clitic, rather than the Accusative, for which a replacement is found; 2. if in both cases the motivation for the choice of alternative is the same, what is it, and how does it relate to the fact that me lo does not admit the specific reading me (Object of Inf) lo (Causee) in an Accusative cum Infinitive, cf. eg. (2.27c)? 3. how many se’s are there actually? If only one, as implicit in Optimalist morphology, what is its value, and how would that account for the various uses to which the clitic is put, as against those in which it is never observed? Last, and not least, 4. what motivates the choice between clitic and non-clitic (a + tonic pronoun) reference?



Chapter 2.╇ The problem 

An answer to these questions is suggested by the strong correlation between the relative acceptability of a cluster and its formal nature and/or interpretation: a. In the two clusters which are ruled out under all circumstances, i.e. *se se and *le lo, the clitics are either formally identical, or share such traits as a 3rd person referent, case specification and the initial l-; b. se le and me le do prove acceptable when the first clitic co-refers with the verbal Subject; c. se me lo, which is at least marginally acceptable, conflates two less problematic dyads (me lo and se lo). The increase in acceptability from (a) to (c) is cognitively plausible, for the clitic combinations are progressively easier to interpret: processing cannot help being more difficult in set (a), where the clitics combined are practically identical, than in set (c), where the three clitics are all distinct, but there is just too much of a good thing. Not surprisingly, the unacceptability of some clitic clusters has been attributed, even by formalists, to “interpretational difficulty” (cf. Wanner 1994:€ 30, 1999:€ 271; Harris J. 1996:€170; and Hernanz 1999:€2244).13 The interpretational difficulty, however, is not due to the actual number of clitics (Harris J. 1996:€169–70), but rather reflects the semiotic appropriateness of the cluster to the intended reading. To account for the “absolute” non-occurring clusters, then, it is necessary to establish how different formulations aid or hinder the allotment of specific roles to specific referents: this is the task we undertake in the rest of this work. The sense-dependent acceptability of me le, i.e. set (b), makes it the obvious point of entry for functional and/or cognitive analysis of clitic clustering: the rejected le lo of set (a) comes next. The non-occurrence of *le lo cannot be understood, however, unless one also makes sense, by thorough analysis of se, of the allegedly spurious recourse to that clitic.14 Once its true nature is understood, it becomes possible to explain, in coherent fashion, the non-clustering of allegedly homonymous se’s, the sense-dependence of se le, and the variable acceptability of the three-clitic se me lo cluster under different readings of se. Our explanation of why some clusters are impossible will consequently involve 1. a characterization of the expressive arsenal available to the BA Spanish user, i.e. a specification of the language-specific value attributed to each clitic, to the verbending, and to non-clitic means for referring to different participants; 2. explicit claims, based on general cognitive considerations, as to a. the unequal plausibility of different role/referent allotments; b. processing limitations which make one type of reference preferable to another for a particular role/referent combination. In the rest of Part I we discuss impossible clitic clusters in simplex VP’s, and attempt as thorough as possible a coverage of the different clusters, in their diverse role-interpretations; in Part II we examine the combination of a finite verb with at least one



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

non-finite verb, particularly in AcI’s, where clitic clustering alternates with disjoint cliticization (Butt and Benjamin 1988:€128–9).

Notes to Ch. 2 1. With the terms “paradigmatic” and “syntagmatic” we refer to the vertical oppositions which define a form’s communicative value in langue, versus its horizontal deployment in linearly unfolding parole. 2. In contraposition to Castilian, Latin American (LA) Spanish lacks the tonic 2nd ps sg. tú ‘thou’, 2nd ps pl. tonic vosotros, vosotras, and the clitic os ‘you all’. In ch. 3 we present the pronominal forms of Std. BA Spanish, discuss the terms “Dative” and “Accusative”, and dispense with the term “reflexive”; the (re)analysis of se is dealt with in Chs. 6 and 7. 3. Pace Wanner (1994:€6), the order is reversed in Peninsular Spanish for a 1st sg. + 2nd pl. combination (Bello 1980:€280, fn.; López García 1998:€497) cf. * os me como la manzana OK me os como la manzana ‘I (wilfully) eat your (pl.) apple’ 4. In our discussion of clitics we will specify Number and Gender only when relevant; nonfem sg. forms otherwise stand for all variants of the respective grammatical case. 5. me/te le has long been noted as frequent in substandard Chilean Spanish (Oroz 1966:€376), but here the case of me or te is invariably Dative rather than Accusative, cf. (i) me le perdió er lapih (Std. Sp. se me perdió el lápiz) ‘I lost my pencil’ (ii) te le pasó el susto (Std. Sp. se te pasó el susto) ‘You got over your fright’ The cluster blends with its own Std. Spanish equivalent, i.e. se me/te, in (iii) Doña 81 – Es un gurto que se me le pone por aquí, por el costao, y lueguito se me le corre pa l’espalda y end’ehi me agarra l’estomo y después se me le fija en el corazón. ‘It is a pain that settles on me about here, on the side, and then it moves to my back and from there it grabs my stomach and then fixes itself in my heart.’ It is unclear to what extent le is here an instance of the “neutre” le frequent in both Chilean and Mexican colloquial speech (Kany 1951:€127–28). The morphosyntactic interest of the peculiarly Chilean me/te le cluster lies in the non-recourse to se. 6. In this case Usted, rather than él, ella is the tonic counterpart of le. Usted derives by phonological contraction from OSp Vuestra Merced ‘Your Mercy’ (Keniston 1937:€ 44–45 et pass.), which explains why recourse to Usted(es) entails the use of 3rd ps clitics and verb-ending. 7. Gerlach asserts that the optimal solution to the forbidden sequence *se se is to delete of one of the two clitics, but fails to support her claim with any attested example (2002:€33, 133, 183). According to her, the message intended in (2.4), repeated here for the reader’s convenience,



Chapter 2.╇ The problem  (i) Tarde o temprano *se se arrepiente del mal que se ha hecho en la vida ‘Sooner or later one repents (oneself) (impersonal se + reflexive se) of the evil one [imp. se] has done in one’s life’ should be conveyable by (ii) Tarde o temprano, se arrepiente del mal hecho en la vida This certainly is not the case, for in (ii) se cannot be interpreted impersonally: it must be read as ‘Sooner or later he/she (a specific 3rd person) repents of the evil he/she has done in his/her life’ 8. Franco notes that se cannot duplicate a lexical reference to the 3rd ps IO in combination with a 1st ps DO (2000:€178), e.g. (i) * Elj sei me entregó a la policíai. ‘Hej handed me over to themi/the policei’ but fails to discuss the unacceptability of the far more likely recourse to le, as in (ii) * Elj me lei entregó a la policíai 9. Ormazábal and Romero claim that the “Person-Case Constraint” invoked by Bonet and others is a. essentially syntactic, rather than morphological (2007:€318, 335, 344); b. actually falls under a wider Object Agreement Constraint (OAC), which states that “If the verbal complex encodes object agreement, no other argument can be licensed through verbal agreement” (2007:€336). Ormazábal and Romero’s claims largely rest on the Acc use of le in Castilian Spanish, and are only tangentially relevant to our analysis. In common with other analysts, they ignore the greater or total acceptability of me (Acc) le (Dat) when le refers to a formally addressed 2nd person (cf. eg. 2.15a), nor do they motivate the OAC. 10. For discussion of why the two scales match the way they do, cf. García (1975:€385–393, in particular 392–93). 11. Haspelmath argues that [atonic pronouns] were grammaticalized in a quite rigid way, leading to a fixed position in the clitic sequence, a more or less fixed position with respect to the verb. The paradigm has gaps in those cases that were too rare to make it through the bottleneck of grammaticalization. So I am claiming that the rise of DPRC effects is inextricably linked to a grammaticalization process [...] Thus, this explanation of the DPRC is not a synchronic explanation but a diachonic explanation. The synchronic cross-linguistic distribution of grammatical systems is constrained in the observed way because of a restriction on the way in which languages change. (2004:€32, emphasis mine, EG) 12. Unfortunately, Haspelmath overlooks the acceptability of a me (Acc) le (Dat) cluster when the verbal subject is the 1st person (egg. 2.11 to 2.14), or when the referent of le is a respectfully addressed 2nd person (eg. 2.15a). The acceptability of the cluster in (2.15a), in particular, cannot be attributed to frequent earlier use, for the exploitation of 3rd ps forms in polite address coincided historically with the grammaticalization of OSp clitics (Lapesa 1981:€ 392, 407; Girón Alconchel 2005:€ 862–3; Eberenz 2005:€614, 616; Keniston 1937:€45–47; 69). Furthermore, the acceptable double-Dative exploitation of me le in eg. (2.10) is no more frequent in OSp texts than the currently unacceptable



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs Otas 124/17 et do me leuauan a enforcar, aqui viene aquella sancta donzella, et pedióme et diéronmele, et fuy su omne quito et jurado ‘and as they took me to hang me, lo here comes that saintly maiden, and asked (for) me and they gave me (Acc) to her (Dat), and I was [henceforth] her liege and sworn man’ 13. Easy interpretability is particularly desirable in Accusative with Infinitive structures, where the clitics clustered at the first verbal form may play diametrically opposed syntactic roles at the Infinitive. Not surprisingly, clitic clusters are rather infrequent in AcI’s (cf. García 2003c). 14. The analysis offered in ch. 6 is strongly supported by the diachronic evolution that resulted in allegedly spur. se, cf. García (2003a).

chapter 3

The communicative value of clitic reference In this chapter we discuss the Person, Number, Case and Focus meanings of Spanish clitics,1 which are morphologically bound to a verbal form; tonic pronouns resemble lexical NP’s in their syntax. The tonic and clitic forms of Std. Buenos Aires (BA) Spanish appear in Table 3.1. Table 3.1╇ The Std. BA Spanish pronoun system. Atonic Clitic

Tonic free form

Marked for Person 3rd

se

sí

plus Focus and Number Out of Focus 2nd sg. te 1st sg. Plural 1st pl

vos* In Focus yo

me nos

plus Case and Gender Singular IInd** Dative le 3*rd*** Plural 2nd/IInd les 3*rd

in PP only mí

nosotros/nosotras (fem.)

Accusative lo (non fem.) la (fem.)

Usted él (masc.), ella (fem.), ello (neutre) Ustedes****

los las (fem.)

ellos, ellas (fem.)

* BA Spanish is characterized by “voseo” (cf. Kany 1951:€55–67 et pass.), i.e. the use of OSp 2nd ps pl. vos in familiar reference to the 2nd person sg., with concomitant loss of the sg. forms tú, ti found in non-voseante dialects (cf. ch. 2, n. 2). ** We refer with Roman II to respectfully addressed interlocutors, and reserve Arabic 2 for the familiar 2nd person. As noted in Sect. 2.1.3.1, IInd persons are referred to with the etymologically 3rd person l- clitics, which helps suggest their relative detachment.



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs *** The asterisk in 3*rd iconically recalls the grammatical marking of the referring clitic, and suggests the non self-evidence of the referent. The opposition between se and l- clitics is discussed in detail in Chapter 6. **** When the OSp 2nd pl. vos developed into the MoSp 2nd sg. tonic form in voseante dialects, familiar and respectful address could no longer be distinguished with plural addressees: Ustedes, and the corresponding 3*rd pl. clitics, are consequently resorted to for all 2nd/IInd pl. referents; the trait is common to all LA Spanish.

The increasing differentiation of the clitic forms strikingly correlates with the salience and/or givenness of their respective referents: while the invariable se is used to refer to 3rd persons whose identity either emerges from the clitic’s immediate morphological context or is totally irrelevant, l- clitics specify the case and number (and gender, in the Accusative) of 3*rd persons whose identity must be retrieved from the larger context. The identity of 1st and 2nd/IInd persons is given within the speech situation; from an egocentric perspective they are inherently more salient than 3*rd persons.2

3.1 The verbal complex (= VC) The morpho-syntactic unit constituted by the verb plus dependent clitics will be referred to as a “verbal complex”, abbreviated VC. The morphological bondage of a clitic to its verb iconically signals that its referent actually participates in the event named by that form: it critically follows that the referents of clitics are distinct participants, playing distinct roles in the event. Not all the entities involved in an event are of equal interest to the Speaker, for some are seen as more directly involved than others; of these actual participants one enjoys particular attention, for the event is seen from his perspective: we refer to this privileged participant as the participant in focus (henceforth p.i.f.). The verb’s inflection for Person and Number provides strong clues to the p.i.f.’s identity, so that the interpretation of a VC actually begins at the verb-ending. The VC-internal reference can be reinforced beyond the VC by a NP, as in (3.1) Maríai loj viói ‘Maryi saw himj’ (3.2) Yo lo vi ‘I saw him’ (3.3) Vos lo viste ‘You saw him’ (3.4) Ella lo vió ‘She saw him’



Chapter 3.╇ The communicative value of clitic reference

All clitics, save se, stand in paradigmatic opposition to tonic forms, which are capable of extra-VC reference to the p.i.f., but se is unmarked for all grammatical values save Person: even this content is negative, for it merely excludes reference to the 1st and 2nd person. The implications of se’s semantic vacuity will be gone into in detail in Sect. 6.4, and particularly in 6.4.3., à propos of “impersonal” (imp.) se. Case finds formal expression only in IInd/3*rd ps clitics, which share the deictic stem l-, the reflex of L. ill-; specification of the referent’s case crucially contributes to his identification in the VC’s larger context.3 Since the referents of l- clitics can be identified only on the basis of their case, number (and eventually gender) profile, they are eo ipso understood to be referentially distinct from the p.i.f.4 It follows that something is inferred with every clitic: the participant’s case-role, for the case-neutral me/ nos and te; his identity, in the case of l- clitics--or both, with se.

3.2 The participancy oppositions Through their morphological dependence on a verbal form, the referring potential of Sp clitics is associated to semantic dimensions relevant to actions or states: Focus and Case categorize the syntagmatic contrast between distinct participants in the same event. The term Focus refers to the attention “concentrated” on a contextually prominent participant (Fisher 2000:€20–25), and indirectly echoes Langacker’s “the figure within a relational profile” (1987:€217), Bock’s “automatically activated and/or salient” referent (1982:€ 36–38), and Ertel’s “entity providing cognitive anchoring” or “rooting” (1977:€161), cf. also MacWhinney (1999:€216, 232) and Deacon (2003:€134). The verb-ending’s privileged status as inflectional morpheme singles it out as the grammatical heart of the VC: even when clitics precede the finite verb (cf. ch 2, introduction), the p.i.f. outranks any non-focus participant. Non-finite verb forms do not explicitly invoke a p.i.f.: if his identity is relevant, it will be contextually obvious; if it is not apparent, it can be presumed to be irrelevant, since no explicit morphology draws attention to it. Case primordially concerns the relation between distinct non-focus participants, who by definition stand in a different syntagmatic relation to the p.i.f.;5 that difference allows non-focus participants to be ranked in terms of their case-roles, independently of their actual salience in terms of person. Entities referred to with expressions extraneous to the VC have Focus and Case values attributed to them to the extent that they are understood to participate in the event:6 as with the choice of p.i.f., the Speaker’s judgment determines participant vs. non-participant status. The allotment to the different participants of a specific caserole, and thus the definitive interpretation of the VC, may consequently require the processing of extra-VC expressions.7





The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

3.2.1 Focus No problems arise in the identification of a 1st or 2nd ps (sg.) p.i.f. A 3rd ps verbending by definition fails to refer to either 1st or 2nd person, but does not guarantee that some specific entity is actually referred to. Which of the two is the case depends, in the first place, on the number of the verbending. Plurality ensures a countable referent, and consequently the involvement of a bona fide p.i.f.; if the 3rd ps verb-ending is singular, reference to some actual p.i.f. depends on the nature of the event: llover, tronar, nevar ‘to rain, to thunder, to snow’ do not in themselves presuppose any “weathering” entity. If the event does suggests a p.i.f., whether one is actually referred to depends on the contextual availability of a plausible candidate, as will be seen in Sect. 6.4.3. All clitics, except for se, are paradigmatically opposed to a tonic form capable of referring to the p.i.f., and thus signal that their referents are out of focus, in syntagmatic contrast with the p.i.f. The focus-status of se must be inferred on the basis of the relevant context (cf. Sects. 6.4, 7.4).

3.2.2 Case Case is morphologically distinguished only for IInd ps, 2nd ps pl. and 3*rd ps participants, who are referred to with l- clitics; it is inferred for 1st ps and 2nd ps sg. participants and for 3*rd persons referred to beyond the VC by non-clitic means. Since le and lo never cluster (cf. Sect. 2.1), the case-role of at least one of the two non-focus participants must be inferred, cf. (3.5) me lo compraste! a. ‘you bought it (explicit Acc lo) for/from me (inferred Dat)’ b. ‘you went and bought it, hurrah (me = Di)!’ (3.6) le compraste el libro ‘you bought the book (= DO, inferred Acc) for/from him (explicit Dat le)’ (3.7) me compraste el libro ‘you bought me (inferred Dat) the book (inferred Acc) / the book from me’ Acc lo vs. Dat le signal Central vs. Peripheral non-focus participation in the event, i.e. a more vs. a less direct contrast between the non-focus participant and the p.i.f.8 An event admits no more than two Central participants: the p.i.f., involved Centrally ex officio, and a referentially distinct non-focus participant. The latter can plausibly be seen as the actual target of the p.i.f ’s action, a dynamic metaphor that underlies the traditional terms Direct vs. Indirect Object (DO resp. IO).9 The value of Dative vs. Accusative case is easiest to grasp in situations that involve three participants, i.e. the p.i.f. and two Objects, as in egg. (3.5–7): the Central nonfocus participant is apprehended as involved in the event more immediately than a



Chapter 3.╇ The communicative value of clitic reference 

Peripheral one, who is only secondarily concerned, possibly à propos of the relation between the p.i.f. and the Acc participant.10 Since the Acc’s role is diametrically opposed to the p.i.f.’s (García 1975:€98–102 et pass.; Langacker 1999:€34; Maldonado 2002:€6; Goldberg 2006:€185–86), the presence of a distinct non-focus Acc participant automatically polarizes the event, and triggers its dynamic interpretation to the extent this is allowed by the verb’s meaning.11 The role of agent, i.e. controller of the event, is attributed to the p.i.f., while the Acc’s lack of focus is understood to reflect his/its minimal activeness, and his full subordination to the p.i.f. (cf. García 1975:€66, 99 et pass.; Strozer 1976:€433); the Acc participant is nonetheless involved Centrally, for he/it is the participant most directly impacted by the event. A participant who does not contribute directly to the taking place of the event, who is affected by it only indirectly and is thus not totally subordinate to the p.i.f.,12 is involved in merely Peripheral fashion.13 Being only tangentially involved in the event, and less directly controlled by the p.i.f., a Dative participant automatically out-ranks the Acc in terms of relative activeness.14 The basic difference between p.i.f. and O, and between Dat and Acc, emerges clearly from the contrast between aprender ‘learn’, enseñar ‘show, i.e. teach’, and instruir ‘instruct, tutor’, three verbs which refer to the acquisition of knowledge, but differ, as do their English glosses, in the degree of responsibility attributed to the knowledge acquirer. That is greatest in (3.8) aprende inglés (de mí) ‘she learns English (from me)’ where the learner is the p.i.f., but minimal in (3.9) la instruyo (en inglés) ‘I instruct, tutor her (Acc) (in English)’ where it is rather the teacher who is in focus as exerting himself. Teacher, student, and subject matter all participate in (3.10) le enseño inglés ‘I (p.i.f.) teach her (Dat) English (Acc)’ but here the instructor’s responsibility is less, and the student’s more, than in (3.9).15 Peripheral participation essentially depends on the Speaker’s evaluation of the event’s relevance to the participant in question, and on the relevance to the Speaker of that party’s involvement: it thus hinges more on the Speaker’s perspective than on objective properties of the situation referred to.16 This allows a wide range of relatively (in)active Peripheral roles, ranging from direct participation, e.g. as recipient of the DO, to a purely vicarious interest in the event, as with a Di;17 it also allows diverse participants to play distinct Dative roles in the same event, while a double Acc is ruled out by lo’s Central meaning.18



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

The strongest evidence for the Centrality of the Acc, as against the Peripherality of a Dat, is that regardless of whether an Acc participant is referred to lexically or with a clitic, all other non-focus participants are automatically understood to play a Dat role; conversely, the presence of the explicitly Dat le within the VC in no way affects the role of any other participant. Le thus complements the processing of the VC, while lo shapes it. The polarly opposed roles of p.i.f. and Acc are ideally played by maximally dissimilar participants, such as a human p.i.f. vs. an inanimate Acc; Dat participants, being relatively independent of the p.i.f., are prototypically human.19 Though p.i.f.’s and Datives are referentially similar, their roles are doubly distinguished by the difference in Focus status, and by the Peripheral vs. Central involvement of Dative and p.i.f. respectively. Three-participant events characteristically involve quite dissimilar non-focus participants, such as a topical human Dat and a non-salient inanimate Acc, who by their very nature suggest different relations to the active p.i.f.20 But case-allotment is far less easy in events with only one non-focus participant: here the relation between the p.i.f. and the single O basically emerges from a mapping onto the sharper contrasts which emerge in three-participant events. When p.i.f. and O are seen to differ widely as to their agentiveness, and the O unquestionably falls under the p.i.f.’s control, he/it can only be cast as an Acc; if that is not indubitably the case, the O is involved Peripherally, i.e. as a Dat. The rationale for case categorization is discussed in Sect. 3.3 below.

3.2.3 Case and the nature of the event So far our discussion of Case has concerned only centrifugal events such as (3.11) Quería ese libro y lo compré ‘I wanted that book and I bought it (Acc.)’ where the p.i.f. is the active source of ‘wanting’ and ‘buying’ actions, centrifugally aimed at the DO. Conversely, in the copulative (3.12) a. Tú eres feliz ‘You are happy’ b. pero yo no lo soy ‘but I am not (it)’ a non-focus trait, i.e. feliz ‘happy’, understood as a Subject Complement (= SC), is centripetally attributed to the p.i.f. Clitic reference to the SC is invariably made with the non-fem sg. Acc lo, cf. (3.12b), whence the traditional label “predicate lo” (cf. González and Whitley 1999). In order to be predicated of the p.i.f., the SC must be more general than, and in that sense distinct from, that participant, which makes it appropriate to refer to it with an l- clitic.21 The partial overlap in reference between SC and the Central p.i.f. motivates



Chapter 3.╇ The communicative value of clitic reference 

recourse to the Central lo, rather than to the Peripheral le: that is why there can be only one Central non-focus SC, just as there can be only one Central non-focus DO. By definition, a Peripheral participant stands outside the relation between the two Central participants: he can thus freely be super-imposed on both centrifugal and centripetal events: (3.13) querías un libro y te lo compré ‘you wanted a book and I bought it (Acc) for you (Dat)’ (3.14) Sentimiento 108 Sólo compadecemos, es decir, amamos, lo que nos es semejante y en cuanto nos lo es y tanto más cuanto más se nos asemeja. ‘We only pity, that is, love, what is similar to us and so far as it is (lit: it is it [SC] to us [Dat]) and so much the more, the more it resembles us.’ In (3.14) the SC lo refers to the attribute semejante ‘similar’, and clusters with a nos understood as the Peripheral term of the implied comparison.22

3.3 Case-categorization We will first examine, for centrifugal events, the paradigmatic opposition between Central vs. Peripheral roles in events with a single Object, and then turn to the syntagmatic contrast between distinct Dat roles.

3.3.1. Central vs. Peripheral case Case-categorization is relatively easy when two non-focus participants contrast syntagmatically, as in (3.13); it is far less obvious in two-participant events, where the case-role of the single O rests entirely on its relation to the p.i.f. The lexical categorization of the event often expresses the variable control of O by the p.i.f. and thus may, but need not, contextually support the categorization of the single O as Acc vs. Dat. Categorization of O as Central vs. Peripheral crucially depends on the degree to which p.i.f. and O differ in real or potential degree of activeness. A large disparity, as between a strong p.i.f. and a weak O, casts the latter as an Acc, while a small(er) difference allows categorization of the O as a Dat (cf. Sect. 3.2.2). O is thus plausibly cast as an Acc when the action referred to has a relatively strong impact on him,23 but can be cast as a Dat in less dynamic events,24 cf. (3.15) a. b.

lo irrita ‘she irritates him’ le molesta ‘she annoys him’



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(3.16) a. b.

lo convence ‘she persuades him’ le habla ‘she talks to him’

The same pattern characterizes pairs of verbs which present what is essentially one and the same situation from either a dynamic or a static perspective. As the verb’s meaning brings a more vs. a less active participant into focus, the respective non-focus participant shifts from Acc to Dat case: (3.17) a. b.

lo convence ‘she convinces him (Acc)’ le cree ‘he believes her (Dat)’

(3.18) a. b.

lo comanda ‘she orders him, is his boss’ le obedece ‘he obeys her’

(3.19) a. b.

lo persigue ‘she pursues him’ le huye ‘he flees from her’

(3.20) a. b.

los necesita ‘she needs them’ le faltan ‘they are lacking to her’

(3.21) a. b.

lo siente ‘she feels it’ le afecta ‘it touches, affects her’

(3.22) a. b.

lo vive, experimenta ‘she lives, experiences it’ le pasa, ocurre ‘it happens to her’

(3.23) a. b.

lo considera necio ‘she thinks him a fool’ le parece necio ‘he seems a fool to her’

(3.24) a. lo sabe, lo cree ‘she knows, believes it’



Chapter 3.╇ The communicative value of clitic reference 

b. le parece ‘It seems (so) to her’ (3.25) a. b.

lo sufre ‘she endures it’ le duele ‘it hurts her’

The same shift, i.e. from more to less active p.i.f., with a concomitant change in the respective O’s case, is found with dynamic vs. static senses of the same verbal item, cf. (3.26) a. b.

la pesa ‘he weighs it (la) le pesa ‘it (fem.) weighs on him (le)’

(3.27) a. b.

la toca ‘he touches it (la)’ le toca ‘it (fem.) falls to his lot (le)’

(3.28) a. b.

la sirve ‘he serves it (la, e.g. the soup)’ le sirve ‘it (fem.) serves his purposes (le)’

(3.29) a. b.

la gusta ‘he tastes it (la)’ le gusta ‘It (fem,) pleases him (le), he likes it’

(3.30) a. b.

la sube ‘he brings it up (la)’ le sube ‘it (fem., eg. his temperature) rises on him (le)’

(3.31) a. b.

la cuelga ‘he hangs it up (la, eg. the sheet)’ le cuelga ‘it (fem.) hangs (down) on him (le)’

(3.32) a. b.

la pasa ‘he (sur)passes it (la, e.g. the barrier)’ le pasa ‘it (fem.) happens to him (le); it (eg. his fever) ends “on” him’



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

With some verbs, finally, the casting of O as Acc or Dat suffices to convey the relative activeness of the p.i.f., and thus indirectly makes clear the dynamic vs. static nature of the event, cf. (3.33) a. b.

lo molesta ‘she (actively) irritates him’ le molesta ‘she (passively) irks him; he finds her irritating’

(3.34) a. b.

lo encanta ‘she casts a spell on him’ le encanta ‘she strikes him (le) as charming; he (le) finds her (p.i.f.) charming’

(3.35) a. b.

lo interesa ‘she interests, involves him’ le interesa ‘she catches his fancy; he finds her interesting’

(3.36) a. b.

lo habla ‘she bespeaks him, makes sure of him’ le habla ‘she talks to him’

(3.37) a. b.

la silba ‘he boos her (performance)’ le silba ‘he whistles at her’

The events contrasted in egg. (3.33–37) clearly do not overlap in reference to the same extent as do those in egg. (3.17–25), which contain distinct lexical items, nor is the difference between the contrasted verb-senses the same across all pairs. This leads Campos to conclude (1999:€1562) “that we clearly must be dealing with different verbs at a syntactic level”. However, in (3.33–37) O’s case is neither arbitrary nor random: as in the preceding pairs, the disparity in activeness between p.i.f. and O is always greater when the O is cast as an Acc than when he appears in the Dat: independently of the actual verb, the choice of Dat vs. Acc categorizes the relation between p.i.f. and non-focus O in the same way. Assuming arbitrary or conventional government of clitic case by the verb, not only requires the postulation of homonymous lexical items in egg. (3.26–37), but misses a clear linguistic generalization.25 Note, further, that a difference in the actual dynamicity of the events themselves does not automatically result in a different case for their single O. With ver ‘to see’ the p.i.f. is in actual fact less active than with mirar ‘to look at’, and the same thing holds for oir ‘to hear’ vs. escuchar ‘to listen to’, or sentir ‘to feel’ vs. experimentar ‘to experience’ or vivir ‘to live (through)’. Nonetheless, O invariably appears in the Acc with all



Chapter 3.╇ The communicative value of clitic reference 

these verbs, despite the p.i.f.’s factually unequal dynamicity in the events referred to.26 Since all these verbs are essentially dynamic, the regular recourse to Acc case for their single O implicitly reflects a potential syntagmatic contrast with a further, Peripheral participant. But bonafide static events, which rule out a DO, naturally “take” the Dat. We have shown, so far, that the choice of lo vs. le for the O correlates regularly with a p.i.f. that is stronger rather than weaker in his relation to the O: it stands to reason that this relation will be affected not only by the nature of the p.i.f. but also by that of the O, and by what he/it does, or fails to do. Casting the O as Dat vs. Acc consequently highlights vs. down-plays his independent responsibility, as in events which allow a human O to deploy a variable degree of enterprise and initiative: (3.38) a. b.

le ayuda ‘he helps her (p.i.f. does something, but O also “helps herself ”)’ la ayuda ‘he helps her (p.i.f. does a great deal for rather helpless O)’

Here the verb, the type of event referred to, and the identity of both p.i.f. and O remain constant, the only change being in O’s case: nonetheless, (3.38a) and (3.38b) are not free variants, for they present O in a different light (cf. García 1975:€323–25). Though the pragmatic nuance may be lost on some language users (cf. Bybee and Hopper 2001:€19), the choice of case is more meaningful than ever, for in the absence of supporting context it provides the only clue to the nature of the O’s involvement. It is only one step from O’s actual activity to an activeness merely imputed to him: reference with le is appropriate if the Speaker wishes to highlight O’s inherent independence. Men, rather than women, or IInd rather than 3*rd persons are understandably favoured for reference with the Peripheral le (Butt and Benjamin 1988:€119–120),27 while categorization as an Acc is reserved for inherently weaker vessels, whose passivity is culturally presupposed (cf. García 1975:€327–30, 338–42), cf. (3.39) a. Ayer le vi en el parque ‘Yesterday I saw You (respectful formal address) / him (respect implied) in the park ‘ b. Ayer lo vi en el parque ‘Yesterday I saw You (male, formal address)/ him (matter of course)/ it (non-fem) in the park’ c. Ayer la vi en el parque ‘Yesterday I saw You (female, formal address) / her (matter of course)/ it (fem) in the park’ In short: the difference in value between le and lo allows the Speaker syntagmatically to rank two non-focus participants in the same event, or to contrast, as it were paradigmatically, single non-focus participants across events.28 In both instances, a Dat human O is referentially more salient, and relatively more capable of independent and/ or active participation than the Acc: he is less dependent on the p.i.f. than the Acc is,

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

and--being more p.i.f.-like than the Acc--ranks above him in terms of case-role (cf. Maldonado 2002:€7–8). If the choice of le vs. lo were to be ascribed to arbitrary “government” by distinct lexical items or homonymous senses of the same verb, there is no reason why 1. those specific verbs, or the different senses taken on by one verb, should coincide in casting as Acc an O that is comparatively more controlled by the p.i.f., 2. the Dat case, allegedly governed by verb senses that refer to weaker-effect events, should also happen to a. refer to the IO in three-participant events; b. be preferred for socially more highly valued human O’s; c. convey the pragmatic connotations that it does in actual minimal pairs. The Central/Peripheral opposition we posit does account in coherent fashion for all these distributional facts.

3.3.2 Variably Peripheral involvements It lies in the very nature of Peripherality that distinct non-focus participants can be involved in the event in diverse Dative capacities: this results in a continuum of Dat “uses” which fade into or blend with another.29 A principled differentiation of Peripheral involvements becomes possible by application of the same criterion that motivates the choice of Dat vs. Acc for a non-focus participant, i.e. the degree to which the Dat O is subordinated to the p.i.f. The dependence on the p.i.f. is minimal when the Dat participant claims no more than an interest in the event: this is the case for the Speaker and the Hearer, whose cognizance of the topic dealt with in the speech-event results ex officio in the kind of involvement referred to as “Dative of interest” (Di), cf. (3.40) Sirvamele un café a la Srta, por favor. ‘Please be sure to serve (me) a coffee to the young lady, will you’ (3.41) ¿Y qué hace este animal? Va y te le da un puntapié a la pobre viejita. ‘And what does this brute do? He goes and kicks the poor old woman (lit. gives you her the poor old woman a kick)’ Such an extremely Peripheral and subjective involvement calls for clitic reference (Gutiérrez Ordóñez 1999:€1886), which by itself ensures participant status (cf. Sect. 3.1). At the opposite end lie Peripheral involvements such as IO or quasi DO, which are prefigured by the event itself and where the Dat participant consequently does fall, to some variable extent, under the p.i.f ’s influence/control, cf. (3.42) me/le dió un regalo ‘She gave me/him a present (recipient)’



Chapter 3.╇ The communicative value of clitic reference 

(3.43) te/le mintió / habló ‘He lied / spoke to you/her (“governed” Dat with verbs of communication)’ (3.44) Si quieres, probaré de ayudarle. ‘If you want, I’ll try to help him (Dat in pragmatic reference to DO)’ (3.45) Señor Ministro, debe saber que ayer le vieron en el parque con una dama. ‘Your Excellency, be aware that You were seen yesterday in the park with a lady (lit.: ‘they’ saw you; Dat in pragmatic reference to DO, in polite address)’ We will refer to such event-bound roles as “objective” Datives (Datobj). Because the Peripheral participant’s involvement is grounded in the nature of the event itself, he can be referred to by non-clitic means: a-phrases can either do duty for le, or co-occur with the clitic (cf. Sect. 4.3). Between a strictly subjective Di and the objective Datobj’s lies a wide range of roles motivated by the nature of the event, eg. the Experiencer role in “psych”-verbs, by a part-whole relation between the Dat participant and another entity in the event, and/ or by the effect which the event has on a topical participant, e.g. benefit, disadvantage. For these variegated involvements we reserve the term “affected” Datives, i.e. Dataff. Such Dat participants are more subordinated to the p.i.f. than is a Di, but less so than a Datobj, cf. (3.46) le pesa la noticia ‘the news grieves her’ (3.47) le canté una canción ‘I sang her a song’ (3.48) le duele la cabeza ‘her head aches’ (3.49) le curé la herida ‘I cured his wound’ The overlap of Dataff ’s with the categories at either end of the continuum is both formal and semantic: clitic reference is almost de rigueur with Dataff ’s, as it is for Di’s, but Dataff ’s resemble Datobj’s in that both admit reference with an a-phrase (cf. sect 4.3.3.2). Since the three degrees of decreasing Peripherality (Di, Dataff, Datobj) are obviously the result of inference, they cannot be distinguished strictly. While Di’s are heavily dependent on the larger, especially extra-linguistic context for their plausibility, and are congruently seen as globally relevant, the nature of the event is conversely decisive for Datobj’s: in all respects, Dataff ’s lie half-way between the other two types.



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Notes to Ch. 3 1. These four upper-case terms refer to the grammatical categories as such; lower-case forms are otherwise resorted to. Our use of “Case” and “case” consequently does not correspond to the values attached to those terms in other theoretical frameworks. We retain the terms Accusative (Acc) and Dative (Dat) for the sake of their familiarity; the syntagmatic and paradigmatic implications of the case-opposition are discussed in detail in Sect. 3.2.2. 2. A formally addressed IInd person is just as given within the speech-situation as the familiar 2nd person is; eye-contact seems to play an important role in the interpretation of an l-clitic. 3. We remind the reader that the non-fem. sg. form stands for all variants of a given case. Grammatically, le and lo are mirror images of the case-neutral me, nos and te, whose referents are directly identifiable from the speech situation, but whose case-role must be inferred from whatever clues prove relevant. 4. This claim might appear to be contradicted by the “redundant indefinite” recourse to le observed in sub-standard Chilean Spanish (cf. ch. 2, n. 5). Whether that is indeed the case awaits careful analysis of clitic syntax in that dialect; our claim in any case holds for Std. BA Spanish. 5. When useful, we will refer to non-focus participants with the traditional term “Object” (abbr. O). The nature of objecthood is the subject of a considerable and important literature, whose discussion would far exceed the bounds of this work; the issue is in any case not directly relevant to the morphosyntactic problems posed in Ch. 2. 6. This holds for expressions to be discussed in Sect. 4.2, namely (a) lexical or tonic pronominal NPs and (b) PP’s introduced by a, further referred to as a-phrases (see Glossary). 7. Depending on its interpretation, the presence of such a reference can affect the interpretability, and hence the acceptability of a clitic cluster. 8. The terms Accusative (Acc) and Dative (Dat) will be used in reference to participants who play a Central resp. Peripheral role, regardless of whether the participant is referred to by an lclitic or by some other means. 9. It is no accident that only Central clitics should specify Gender as well as Number. Since the world contains a great variety of inanimate entities, prototypical candidates to the role of DO, Gender information usefully restricts the referent search to the relevant sub-set; it is less pertinent in the case of a Peripheral role, for which only animates, and humans in particular, are normally in the running. 10. Direct evidence for the Central value of lo(s)/la(s) is provided by their use in existential/ presentative statements, cf. Necesitamos más sillas: ¿sabés si las hay en el salón? ‘We need more chairs: do you know whether there are any in the drawing room? (lit: whether “there is” them)’ Here las refers to a fem. pl. entity centrally involved in the event of “being there”, posited by the impersonal haber ‘for there to be’. Since the chairs are at issue for the first time, they are not topical enough to be focussed on; merely “being there” is a totally passive role, least inappropriately referred to with a non-focus Acc clitic. In older stages of the language, as in modern non-standard LA Spanish, the existential haber is found to inflect for person and number when a plural entity is introduced into the discourse;



Chapter 3.╇ The communicative value of clitic reference  reference to the entity beyond the VC is then very frequent, but it invariably involves a lexical expression, never a tonic pronominal form (cf. Kany 1951:€212–17, esp. 213 fn. 4). 11. The traditional categorization of verbs in terms of transitivity rests on such event-polarization in terms of relative activeness: transitive verbs presuppose a sharp contrast between agent and patient, while intransitive ones preclude it. Many Spanish verbs are lexically neutral in that respect, and shift in sense depending on whether or not an agentive role is forced on the p.i.f. by the presence of a distinct Acc participant. 12. Interpretation of the Central/Peripheral opposition in terms of relative activeness is favoured by the fact that agentive control of the event is particularly salient in dynamic events, which are themselves highly frequent in discourse. 13. That is why “non-argument” participants must be cast as a Dat (Fernández Soriano 1999:€1259). 14. According to Maldonado “The experiencer is consistently less active than the agent and more active than the patient.” (2002:€8) 15. Independent evidence for the value of the lexical contrast between instruir and enseñar is provided by the unequal demands made of pupils during instrucción primaria ‘primary school’ and enseñanza secundaria ‘high school’. 16. Dat Experiencers may even be equated with agents (cf. Schlesinger 1992), and understood as the implicit p.i.f. of a subordinate non-finite verbal form (Campos 1999:€1560), cf. (i) Maríai lej escribíai a Pedroj antes de conoceri*j a Luis ‘Mary wrote to Pedro before [Mary’s] knowing Lewis’ (ii) A Maríaj lej gustabai Pedroi antes de conocerj*i a Luis ‘Mary liked Pedro before knowing Lewis (lit: Pedro pleased Mary before [Mary’s] knowing Lewis)’ Though Pedro is unquestionably the p.i.f. of gustaba ‘liked/pleased’ in (ii), the Infinitive conocer ‘know’ is associated with María, despite her non-focus involvement at the finite gustaba. 17. The nature of a specific Peripheral involvement is inferred from 1. the type of event; 2. the nature of the p.i.f. and of the non-focus Central participant, if any; 3. the Peripheral participant’s person and, eventually, 4. the larger context. (cf. Jakobson [1936] 1966:€68–69; 74–77). Whenever useful, traditional terms will be resorted to in characterizing different Peripheral roles. 18. In different LA Sp dialects the Peripheral le cliticizes to nouns and interjections, cf. Orale ‘now!’, hijole! ‘son of!’, epale ‘Hey!’ (cf. Kany 1951:€127–129), but a Central clitic--like the verbending--seems to appear only in a VC. A--possibly apparent--exception is the Acc’s use in hela (aquí) ‘here she is’; the originally interjectional he may have been reinterpreted as a form of existential haber ‘to be there’; cf. Keniston (1937:€11, #2.253). 19. Peripheral participation is in principle open only to human or personified beings, especially to the 1st and 2nd persons, who are inherently capable of autonomous action and likely to be topical in discourse (cf. García 1975:€103; 387–90). 20. The acquisition of the case-opposition is likely to rest on utterances exhibiting that referential dissimilation, particularly as instantiated by the highly frequent se lo and me lo.



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs 21. Reference to the SC is made with an Acc clitic that fails to specify gender and number, cf. (i) somos maestras ‘We are teachers (fem. pl.)’ (ii) lo somos ‘We are it (non fem.; non pl.)’ (iii) ***las somos ‘We are them (fem. pl.) Gender and Number information specification might suggest reference to a specific participant, thus undermining attribution of the SC to the p.i.f. 22. González and Whitley claim that when referring to the SC, lo is idiosyncratically debarred from clustering with another clitic (1999:€299 et pass.); they however admit that the phenomenon is acceptable to some speakers (1999:€307, fn. 2). 23. The fact that pegar, often translated as E. ‘hit’, invariably “takes” le, cf. (i) no le pegues ‘Don’t hit him might be seen as a counterexample to our claim. However, pegar actually means ‘paste, stick, attach’ rather than ‘hit’, cf. (ii) Debo pegar estos carteles ‘I have to stick up these posters’ (iii) ¿Me pegas el botón (a la blusa)? ‘Will you sew the button on (to the blouse) for me?’ (iv) Me pegó un golpe que no te digo! ‘He pasted me a blow you can’t imagine!’ In (i), golpe ‘blow’ or its equivalent is understood as the contextually obvious DO, as when spectators at a boxing match scream Dale!! ‘Give [it] to him, At him!’, the thing to be given being obvious from the circumstances. Note, furthermore, that the person ‘hit’ is rather marginal to the event of ‘pasting’, as shown by the contrast between pegar and a thorough beating up, wounding, hurting, etc. of the DO, as in (v) ¡No lo golpees / lastimes / hieras! ‘Do not beat / hurt / wound him (Acc)!’ 24. In our examples we differentiate the gender of p.i.f. and O, in order to facilitate the recognition of the participants across the contrasted situations. 25. Whether homonymy or polysemy characterizes the pairs in (3.26–37) is a matter of lexical analysis, extraneous to the central aim of this work. 26. That these lexical differences should fail to affect O’s case is probably due to cognitive and communicative economy. If in two-participant situations the case of the single O were directly dictated by the dynamicity of the event as such, it would be impossible to differentiate the involvement of the non-focus participants when the addition of a Dative raises the number of participants in the event to three. If the actual difference between ver ‘to see’ and mirar ‘to look at’ were to enforce a different case for the “DO”, yielding *le ve ‘he sees her’ vs. la mira ‘he looks at her’, addition of a third, Periph-



Chapter 3.╇ The communicative value of clitic reference  eral participant to the former event, as in ‘he sees it (e.g. the truth, fem.) on your (face)’, would result in either 1. case-alternation for the DO of the same verb, depending on the number of non-focus participants, as in (i) a. *le ve ‘He sees it’ b. te la ve ‘He sees it on you’ or 2. proliferation of two-Dative clusters, as in (ii) a. *le ve ‘He sees it’ b. *te le ve ‘He sees it on you’ As will be seen in Section 5.4, the latitude of possible Peripheral involvement makes two-Dative clusters very hard to interpret. 27. The former practice has become standard in Northern Spain, particularly in Castille, where Dat le is resorted to in reference to any specific sg. human male DO; this explains the label “leísta” attached to Std. Peninsular Spanish. In So. Peninsular Spanish and LA Spanish generally, le is reserved for strictly Dat participants, and male DO’s are etymologically referred to with lo: these latter dialects are hence termed “loísta”. There is a large literature on the form and causes of this dialectal and socio-linguistic variation, cf. Lapesa (1968), Butt and Benjamin (1988:€113–119) 28. For detailed discussion and illustration of the diverse dimensions along which the opposition is exploited cf. García (1975:€276–376); Huffman presents superb qualitative and quantitative data for the cognate opposition in French, particularly in single-O events (1997:chs. 4 and 5). 29. There is no agreement as to the different categories of Dat or IO observed in Spanish; for a list of the types more frequently invoked cf. Campos (1999:€1546–48). Maldonado attempts to distinguish different types of Dative on the basis of the “canonical event model” of Cognitive Grammar, and recognizes “on stage” Objective Datives, as against two sorts of Subjective Dative, i.e. “sympathetic” and “setting” (2002:€2, 7 et pass.). He unfortunately does not make clear what criteria distinguish one type from the other, nor what data are explained by his classificatory scheme.

chapter 4

Basic clitic syntax Interpretation of a Verbal Complex (VC) begins at the verb-ending, with the identification of the p.i.f.: clitics refer to distinct non-focus participants who contrast syntagmatically as to their case-roles.1 The interpretation of the VC is critically affected by two syntactic manoeuvres: VC-internal double mention of the p.i.f. signals that he is (further) involved in the event in some non-focus capacity; clitic duplication involves simultaneous clitic and VC-external reference to a participant who plays a single non-focus role.

4.1 Double mention, role-levelling, and event-introversion In the case of 1st and 2nd sg. referents, the person and number of the verb-ending suffices to identify the p.i.f. and ensures that an entity failing to meet those specifications will not be focussed on; a 3rd ps verb-ending guarantees only that 1st and 2nd persons are not referred to. The identity and actual involvement of a 3rd ps p.i.f., as in (4.1) Mañana hablará en Londres ‘Tomorrow he/she will speak in London’ (4.2) Falta Pedro ‘Pedro is missing’ must be inferred from 1. the nature of the event; 2. the eventual involvement of a distinct non-focus participants; 3. the larger context. The p.i.f. plays the role of agent only in dynamic events such as (4.1), and when a distinct Central non-focus Acc participant is involved as patient (Sect. 3.2.2). Such rolepolarization need not ensue if a non-focus clitic echoes the p.i.f.’s person and number: such “double mention” of the p.i.f. presents him as both in and out of focus and thus allows him to assume whatever relevant role is not claimed by a distinct non-focus participant.2 The forms available for this manoeuvre are me/nos, te, and se (cf. García 1975:€120–1), all of which are as case-neutral as the verb-ending itself. By short-circuiting role-differentiation along agentive lines, double-mention of the p.i.f. presents the event as less dynamic (cf. the familiar term “middle”): we refer to that effect as role-levelling, or the event’s introversion.3 Precisely because it does not



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

enforce sharp differentiation of relative activeness, double mention allows focus to fall on a participant involved in an inherently passive capacity, cf. (4.3) sei rompiói el platoi ‘The plate broke’ (4.4) ¿te lastimaste? ‘Did you get hurt / hurt yourself?’ With an inanimate p.i.f., double mention may even be interpreted in a “passive” sense, referred to in the hispanic literature as “pasiva refleja” i.e. ‘reflexive passive’ (Bello 1980:€ 238 #767–69; Klein Ph. 1987:€ 155; Campos 1989:€ 2; Mendikoetxea 1999 and Sánchez López 2002), cf. (4.5) ¿Ya se vendieron todos los pancitos? ‘Are the bread-rolls all sold?’ (4.6) Los nuevos modelos se presentarán en marzo ‘The new models will be shown in March’ To what degree a double-mentioned p.i.f. is really active, and what exactly his nonfocus involvement is, can only be inferred from 1. the nature of the event: double mention affects states and intransitive dynamic events differently from actions which do admit a DO; it a fortiori affects centrifugal events differently from centripetal ones; 2. the actual involvement in the event of a distinct non-focus participant, in particular a distinct DO. Thus, in (4.7) me lastimé en la frente ‘I hurt my(self on the) forehead, I got hurt on the forehead’ the double-mentioned p.i.f. de facto plays the role of patient/victim, in itself unworthy of focus, while in both (4.8) te lo compraste, por fin ‘You finally went and bought it, you bought it for yourself ’ (4.9) Luisa se comió el pastel ‘Luisa ate up (on her own) the (whole) pie’ the p.i.f. contrasts as agent with the distinct DO, but is further engaged in some Peripheral capacity.4 Under the simplest and most iconic interpretation of double mention, each reference in the VC claims a distinct role: while the verb-ending refers to the p.i.f. in the capacity most appropriate to his focus status, the co-referential clitic presents him in a case-role which parallels that of a distinct non-focus participant, cf.



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax 

(4.10) a. b.

la lavé ‘I washed her’ me lavé ‘I washed myself’

(4.11) a. b.

le mentí ‘I lied to her’ me mentí ‘I lied to myself’

(4.12) a. b.

Desde que se murió mi marido, te cocino, te lavo y te plancho ‘Since my husband died, I cook for you, wash for you and iron for you’ Desde que se murió mi mujer me cocino, me lavo y me plancho ‘Since my wife died, I cook for myself, wash for myself and iron for myself’

(4.13) a. Luisa te gusta tanto que no le importa gustar a los demás ‘You like Luisa (lit. Luisa pleases you) so much that she does not care about being liked by others (lit. pleasing others)’ b. Luisa se gusta tanto que no le importa gustar a los demás ‘Luisa likes herself (lit. Luisa pleases herself) so much that she does not care about being liked by others (lit. pleasing others)’ But focus and non-focus roles can hardly be distinguished for the double-mentioned p.i.f. of introverted events such as (4.14) a. b.

lo despertó ‘She woke him up’ se despertó ‘She woke up’ (introverted event, cf. *She woke herself up)

(4.15) a. b.

la mató ‘He killed her’ se mató ‘He killed himself; he died’

(4.15b) guarantees only that the p.i.f. is as dead as the referent of la is in (4.15a), but the extent to which he was actually – and actively – responsible for that state must be inferred from information external to the VC, cf. (4.16) a. b.

la mató con un revólver ‘he killed her with a gun’ se mató con un revólver ‘he killed himself with a gun’

(4.17) a. ?? la mató en un accidente ‘he killed her in an accident’

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The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

b. se mató en un accidente ‘he died in an accident’ In short: double mention of the p.i.f. by means of a matching, non-focus or case-neutral clitic, suspends the role-differentiation that would ensue from the syntagmatic contrast of the p.i.f. to a distinct non-focus participant. This explains why a doublementioned p.i.f. need not assume the role of agent when the distinct DO is a part of the p.i.f.’s body, cf. (4.18) a. b. c.

El peluquero le cortó las trenzas ‘The hairdresser cut off her pigtails’ María se cortó las trenzas con un par de tijeras ‘Mary cut off her pigtails with a pair of scissors’ María se cortó las trenzas en la peluquería de Paco ‘Mary had her pigtails cut off at Paco, the hairdresser’s’

In (4.18b), which parallels (4.16b), the p.i.f. Mary is the prime agent of the dynamic cutting; in (4.18c), which parallels (4.17b), double mention highlights the p.i.f.’s Peripheral involvement as beneficiary of the pigtail removal, and suggests her only indirect responsibility for the event. Double mention is consequently compatible with some intransitive events, such as dynamic verbs of motion, where the enlarged scope of the p.i.f.’s involvement renders irrelevant a distinct external goal,5 cf. (4.19) Fui a Londres ‘I went to London’ (4.20) Fui de París a Londres ‘I went from Paris to London’ (4.21) Fui ‘I went’ (tacitly understood: ‘there’, goal of the motion) (4.22) Fui de París a. *‘I went away from Paris’ b. OK ‘I went from Paris’ (understood: ‘thither’) (4.23) Me fui ‘I left, I went away (from where I was)’ (4.24) Me fui de París ‘I left Paris’ (4.25) Me fui a Londres ‘I up and went to London’ In (4.23–25), as in the introverted (b) items in (4.14–17), the action of ‘going’ exclusively regards the p.i.f.6



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax 

Introversion of centripetal events renders irrelevant a distinct Subject Complement (SC),7 cf. (4.26) Sentimiento 112 Porque la conciencia, aun antes de conocerse como razón, se siente, se toma, se es más bien como voluntad, y como voluntad de no morir. ‘Because consciousness, even before coming to know itself as reason, feels itself, seizes itself (up), is itself rather as will-power, and as (the) will not to die.’ Here ser can be interpreted either as the copula ‘to be’, or as meaning ‘to exist’: the two interpretations fuse when the p.i.f. is (itself) in all/any conceivable way(s).8 We will now show that role-levelling has different effects depending on whether or not a DO is presupposed by the event; the nature of those effects strongly supports the characterization of the Acc/Dat opposition presented in Sects. 3.2.2, 3.3.

4.1.1 Introversion of transitive events The great communicative value of double mention lies in the fact that it allows the Speaker to focus on less salient participants, and thus to downplay the eventual agent’s responsibility for the event, cf. eg. (4.3). Such downplaying is further compatible with reference to the actual agent in a non Central role, for this does not conflict with the focus bestowed on the actual patient. One and the same situation can thus be presented from contrasting perspectives, depending on the actual responsibility borne by the participants at issue. In a dynamic view of the event the actual agent is focussed on, and stands in polar contrast to a bona-fide Acc DO; but when the event is role-levelled by double mention and the p.i.f. is de facto passive, the true agent must be presented as only Peripherally involved, cf. (4.27) a. b.

lo rompió (para vengarse de la dueña de casa) ‘she broke it (plate) (to take revenge on the landlady)’ se le rompió (*para vengarse de la dueña de casa) ‘it (plate) broke “on” her (*to take revenge on the landlady)’

Since the p.i.f. is clearly more active in (4.27a) than in (4.27b) an indication of purpose acceptable in the former but not in the latter. Comparable pairs are (4.28) a. b.

las perdió ‘she lost them (keys)’ se le perdieron ‘they got lost “on” her’

(4.29) a. b.

la cerró ‘she shut it (door)’ se le cerró ‘it shut “on” her’



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

The categorization of the non-focus Objects as Acc in egg. (4.27a-29a) vs. Dat in egg. (4.27b-29b), is motivated by the agentiveness vs. passivity of the single-mentioned vs. double-mentioned p.i.f.’s, just as in the dynamic vs. static pairs discussed in Sect. 3.3.1, cf. (4.30) a. b.

la posee ‘he owns it (Acc,house)’ le pertenece ‘it belongs to him (Dat)’

(4.31) a. b.

lo siente ‘she feels it (Acc)’ le afecta ‘it affects her (Dat)’

4.1.2 Introversion of intransitive events Some events do not presuppose a Central non-focus participant at all, and at most suggest a Peripheral participant. Double mentioning the p.i.f. in such less dynamic events has a less obvious effect than in the cases discussed in Sect. 4.1.1; the reason is that, by definition, a Dat participant does not role-polarize the event, nor is his own degree of activeness clearly definable (cf. Sect. 3.2.2). An indubitable change in perspective nonetheless follows from single- vs. doublemention, for under the latter the p.i.f. co-opts the role of some potential external participant or circumstance (cf. egg. 4.23–25). Thus, with sonreír ‘to smile (at)’, which admits a Dat Object, the smiling switches from outside- to inside-directed under double-mention of the p.i.f.: (4.32) ¡Qué preciosura el bebe de tu hermana! ¡Es de rico cuando sonríe! ‘Your sister’s baby is really a darling! He’s so cute when he smiles!’ (extrovertly; implicitly: at the observer) (4.33) Cuando se ve la Gioconda, siempre se piensa ¿por qué se sonríe? ‘When one sees the Gioconda, one always wonders, why is she smiling?’ (introvertly: to herself) Since the presence of one Dat participant does not prevent a second Dat from participating in the event (cf. Sect. 3.2.2), a cluster of double-mentioning clitic plus distinct Dat is quite possible, cf. (4.34) le sonrió ‘she smiled at him’ (extrovertly, friendly, for him) (4.35) se le sonrió ‘She smiled “at/on” him’ (introvertly, ironically to herself, with him as cause rather than as goal of the smile)



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax 

Diverse Peripheral involvements cannot be distinguished by morphological means, and are thus not inherently ranked the way Dat vs. Acc roles are (cf. Sect. 3.3.2): whether a double-mentioned p.i.f. takes precedence over the distinct Dat participant or vice versa, depends on the participants’ respective nature, the type of event, and the larger context. Thus, in (4.35) the VC se le sonrió is interpreted as [se sonrió] + le, for the event must be introverted if the Peripheral involvement of le is to make sense; that ordering of the inferences is the most likely and frequent, given the inferential centrality of the p.i.f. Still, a supporting context can suggest the converse reading, i.e. [le sonrió] + se, with double mention of the p.i.f. superadded to the extrovert smiling evoked by the distinct le, as in (4.36) Da. María no quiere que Luisa frecuente a Pedro, porque no lo considera un buen candidato: pero la muchacha igual se le sonríe cada vez que lo encuentra. ‘Doña María does not want Luisa to see Pedro, because she does not find him a good (matrimonial) candidate: but all the same the girl ups and [smiles at him (le)] ‘on her own’ (se) every time she meets him’ As pointed out in Sect. 4.1.1, double-mention allows focus to fall on a participant playing an inherently focus-unworthy role: this holds also in events that presuppose only a Dat Object. Thus, the Dat human Experiencer implicit in some static and “psych” verbs (cf. Sects. 3.2.2, 3.3.2) is understood to be somehow responsible for it if focussed on thanks to double mention; he also monopolizes the event, because focussing on the Experiencer precludes participant status for the static stimulus, which can only be referred to beyond the VC, in a Prepositional Phrase (PP),9 cf. (4.37) a. b.

A Juan le asustó el ruido ‘The noise scared John (Dat, Exp)’ Juan se asustó con el ruido ‘John (p.i.f.) started up in fright at the noise (= non-participant)

(4.38) a. b.

A Juan le molestó esa observación ‘The remark hit John the wrong way’ Juan se molestó con esa observación ‘John took umbrage at the remark (= non-participant)’

(4.39) a. b.

A Juan le interesó el negocio ‘The affair interested John’ Juan se interesó por el negocio ‘John got involved, i.e. took active interest, in the affair (= non-participant)’

(4.40) a. b.

A Juan le maravilló la noticia ‘The news surprised John’ Juan se maravilló con la noticia ‘John marvelled at the news (= non-participant)’

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The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(4.41) a. b.

te quedan sólo $5 ‘Only $5 (p.i.f.) remain for/to you (Dat)’ te quedaste con $510 ‘You kept $5 (non-participant)’

(4.42) a. b. c.

te bastan $5 ‘$5 are enough for you’ te bastarás con $5 ‘You will have to make do with $5 (non-participant)’ ¿te basta con $5? ‘Is $5 enough for you?’ (impersonal use of bastar ‘suffice’)

This alternation is not possible with all intransitive verbs, cf. (4.43) a. b. c.

te faltan $5 ‘You are short $5 (p.i.f.) (lit. $5 are lacking to you)’ * te faltas de/con $5 ‘You????’ te falta para ser como tu padre ‘You have a long way to go to be like your father (lit. to you it lacks to be like your father)’ (impersonal use of faltar)

(4.44) a. b. c.

te sobran $5 ‘You have $5 (p.i.f.) over (lit. $5 are superfluous to you) *te sobras de/con $5 ‘???’ te sobra con $5 ‘You’ll have more than enough with $5 (lit. to you is superfluous with $5)’ (impersonal use of sobrar)

It far exceeds the limits and aims of this study to determine what verbs admit the two structures, and why.

4.1.3 Semantic versatility of double mention The semanto-pragmatic effects of double- as against single-mention of the p.i.f. are extremely varied, and strongly conditioned by the semantic content of the verb and the nature of the p.i.f. Since that variability is not directly relevant to the non-acceptability of clitic clusters, it will not be addressed further; eventual non-Hispanist readers can gain some idea of the large range of senses taken on by a verb in different contexts from illustrative examples with quemar ‘burn’; vestir ‘dress, don’; lucir ‘shine’ and olvidar ‘forget’: (4.45) a. Esas palabras queman ‘Those are burning words (lit: those words burn)’



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax 

b. c. d. e.

No toques la pava, que quema ‘Don’t touch the kettle, it is hot (lit.: it burns)’ las quemó ‘She burnt them (the old letters)’ Juanita se quemó (la mano) tocando la pava ‘Jenny burnt herself (her hand) touching the kettle’ Las cartas de la Condesa de A. al Duque de Z. se quemaron en el incendio de la Biblioteca Municipal. ‘The Countess of A’s letters to the Duke of Z got burnt (burnt up) when the Municipal Library caught fire.’

(4.46) a. b. c. d. e. f.

La niñera la vistió ‘The nanny dressed her’ La niñera le vistió el tapado ‘The nanny put the winter-coat on her’ Se vistió ‘She dressed (herself)’ Se vistió el tapado ‘She donned the winter-coat’ El negro le viste ‘Black looks good on her’ Se vistió de negro ‘She dressed in black’

(4.47) a. b. c.

Ana lucía nuevas galas ‘Anne ostentatiously wore/showed off new finery’ Las galas le lucen ‘Finery stands out on her/adorns her’ Se luce con esas perlas ‘She stands out/ shines/ shows off with those pearls’

(4.48) a. b. c. d.

Olvidaste el libro ‘You forgot the book’ Se te olvidó el libro ‘The book (dm p.i.f.) got forgotten/left behind by/’on’ you (Dat)’ ¡Te olvidas el libro! ‘Look out, you (dm p.i.f.) are forgetting the book (DO)!’ Te olvidaste del libro ‘You (dm p.i.f.) forgot about the book’



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

4.2 Clitic vs. non-clitic reference It makes a great difference in the processing of an utterance whether an entity is referred to within or beyond the VC.11 Clitics invariably refer to distinct non-focus participants; Noun Phrases (NP’s) and a-phrases may refer to participants who however need not be distinct from a participant also referred to with a clitic.12 How the referents of extra-VC expressions are involved in an event is thus entirely a matter of inference, cf. (4.49) El sábado Juan escribió sus poesías toda la tarde ‘On Saturday (lit.: the Saturday) John (p.i.f.) wrote his poems (DO) all the afternoon’ The referent of a NP either plays a Central role, cf. Juan (p.i.f.) and sus poesías (DO), or fails to participate at all, as in the case of adjunct circumstances, such as el sábado, toda la tarde. These interpretational alternatives follow so directly from the unlike nature of the referents at issue that specific flagging is unnecessary: herein “bare” NP’s differ critically from a-phrases, cf. Sect. 4.2.2 below. The word order of non-clitic references is basically free, and is conditioned by considerations of topicality and formal weight; the normal Acc – Dat order of postverbal Objects (Campos 1999:€ 1559) iconically mirrors their Central vs. Peripheral involvement, and supports our syntagmatic characterization of Case in Sect. 3.2.

4.2.1 Lexical reference: Bare noun phrases A lexical reference to a 3(*)rd ps participant naturally provides more information than does a clitic, but it leaves participant status unexpressed: for instance, a quantitative expression can refer to a participant or to a circumstance, cf. (4.50) a. b.

le digo poco ‘I tell him (le) little (DO)’ lo digo poco ‘I say it (lo = DO) seldom (quantifier)’

(4.51) leo mucho a. ‘I read a great many things (DO)’ b. ‘I read a lot (quantifier)’ (4.52) le duele mucho a. ‘A lot (i.e. many different parts of his body; p.i.f.) hurts him (le)’ b. ‘It (p.i.f.) hurts him (le) a great deal’ (quantifier)



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax 

4.2.2 Prepositional Phrases, a-phrases The object of a preposition never refers to the p.i.f.;13 NP’s introduced by a may, but need not, refer to non-focus participants.14 There being no sharp boundary between a’s generally directional sense and its capacity to introduce a participant, the status of an a-phrase is strictly a matter of inference,15 cf. (4.53) ví a Pedro / lo ví ‘I saw Pedro / I saw him (Acc)’ (4.54) sonreí a Pedro / le sonreí ‘I smiled at Pedro / I smiled at him (Dat)’ (4.55) me encomendé al Señor / me le encomendé ‘I entrusted myself to the Lord / to Him (Dat)’ (4.56) a. me dirigí al Papa en voz alta ‘I addressed (myself to) the Pope (Dat) in a loud voice’ b. (i) ?me le dirigí en voz alta (ii) OK me dirigí a él en voz alta ‘I addressed (myself to) him (Dat) in a loud voice’ (4.57) a. me dirigí al Papa de rodillas ‘I approached the Pope (non-participant) on my knees (lit: I directed myself to the Pope)’ b. *me le dirigí de rodillas c. OK me dirigí a él de rodillas ‘I approached him on my knees’ It has often been noted that Datives and specific human Accusatives are inherently salient: though recourse to an a-phrase prevents such O’s from being mistaken for the p.i.f., it fails to distinguish between Central and Peripheral non-focus roles.16 Reference by means of an a-phrase rather than a bare NP is obligatory for Peripheral participants, regardless of their animacy, and for definite, individualized humans, regardless of their non-focus case-role, cf. (4.58) a. **Di el libro  Pedro b. OK Di el libro a Pedro ‘I gave Peter (Dat) the book’ (4.59) a. ** Vi  María b. OK Vi a María ‘I saw Mary (Acc)’ (4.60) a. b.

Habló Chomsky toda una hora ‘He talked Chomsky (Acc, “mass noun”) for a whole hour’ Habló a Chomsky toda una ora ‘He talked to Chomsky (Datobj) for a whole hour’

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The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

With non-definite human referents, presence of a suggests a specific and individualized Acc participant, cf. (4.61) a. b.

Conoce  todo el mundo ‘He knows the whole world (i.e. he has travelled a lot)’ Conoce a todo el mundo ‘He knows everybody (i.e. he has lots of acquaintances)’

(4.62) a. b.

Esa family esconde  bandidos ‘That family conceals (i.e. includes some) bandits’ Esa familia esconde a bandidos ‘That family conceals (i.e. hides, protects) bandits’

However, an a-phrase does not refer to a Peripheral participant in quite the same way as le does, for a clitic guarantees that its referent is directly involved in the event, while an a-phrase at best allows participation, the preposition highlighting the directional nature of the event, cf. (4.63) a. b.

Arrojé la pelota a Pedro, pero el tonto no la agarró. ‘I threw the ball to Peter, but the fool didn’t catch it’ Le arrojé la pelota,???pero el tonto no la agarró. ‘I threw him the ball,???but the fool didn’t catch it’

A combination of two a-phrases is unproblematic if one of them is clearly directional and consequently does not refer to a participant: (4.64) manda al hijo al colegio religioso / a los franciscanos ‘She sends her son to the religious school / to the Franciscans (i.e. to their school)’ When the a-phrase refers to an IO, and the DO role is played by an individualized human, a bare NP is naturally preferred for the latter participant (Company Company 1998:€532, 552–3; 2001:€19–20 et pass.), cf. ( 4.65) a. b.

manda  el hijo al Padre Echegaray ‘She sends her son (Acc) to Father Echegaray (Dat)’ manda al hijo  el Padre Echegaray17 (i) **’She sends her son (Acc) to Father Echegaray (Dat)’ (ii) ?’To her son (Dat) she sends Father Echegaray (Acc)’

In short: clitic reference is de rigueur in reference to a Di (cf. Sect. 3.3.2), or in order to double mention the p.i.f. (Sect. 4.1); an NP introduced by a preposition other than a automatically refers to a non-participant; an a-phrase never refers to the p.i.f., while a bare NP never refers to a Peripheral participant. What does refer to whom/what must be puzzled out, i.e. computed.



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax 

4.2.3 “Understood” participants Beyond the VC, lack of reference can be indulged in only for Central participants, i.e. the p.i.f. and the Acc: tacit “reference” must thus be seen as the extreme case of the lack of grammatical marking which characterizes bare NP’s. In the case of the p.i.f., the person and number inflection of finite verbs allows a contextually self-evident participant to remain unmentioned; reference to a non-topical Central DO can similarly be dispensed with when his nature is predictable from the event-in-context, cf. (4.66) – ¿Cuánto tiempo hace que María trabaja para Don Andrés? – Unos cinco años: le cocina , le lava , le plancha , limpia la casa y se encarga del jardín. – ‘How long has María been working for Don Andrés? – About five years: she cooks for him (*cooks him), washes for him (*washes him), irons for him (*iron him), cleans the house and takes care of the garden.’ In (4.66) le refers to the beneficiary of all three events, just as if la comida/ la ropa/las camisas ‘the food/the clothes/the shirts’ had been explicitly mentioned: a tacit DO is unquestionably understood as involved in le cocina/le lava/le plancha ‘she washes / cooks /irons for him’.18 There are, however, no tacit Datives: a potential but unmentioned Dative is simply ignored, rather than tacit, for a Peripheral role is inherently dispensable. No Dat participant is consequently understood as being actually involved in limpia la casa ‘she cleans the house’, se encarga del jardín ‘she takes care of the garden’ of eg. (4.66): if Don Andrés comes to mind as the probable owner of the house and the garden, it is only because he is part of the context shared by the interlocutors. Thus, if Don Andrés is to be perceived as actually affected by the house-cleaning or the garden-tending, he must be referred to with a clitic, as is the case for the (food) cooking, the (clothes) washing, and the (shirt) ironing, which do affect him more closely, and thus warrant the explicit le’s in eg. (4.66). A Dat role is too Peripheral to come to mind on its own: this makes a “tacit” Dative a contradiction in terms.

4.3 Cumulation of clitic and extra-verbal reference Just as a bare NP can refer to the p.i.f. and, as it were, enlarge on the verb-ending, a non-focus participant can be referred to with a clitic inside the VC and a further nonclitic expression beyond it (García 1975:€92–3):19 this explains the widespread view of clitics as “objective agreement” inflections (Llorente and Mondéjar 1972, 1974; López García 1998:€503).20 A combination of clitic plus non-clitic expression can thus be taken as a single complex reference to the same participant, or as single references to distinct participants,



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

just as a bare NP can be understood as “agreeing” with the verb-ending, or as referring to a DO, cf. (4.67) ardió la paja ‘The straw caught fire’ (straw: p.i.f.) (4.68) quemó la paja ‘He burnt the straw’ (straw: DO) Clitic duplication rests on the agreement in Person, Number, Gender and Case between a VC-internal clitic and an extra-VC reference; it is particularly useful – and frequent – with 3*rd ps referents: the clitic ensures status as a participant and specifies case, while the a-phrase actually identifies him, cf. (4.69) A Pedro lo vi ayer ‘I saw Peter = him (lo, Acc) yesterday’ (4.70) A Pedro le sonreí ‘I smiled at Peter = him (le, Dat)’ Only l- clitics can duplicate a lexical reference, which by definition refers to a 3rd person; me, te and se can be duplicated only by an a-phrase involving a tonic pronoun,21 cf. (4.71) me vio a mí ‘He saw ME’ (4.72) A vos te toca lavar los platos ‘YOU are to wash the dishes’ (4.73) se vió a sí mismo en ese vagabundo ‘He saw himself in that vagabond’ (4.74) A María le traje el regalo que deseaba ‘I brought Mary (= le) the present she wanted’ (4.75) Los libros científicos los estudia en el invierno, las novelas las lee en el verano ‘He studies scientific books (them) in the winter; novels, he reads (them) in the summer’ (4.76) Distraída lo he sido toda mi vida. ‘Absent-minded, I have been it (SC) all my life’ Clitic and non-clitic reference are grammatically different and thus pragmatically nonequivalent: that is why duplication with an l- clitic is plausible only for cognitively more entrenched participants: (4.77) a. b.

Ahora mismo *(le) escribes una carta a la abuela ‘You will write a letter to your Granny right away’ ¿Por qué no (?? le) escribes una carta a Santa Claus? ‘Why don’t you write a letter to Santa Claus?’



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax 

(4.78) a. b. c.

Le mandó saludos al padre ‘He sent greetings to his father’ Mandó saludos al padre ‘He sent greetings to the father (inferred: not his own)’ (??? Le) mandó saludos a la familia ‘He sent greetings to the (his) family’

The acceptability of duplicate reference also depends on whether the bare NP/a-phrase precedes or follows the VC, in interaction with the participant’s case-role; for some discussion, cf. Barrenechea and Orecchia (1970), García (1975:€385–92). The literature on clitic duplication is vast, and a thorough discussion of the phenomenon is not required by the issues raised in Ch. 2: we will consequently limit ourselves to such aspects as do affect the acceptability of clitic clustering.

4.3.1 (Im)possibility of duplicate reference When the entity referred to in the a-phrase cannot be viewed as participating in the event, clitic reference is naturally ruled out (Davis 1937:€276), cf. (4.79) a. Por lo que se refiere/hace/es/respecta/toca a mí/él/vos/ellas b. *** Por lo que se me/le/te/les refiere/ hace/ es/ respecta/ toca ‘As to me/him/you/them (fem.)’ An a- phrase that is only or primarily interpretable as a locative or directional expression, resists interpretation as reference to a participant: it hence rejects duplication by a Dat clitic,22 cf. (4.80) (*le) Acudí a la fiesta ‘I attended the party’ (4.81) Después de la bancarrota, (*les) acudió a sus parientes, pero ninguno le ayudó ‘After his bankruptcy, he called on his family, but nobody helped him’ (4.82) (*le) Recurrí a Don Franciso en busca de consejo ‘I resorted to/went to Don Francisco in search of advice’ The verb referir ‘refer’ rejects or admits clitic duplication depending on whether the event at issue is ‘be, have to do with, refer, send to’, or ‘relate, tell’, cf. (4.83) Para esa información, debo referir**selo a un colega. Le referiré su caso al Dr. López cuando lo vea. ‘For that information, I must refer (= send) you to a colleague (*clitic duplication of a-phrase). I will tell (= referir) Dr. López (le + a-phrase) (about) your case when I see him’



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(4.84) a. Juan *le refiere todas sus desgracias a su padre. ‘Juan attributes all his bad luck to his father’ (non participant, *clitic dupl.) b. Juan le refiere todas sus desgracias a su padre ‘Juan tells his father (Datobj) all his troubles’ (participant, OK clitic dupl.) The same pattern is observed with concernir ‘concern, regard’, in its impersonal vs. personal interpretation: (4.85) a. b.

En lo que *me concierne a mí, soy muy descuidada ‘With regard to myself (non participant), I’m very sloppy’ En lo que me concierne (a mí), trato de ser muy cuidadosa ‘In whatever concerns/regards me (Dataff ) specifically, I try to be very careful’

In short: whether an a-phrase admits, rejects or requires clitic duplication depends primarily on whether the entity at issue actually participates in the event, and if so, on his actual case-role: (4.86) (*le) Acudí a Pedro / a él ‘I had recourse to Pedro, him’ (non participation, le impossible) (4.87) *(le) duele la cabeza a Pedro ‘Pedro’s head aches; Pedro has a head ache’ (participation inevitable, le obligatory) (4.88) (le) entregué el libro a Pedro ‘I handed the book over to Pedro’ (participation not guaranteed; le optional) Both the nature and the person of the participant make a difference. An ego/anthropocentric human Speaker is more likely to attribute participant status to a cognitively entrenched and/or contextually salient referent: the greater that salience, the more acceptable a duplicating clitic becomes, cf. (4.89)

a. b. c. d. e.

se me acercó (a mí) se te acercó (a vos) se (le) acercó a Pedro se (?le) acercó al altar se (**le) acercó a la esquina



‘she approached a. me b. you c. Pedro d. the altar e. the street corner’

clitic reference obligatory “ optional far-fetched absurd



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax 

(4.90) a. b. c. d.

*Le tiré al blanco ‘I aimed, shot at the bull’s eye (lit: white)’ *Le tiré la pelota al arco ‘I threw the ball at the goal’ (le) tiré la pelota a Bruno ‘I threw/kicked the ball to Bruno’ Bruno se acercó, y le tiré la pelota ‘Bruno came near, and I threw/kicked him the ball’

4.3.2 Pragmatic motivation of clitic duplication The principle regulating reference duplication is quite simple: clarification of a participant’s identity by non-clitic reference is required when an alternative participant might qualify for the case-role at issue, cf. (4.91) A mí me comió la manzana; a él le vació la alcancía ‘She ate my (me + a mí Dataff ) apple; and she emptied his ( le + a él Dataff ) piggy-bank’ This explains why a Di clitic cannot be duplicated (Strozer 1978:€118, 120; Gutiérrez Ordóñez 1999:€1907), for the “ethical” involvement which can be claimed by/for the 1st or 2nd persons is not open to anybody else, and precludes contrastive reference.23 In any case, an outward-directed a-phrase is hardly likely to suggest a Di involvement, cf. (4.92) Me le comiste la manzana a él *a mí ‘You went and (me = Di, unduplicatable) ate his (le + a él, Dataff ) apple’ The same thing holds for a double-mentioning clitic (cf. Barrenechea and Orecchia 1970:€ 65 fn.18) when event-introversion makes any participant other than the p.i.f. irrelevant to the event, cf. (4.93) Pedro se comió la manzana *a sí mismo ‘Pedro ate up the apple’ (4.94) me acuerdo de Pedro *a mí ‘I remember Pedro (*to myself)’ (4.95) te caíste *a vos ‘You fell down (*to yourself)’ (4.96) se duele de mí *a sí misma ‘She is sorry for me (lit: she hurts of me to herself)’ Extra-verbal duplication of a double-mentioning clitic is conversely possible when the p.i.f.’s non-focus role is in principle open to others: that is why a clitic-duplicating aphrase is more acceptable in a literally “reflexive” than in an introverted event:



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(4.97) a. Se lastimó a sí mismo (en la rodilla) para no ser enviado al frente ‘He hurt himself (se + a sí mismo) in the knee in order not to be sent to the battle-front (co-referential clitic = Acc role)’ b. Se lastimó *a sí mismo (en la rodilla) al caer del árbol ‘He got hurt (in the knee) when falling from the tree (role-levelled event)’ (4.98) a. Para despistar a la policía llegó a dirigirse cartas anónimas a sí misma ‘In order to mislead the police she went so far as to address anonymous letters to herself (se + a sí misma)’ b. Se dirigió a mí *a sí misma ‘She addressed herself (lit.: she directed herself) to me’ (introverted event; double-mentioning clitic unduplicatable)

4.3.3 Factors conditioning reference-duplication The acceptability of clitic duplication is affected by (a) whether the extra-verbal aphrase is lexical or pronominal, and (b) the participant’s case-role. 4.3.3.1 Lexical vs. pronominal a-phrase Reference to an entity by means of a tonic pronoun presupposes the referent’s salience and discourse-accessibility; since this strongly suggests that the party actually participates in the event, it favours duplication with a clitic, which per se guarantees participant status (cf. Sect. 4.3.1). It is often claimed that a-phrases with tonic pronouns obligatorily require duplication by a co-referring clitic (Bello 1980:€274 #919; Poston 1953:€270; Fernández Soriano 1993:€ 32; 1999:€ 1248; Real Academia 1989:€ 422; Fernández 1987:€ 62; Demonte 1994:€ 436; Rivera Castillo 1997:€ 252 fn.17; Gutiérrez Ordóñez 1999:€ 1872; Suñer 1999:€233–4, 236, 252), but the claim is doubly confuted by the unacceptable (4.99) ** Me le presentaste a él24 ‘You introduced me to him’ and the acceptable ( 4.100) Darás este libro a EL, no a ella ‘You will hand this book to HIM, not to her’ as well as by the pragmatic contrast between ( 4.101) a. b.

Juana se me acercó (a mí) ‘Juana came, got close to me’ (1st ps as Peripherally affected participant) Juana se acercó a mí ‘Juana approached me’



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax 

In (4.101b) the 1st person is the purely local goal of the p.i.f.’s motion, cf. ( 4.102) Juana se (???le) acercó a la mesa ‘Juana approached the table (???came, got close to the table)’ 4.3.3.2 Variable obligatoriness of clitic reference with diverse Dat roles In Sect. 3.3.2 we postulated a continuum of Dat sub-roles in terms of increasing Peripherality, in correlation with the p.i.f.’s lessening control of the Dat participant. That continuum explains the unequal preponderance of clitic vs. a-phrase reference for different kinds of Peripheral involvement, for these are unequally inferrable from clitic vs. a-phrase as referring means. Their respective grammatical form orients a clitic to the event itself, but an aphrase to the VC’s larger context: the iconic appropriateness of linguistic means to communicative ends explains why clitic reference is unequally omissible for different Dative roles. Two types of Indirect Object are often distinguished, depending on the need for clitic duplication of a-phrase reference to the Dat participant: the clitic is claimed to be obligatory for Dataff involvements such as “Possessor/part-whole”, “Benefactive” and “Experiencer”,25 while it can be omitted with Datobj’s (Demonte 1994:€432 fn.2 et pass; GutiérrezRexach 2001:€116–7; Fernández Soriano 1999:€1250 and Campos 1999:€1548–50), cf. ( 4.103) *(le) hice una sopa a Pedro ‘I made soup for Pedro (le obligatory, Dataff )’ ( 4.104) (le) di un beso a Pedro ‘I gave Pedro a kiss (le optional, Datobj)’ ( 4.105) (le) entregué el libro a Pedro ‘I handed the book over to Pedro (le optional, Datobj)’ Events such as dar ‘to give’, entregar ‘to hand over, deliver’, pasar ‘to pass’, mandar ‘to send’, enviar ‘to send’, remitir ‘to send, remit’, dirigir ‘direct, address’, arrojar ‘to throw, cast’, tirar ‘to throw’, imply spatial transference, i.e. the motion of the DO to an external end point: the inherently directional a-phrase can suggest that Datobj role on its own, so that clitic reference to the IO becomes dispensable. These “transfer” verbs, however, critically differ from intransitive motion verbs such as acudir, recurrir ‘resort to’, adherir ‘adhere to’, which categorically eschew clitic reference to the end-point of the p.i.f.’s trajectory (cf. Sect. 4.3.1). In the “transfer” events, the arrival of the DO does affect the IO, whose reception of the DO involves him in the event:26 no such effect follows when the p.i.f. merely addresses (himself to) another party, as in the second set of verbs. But as soon as the p.i.f ’s motion affects the end-point, the latter comes under the p.i.f.’s control, which makes clitic reference to the “goal” acceptable, cf.



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

( 4.106) a. **le fuí a Pedro ‘I went to Pedro’ b. OK le fui a Pedro con mis problemas ‘I told Pedro about my troubles (lit. I went to Pedro with my problems’ In (4.106b) the p.i.f.’s moving towards Pedro results in the latter’s becoming cognizant of the p.i.f ’s problems.27 In the case of Dataff ’s, the referent’s participation depends more on the Speaker’s say-so than on the nature of an event: this renders an outward directed a-phrase uninterpretable if clitic reference is omitted: (4.107) a. ??hice una sopa a Pedro ‘I made a soup at (towards) Peter’ b. OK Le hice una sopa a Pedro ‘I cooked soup for Pedro’ ( 4.108) a. Gasté el dinero *a/ OK de Pedro ‘I spent the money *“on” Pedro / OK Pedro’s money’ b. OK Le gasté el dinero a Pedro ‘I spent Pedro’s money / the money for Pedro’ The clitic is particularly necessary when the affected participant is part and parcel of, i.e. internal to the event, as is typically the case with Experiencers. Since an outwardpointing a is ill-suited to evoke the actual locus of the psychological event, the Experiencer’s participant status must be made clear by clitic reference: ( 4.109) *(le) duele a Pedro que seas tan egoísta ‘It grieves Peter that you should be so selfish’ The obligatoriness of clitic reference for Dataff ’s is nonetheless a matter of degree, for the relative topicality and/or accessibility of the referent weighs heavily in the determination of participant status, and thus of clitic reference (Sect. 3.2), which is less warranted for less individuated Experiencers, cf. (4.110) a. (?les) Sorprende a muchos políticos la posición recientemente adoptada por el canciller. b. A muchos políticos *(les) sorprende la posición recientemente adoptada por el canciller. ‘The position recently adopted by the Chancellor has surprised many politicians’ ( 4.111) a. b.

*(le) Sorprendió a Pedro la respuesta de María ‘Mary’s answer surprised Pedro’ **(le) Sorprendió a él la respuesta de María ‘Mary’s answer surprised him’



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax 

In short: whether a Dat participant’s identity need be specified with an a-phrase depends on how exclusively he can claim the particular case-role; whether Peripheral involvement must be signalled with a clitic depends on the relative ease with which such participation is inferrable, in context, from an inherently directional a. Since an a-phrase is basically oriented beyond the VC, it is capable of suggesting participant status when the roles at issue, such as DO or a Datobj, involve a centrifugal projection by/from the event. But when, as with an event-independent Dataff, the Peripheral participant’s involvement depends primarily on the Speaker’s perspective (cf. Sect. 3.2, 3.2.2, 3.3.2), a is at once too imprecise and too specifically directional to suggest the precise nature of the role. That is why explicit confirmation of participant status by clitic reference is more necessary for a Dataff than a Datobj. The more relevant and obvious the directional nature of the event, with the Dat participant’s role resembling the involvement of the Central Acc, the more dispensable the clitic becomes; conversely, the more the Dat role tends to a Di-like involvement, the greater the need for clitic reference, and the smaller the need for, and acceptability of, duplication with an a-phrase. Since identification of the end-point of the event is critical for Datobj’s, the a-phrase is the hub around which the syntactic arrangement turns;28 the actual participation of a Dative is conversely the essence of Dataff ’s, so that here the clitic is the keystone of the referential combination. The clitic thus duplicates the a-phrase in the case of Datobj’s, while the a-phrase duplicates the clitic for Dataff ’s.

4.3.4 Clitic duplication as an inferential manoeuvre When clitics are duplicated by a tonic pronoun, morphological congruence yields me...a mí, te...a vos combinations for 1st and 2nd ps participants.29 In the case of 3(*)rd ps referents, however, the clitic and the tonic pronoun may fail to match,30 as is clear from duplication of a sí mismo with lo in: ( 4.112) Resentimiento 493 Y sin notarlo ni quererlo, Augusto agregó algunas notas desfavorables a las tan amargas que había proferido entonces. Era evidente que oscilaría sin remedio entre Escila y Caribdis. Y no sólo a Elba esta vez, sino a sí mismo – por su entera incapacidad de descentralizar su espíritu de aquella idea fija – , lo molestó como una torpeza su propia insistencia.... ‘And without being aware of it or wishing to do so, Augustus added some unfavourable remarks to the very bitter ones he had made on that [earlier] occasion. It was clear that he would hopelessly oscillate between Scylla and Charybdis. And this time not only Elba, but himself, were annoyed – through his utter incapacity to free his mind from that fixed idea – by his own insistence...



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

[lit.: and not only Elba this time, but himself (= a sí mismo) – through his utter incapacity to free his spirit from that fixed idea – annoyed him (= lo) as a gaffe his own insistence]’ The context presents Augustus and Elba as victims of the man’s idée fixe. The first – and primary – reference to Augustus occurs in the contrastively emphatic a-phrase: here sí is resorted to because the referent is contextually self-evident.31 However, the p.i.f. in the event molestar ‘annoy’ is the man’s insistence: that is why the referentially distinct Augustus must be referred to with lo. The morphological discrepancy between clitic and extra-VC reference is bridged by the inference that the same participant is being referred to twice.32 Co-reference, however, by no means guarantees identical roles, cf. ( 4.113) devolví el libro a Pedro ‘I returned the book to Pedro’ ( 4.114) le devolví el libro a él/Pedro ‘I returned to book to him/Pedro’ ( 4.115) lo devolví a Pedro a sí mismo33 ‘I returned him/Pedro to himself ’ (4.113) contains three distinct references to three distinct participants in three different roles: the verb-ending refers to the 1st ps p.i.f., el libro names the DO, and the aphrase identifies the 3*rd ps Datobj. (4.114) shows two distinct references (le....a él/ Pedro), interpreted as duplicate reference to a single participant (i.e. him, Pedro) in a single role, marked as Peripheral by le. In (4.115) there are three distinct references to the same non-focus participant: two (lo...a Pedro) fuse in duplicate reference to the single 3*rd ps participant in the Acc role, but a sí mismo is interpreted as a distinct reference to the same Pedro in a distinct Dat role. Since mere co-reference of distinct referring expressions does not guarantee identity of case-role, how many distinct participants are involved in how many and, particularly, in what case-roles, is necessarily the result of an inference-based calculus.

Notes to Ch. 4 1. If different entities are involved in an event in precisely the same capacity, they must be presented either as a single (coordinate) participant, or as distinct entities, with clitic reference to only one, as in (i) Cuatro 91 Le sirvieron una copa y para ellos también. ‘They served him a drink and for themselves as well’



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax  Clitics morphologically bound to the verb cannot be syntactically coordinated within the VC: (ii) ** se y le sirvieron una copa ‘They served themselves and him a drink’ 2. Case-roles are differentiated only to the extent enforced by the referential distinctness of p.i.f and non-focus participants. The assumption that verbs have specific syntactic “valencies” which can be morpho-syntactically modified leads to a very different account of the effect of double mention. 3. The absorption of case-roles by a double-mentioned p.i.f. has diachronically resulted in the development of a large range of interpretations (cf. Monge 1954) which run from transparent reference to the p.i.f. as playing a distinct non-focus role, through quasi-derivational effects, to clear lexicalization of a static sense of the verb (cf. García 1975:€2–8, 115–183, 215–233 et pass.). That the verb-ending of “impersonal” verbs refers to no actual entity does not preclude introversion of such events, cf. (i) ¿de qué se trata? ‘What is it about?’ (cf. Fernández Soriano and Táboas Baylín 1999:€1773) (ii) se hizo tarde ‘It became late (lit: it made itself late)’ Butt and Benjamin list amanecer ‘to dawn’, clarear ‘to become light’, oscurecer ‘to get dark’ and anochecer ‘to become night’ as verbs which in themselves suggest “becoming” and hence do not require double mention to (1988:€138 Sect. 12.5). However, our informants AECh, ACh and PR marginally accepted (iii) OK/?En el invierno se anochece temprano ‘In winter it gets dark/it becomes night early (lit: it “nightens” itself ’ They found double mention far less acceptable in (iv) ??/*¡Por fin se dejó de llover! ‘Finally it stopped raining’ which, they claimed, attributes malevolence to the weather, preferring to it the single mention in (v) OK ¡Por fin 0 dejó de llover! 4. A distinct Acc participant, however referred to, polarizes the event along agentive lines, and thus forces role-differentiation on the two Central participants. The remaining non-focus participants, whoever they may be and however they are referred to, are automatically categorized as Peripherally involved (Sect. 3.2.2). 5. The goal of a motion is comparable to the DO of a transitive event, both being visualizable as the p.i.f.’s external objective. 6. The goal of the motion must be either explicit or contextually self-evident under single mention of the p.i.f.; it is irrelevant, rather than tacit, with double mention (cf. 4.22 vs. 4.24). Just as the existence of a distinct DO is compatible with the p.i.f.’s involvement in a Peripheral capacity, double mention of the p.i.f. with motion verbs does not preclude explicit reference to the destination: in (4.25), as in egg. (4.16b,17b), the precise nature of the p.i.f.’s involvement depends on the VC’s context. 7. In Sect. 5.5.3 we discuss the interpretation of double mention when the predicative complement is explicit (cf. Bello 1980:€237 #766).

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs 8. The effect of double mention on centripetal events is hard to pin down, not least because very few lexical items admit the manoeuvre. There is a striking difference, however, between parecerse (a) ‘to resemble’ and the single mention parecer ‘to seem’, which allows the p.i.f. and the SC to be understood as involving the same entity, cf. (i) – Esa señora parece Juana, no? – Sí, es Juana / lo es (lo = Juana) ‘ – That lady looks to be / seems (to be) Juana, right? – She is (indeed) Juana’ Such identification is ruled out when double-mention concentrates all the “seeming” in the p.i.f., cf. (ii) Esa señora se parece a Juana, pero no lo es / **y en efecto lo es. ‘That lady resembles/looks like Juana, but she is not her / **and she actually is (Juana)’ 9. As seen in Sect. 4.1.1, the agent of a dynamic event can be demoted to a Peripheral role when the patient is double-mentioned, but there is no non-focus role which might be filled by a demoted passive “stimulus”. Reference to it/him as an Acc is ruled out, because the static nature of the event excludes a DO; if the stimulus is non-human, it hardly qualifies for a Dat role; if the stimulus is in fact human, to cast him as a Dat would allow him to be mistaken for an Experiencer, and thus undermine the double-mention of the “true” Experiencer. 10. In colloquial speech, quedarse admits a DO cf. (i) Juan se quedó el resto en vez de devolvérmelo ‘Juan kept the change (DO) for himself instead of giving it back to me’ Quedar ‘to remain’ rejects a DO, but admits a SC: (ii) ** Juan quedó el resto / **lo quedó. ??’John kept the change / kept it’ (iii) Juan quedó contento /?lo quedó ‘John remained happy, was left happy /?it’ 11. An l- clitic is the only referential possibility when participating non-entities are to be evoked (García 1975:€289–90) simply because such non-entities, even though physically non-existent, are referentially distinct from the p.i.f. (cf. Sect. 3.1): (i) la pasé bien ‘I had a good time (lit. I passed 3*rd ps Acc fem. sg. well)’ (ii) ¡Dale! ‘Attaboy! C’mon!! (lit. Give to 3*rd ps Dat sg.!)’ (iii) ¿Qué se le puede hacer? ‘What can be done about it (le)?’ A focussed-on non-entity is of course double mentioned with se, cf. Sect. 4.1 n. 3. 12. It is not possible in Spanish to refer to an adverbial circumstance, which de jure is not part of an event with a clitic, unlike what is the case in French (y, en) or Italian (ci, vi, ne). Non-focus participants are often hard to distinguish from ad-verb(i)al complements, particularly when non-entities are at issue; in popular Mexican Spanish the Peripheral le has in fact been re-interpreted as an event-intensifier, which does not cluster with other clitics (Torres Cacoullos 2002). In that use le is suffixed even to non verbal forms, cf. orale ‘Now! + le’, híjole ‘son + le’, or a whole phrase, as in the pre-fab ¿[Qui húbo]le? ‘What’s up? (lit. what was there + le?)’, cf. Kany (1951:€162, 164). The irregular enclisis to the finite hubo (cf. introduction to ch. 2) strongly suggests the reinterpretation of le as an invariable phrasal affix, or its integration into a fre-



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax  quent prefab (cf. Bybee 2006). This exploitation of le, which is alien to BA Spanish and in any case irrelevant to clitic clustering, will be ignored in what follows. 13. The apparent exception of hasta ‘until, even’ is indeed apparent, cf. (i) Hasta los generativistas se van dando cuenta de que... ‘Even generativists are becoming aware that...’ (ii) Algunas personas son capaces hasta de creer en Santa Claus ‘Some people are capable even of believing in Santa Claus’ It exceeds the limits of this study to identify the value of hasta in relation to, say hacia ‘towards’, vs. incluso ‘including, included’. 14. An a-phrase can never refer to the p.i.f., while a bare NP may. A pronominal NP refers either to the p.i.f., or to its predicate (SC): (i) Lo comió él ‘(it was) HE (that) ate it’ (ii) Quisiera ser vos ‘I should like to be you’ A question for further research is the extent to which 1st or 2nd ps clitics can take on a SC role: if (ii) is pronominalized as (iii) Quisiera serlo ‘I should like to be it (i.e. you)’ the 2nd person is presented as a set of traits which the 1st person would like to have attributed to him, while the tantalizing, but at best marginal (iv) Quisiera serte ‘I should like to BE you’ suggests a quasi cannibalistic absorption of the 2nd person by the p.i.f., with te conflating the two Central roles of DO and SC. 15. There is no consensus as to the grammatical status of a-phrases (Maldonado 2002:€60 fn. 8; Campos 1999:€1555–59). They may be seen as case-inflected NP’s when actually duplicating a clitic, but depending on the nature of the event-in-context, reference to a Peripheral participant may shade off into an adverbial adjunct, cf. the inverse development of le as an intensifier, n. 12 above. 16. Whatever the number of participants, correct identification of the p.i.f. is always the first priority (Sect. 3.1). Note that three-participant situations, where Dat and Acc contrast syntagmatically, are less frequent in actual use than two-participant situations; the case-role of 3*rd ps non-focus participants can be specified by recourse to the proper clitic (see Section 4.3 and García 1975:€104–8; 385–93 et pass.). 17. A combination of two a-phrases in reference to Acc + Dat participants is viewed as only marginally acceptable by Demonte (1994:€ 461) and Torrego (1995a:407). An Acc participant referred to by name poses a particularly sharp dilemma, for he risks being mistaken for the p.i.f. if a is left out, but cannot be distinguished from the Dat if a is present: (i) ** manda  Pedrito al Padre Echegaray ‘She sends Pedrito (Acc) to Father Echegaray (Dat)’ (ii) * manda a Pedrito al Padre Echegaray ??’She sends Pedrito (to) Father Echegaray’



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs The only solution is to place one of the a-phrases before the verb, duplicating it with a clitic that clarifies its case (cf. Section 4.3): (iii) A Pedrito lo manda al Padre Echegaray ‘She sends Pedrito (lo, Acc) to Father Echegaray’ (iv) Al Padre Echegaray le manda a Pedrito ‘To Father Echegaray (le, Dat) she sends Pedrito’ Demonte correctly observes that when (a) both lexical references follow the verb, and (b) reference to the Dat participant involves a duplicating clitic, an a-phrase is unacceptable in reference to the Acc, but becomes marginally tolerable if there is no Dat clitic (1994:€461). Campos claims the exact opposite (1999:€1554), and is supported by Company (2001:€20). Dialectal variation may be responsible for the disagreement, which can only be resolved by further research into actual use. 18. A double-mentioning clitic is consequently understood to signal a Peripheral involvement of the p.i.f. when the context provides a self-evident but tacit DO, cf. the ambiguity in me lavo (i) ‘I wash (myself, me = Acc)’ (ii) ‘I do my own washing, (lit. I wash () for myself, me = Dat)’ 19. Clitic duplication is possible for both NP’s and a-phrases, cf. (i) A María la vi ayer ‘I saw Mary yesterday’ (ii) Esa noticia la leí ayer ‘I read that news yesterday’ We will concentrate on the more frequent a-phrase duplication, which is relevant to both Central and Peripheral non-focus participants (cf. García 1975:€385–89). 20. Such duplicate reference differs critically from double mention of the p.i.f. in that the latter manoeuvre only concerns the VC (Sect. 4.1), while clitic-duplication straddles that morpho-syntactic unit. The two manoeuvres serve different communicative purposes: being VC-internal, double mention affects the nature of the event, and can result in role-levelling; clitic duplication rather concerns the participant’s identifiability, an issue necessarily involving the larger context. 21. A Usted(es) is the obligatory duplication for l- clitics that refer to a IInd person. For the preeminently accessible referents of 1st and 2nd/IInd persons, clitic reference is de rigueur; the optional a-phrase is justified when the context suggests another potential candidate for the role at issue. 22. Cf. Maldonado (2002:€60 fn. 8) in relation to such verbs as acudir ‘be present at, attend, go to’; acceder ‘have access to’; adherir ‘adhere to, join’; proceder ‘proceed to, go to’; recurrir ‘resort to’, all of which “take a”. 23. This impossibility confutes Torrego’s claim that “Clitic doubling in Spanish is attested with all objects in the dative.” (1995a:412; emphasis in the original) 24. In Sect. 5.3.1 we explain why the unacceptability stems from clitic reference to the IO. 25. According to Gutiérrez-Rexach, the common ingredient in the [three] constructions [i.e. inalienable possession, benefactive, psychological verbs EG] is that the absence of doubling makes the sentences ungrammatical or deviant at best. (2001:€117)



Chapter 4.╇ Basic clitic syntax  as a result, “this group of cases can be dealt with straightforwardly within a minimalist grammar [...] by implementing the obvious assumption that the verb subcategorizes for a dative clitic” (2001:€117). The obligatoriness of the clitic can however not be imputed to the verb: Gutiérrez Rexach’s example of “obligatory clitic”, i.e. (i) Tu visita *(le) dió una gran alegría a Juan ‘Your visit made Juan very happy’ (lit: gave a great joy to Juan; clitic obligatory) has the same verb as the clitic-optional (ii) Tu hermana (le) dió un libro a Juan ‘Your sister gave a book to Juan’ In order to salvage Gutiérrez Rexach’s claim, distinct lexical entries à la Pinker (cf. Sect. 1.1.1), would have to be postulated for dar, depending on the (non) material nature of the DO or on larger pragmatic considerations. 26. Even an inanimate object can be referred to with a clitic when affected by the DO’s motion, cf. (i) les quité el polvo a las tazas de porcelana ‘I removed the dust from the china tea-cups’ (ii) le pasé una franela a los muebles ‘I cleaned the furniture with a piece of flannel (lit.: I passed a piece of flannel to the furniture)’ 27. The same difference accounts for (i) a. A Juan *le vino un amigo ‘A friend came to (see) John’ b. A Juan le vino una idea ‘John had an idea (lit. an idea came to John)’ (ii) a. A Juan *le llegó María ‘Mary arrived at/to John’ b. A Juan le llegó una noticia ‘Juan received some news (lit. a piece of news arrived at John)’ (iii) María le llegó al alma a Juan ‘Mary touched John in his very soul (lit. Mary to him reached to the soul to Juan)’ 28. This is true of all Datobj, not merely of Demonte’s (1994:€438) “transferral predicates”, cf. (i) (le) mentiste a tu padre, descarado! ‘You lied to your father, shameless one (clitic optional)’ (ii) (le) debemos ayudar a María ‘We must help Mary’ 29. As pointed out earlier, the corresponding combination for the “polite” IInd person is le/lola....a Usted. 30. A p.i.f.-coreferential se can be duplicated by either a sí (mismo) or a él (mismo) (Torrego 1995b:229–231 et pass.); for discussion of the contrast between sí and él in PP’s generally, cf. García (1996). 31. Mallea’s striking choice of tonic pronoun was restored by at least 35% of the group of most reliable informants to whom the passage was presented in an experiment described in García (1988:€13–14).



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs 32. The inferential character of clitic-duplication is also apparent in the oft-noted lack of number agreement between sg. Dat le and a duplicating pl. a-phrase (Sturgis 1927, García 1975:€388; Fernández Soriano 1993:€54). In fact, a pl. les is unacceptable when the clitic is part of an idiomatic expression, cf. Sigo dándole*s a los grupos de clíticos ‘I’m still at it with clitic clusters (lit: I continue giving to it (le sg.) to the clitic clusters)’ 33. In Sect. 5.3.4 we discuss why clitic reference is possible only for the Acc role played by Pedro, cf. (i) *le devolví a sí mismo a Pedro (ii) *se lo devolví a Pedro a sí mismo ‘I returned Pedro to himself’

chapter 5

Variable clitic-cluster acceptability Since case cannot be explicitly signalled for all non-focus participants, efficient deployment of the expressive means available to the Speaker simplifies the Hearer’s task of assigning to each participant his proper role; it goes without saying that general knowledge as to what type of participant is likely to play which role enters crucially into the interpretation of any utterance.1 To facilitate the discussion of clitic cluster acceptability under diverse role/referent allotments, we start by examining how roles are allotted in general, regardless of the referential means resorted to.2

5.1 Participancy and case-categorization Only some of the entities relevant to an event (cf. Hockett 1966:€59) are seen as participating in it; only one of them can be in focus and since only one non-focus participant may play the Central Acc role, any other participant must be involved Peripherally. This explains why (5.1) **lo vendí la casa ‘I sold it (non fem.) the house (fem.)’ is unacceptable. Vender ‘to sell’ presupposes a DO, but this role is vied for in (5.1) by the referent of lo as well as by the ‘house’, referred to in a bare NP. Since the former lays claim to the DO role automatically, clitic reference guaranteeing participant status (cf. Sect. 3.1), it becomes impossible to ascertain the house’s role in the event, for a. the 1st ps verb-ending prevents it from being taken as the p.i.f., b. a bare NP cannot refer to a Peripheral participant such as a buyer (Sect. 4.2.2), c. la casa cannot duplicate lo because of the mismatch in gender (Sect. 4.3), and d. no preposition specifies how the house is involved in the sale. (5.1) thus defies interpretation, and is unacceptable.

5.1.1 Participant vs. non-participant involvement In contrast with (5.1), (5.2) lo di vuelta ‘I turned it/him (lo) round (lit: I gave it/him turn)’



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

presents only one valid candidate for the role of DO, i.e. the referent of lo. Unlike the NP la casa in (5.1), vuelta ‘turn, round’ lacks a determiner, and consequently need not refer to an actual entity: it may thus be understood as coalescing with the verb qua manner indication. If the “turn(ing)” is individuated, however, an abstract entity is suggested that can be seen as the DO of “giving”, while the axis of the “turns” is involved Peripherally, cf. (5.3) el paquete necesitaba una vuelta más de piolín y se la dí ‘The package needed one more turn of twine and I gave it (la = one more turn) to it (se = the package)’ (5.4) Al asunto le daré todas las vueltas que hagan falta ‘[Unscrupulous lawyer speaking] I’ll turn that affair round as often as necessary (lit: I will give that affair [= le, Dat] all the turns that are necessary [DO])’ Verbs that admit diverse kinds of DO may force different entities to compete for the Central non-focus role. For instance, cobrar ‘to charge’ suggests a fee as well as a service to justify it, as in (5.5) Cobra la visita $100 ‘He charges $100 (for) a visit / he charges the visit (at) $ 100’ Either fee or visit can be cast as DO, and be referred to with an Acc clitic: ( 5.6) a. b.

la cobra ‘He charges it’ (Acc fem. = visit) los cobra ‘He charges them’ (Acc pl. = the $100)

The two potential DO’s co-exist easily in (5.5) because both service and fee are referred to with case-neutral NP’s, and since a bare NP need not per se refer to a participant (cf. Sect. 4.2), one or the other may assume the Acc role. Clitic reference to both fee and visit, however, is totally unacceptable, for the two distinct participants can only play the same, unique Acc role: (5.7) ***la los cobra ‘He charges it them’ Nor is it possible to cast either service or fee as a Dative, for, in their different ways, both do participate Centrally in the “charging”: (5.8) a. ***se los cobra ‘He charges it (se = the visit) them (= the $100, DO)’ b. *** se la cobra ‘He charges it (la = DO) them (=se)3



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

Of the two potential Accusatives, only the fee is characterized in quantitative terms, and is thus eligible for non-participant status (cf. Sect. 4.2.1). NP reference to the “fee” is indeed compatible with Acc clitic reference to the “visit,” but the converse arrangement is as unacceptable as (5.1), for there is no plausible non-participant involvement open to the visit, referred to as it is with a bare NP: (5.9) OK la cobra $100 ‘He charges it (= visit) (at) $100 (quantitative adjunct)’ (5.10) *los cobra la visita ‘He charges them (= $ 100) the visit’ If the less object-like entity, i.e. the fee, is nonetheless cast as the DO in the “charging” event, the better candidate, i.e. the visit, must be prevented from claiming that role: it must consequently be denied participant status altogether, either by reference in a PP, or as part of a time-expression (cf. Sect. 4.2.2), cf. (5.11) a. b.

los cobra por la visita ‘He charges them for the visit’ los cobra cada visita ‘He charges them each visit’

Role/referent allotment is easier when the more obvious candidate to the role of DO is referred to with an Acc clitic: it is not by chance that (5.9) is formulated more economically than (5.11), which conveys a less obvious role/referent allotment.

5.1.2 Central vs. Peripheral participation The categorization of non-focus co-participants in an event as Acc vs. Dat is inevitably steered by their real-world relation to each other. Since the larger whole in a partwhole relation is necessarily affected by an action targeted at its part it may very naturally be seen as Peripherally involved. For instance, kissing Mary’s eyes allows either the whole, i.e. Mary, or her eyes to be seen as the DO of the caress: (5.12) Besó a María / la besó ‘He kissed Mary / her (DO)’ (5.13) Besó sus ojos / los besó ‘He kissed her eyes / them (DO)’ Should both Mary and her eyes be perceived as individually participating in the kiss, their roles cannot be the same: Mary, as the larger whole, is less subject to the p.i.f.’s control than the eyes which his lips actually touched, and is thus appropriately cast as a Dat, cf.



The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(5.14) Le besó los ojos ‘He kissed her (Dat) (the) eyes (DO)’ (5.15) Se los besó ‘He kissed her (Dat) them (Acc)’ Role/referent allotment thus indubitably involves a structural mapping (Gentner 1983; Gentner and Markman 1997) in which the real-world difference between the participants is diagrammatically matched up with relevant cognitive dimensions and grammatical categories:

whole (Mary) :: more :: less :: Peripheral role

vs. part (eyes) vs. less able to act independently vs. more contact with kisser’s lips vs. Central target in “kissing”

Should Mary be cast as the DO, and a Peripheral role be assigned to her eyes, the actual relation between the two entities is turned on its head: the corresponding (5.16) ****se la besó ‘He kissed her (Acc) to, “on” them (Dat)’ is accordingly uninterpretable and unacceptable. Since Mary is, de facto, the more peripheral participant, she can be cast as DO only if her eyes, which receive the kiss directly, are either ignored entirely, as in eg. (5.12), or are denied participant status altogether, as the “visit” is in egg. (5.11a,b): (5.17) La besó en los ojos ‘He kissed her (Acc) on the eyes’ It follows that an event that is polarized by the participation of a distinct DO, cannot be simultaneously introverted by double mention of the p.i.f. The role-levelled (5.18) Se lastimó con las tijeras ‘He got hurt (hurt himself) with the scissors’ and the role-polarized (5.19) Lastimó a su hermanita con las tijeras ‘He hurt his kid sister with the scissors’ cannot be conflated into the incoherent (5.20) Se lastimó a su hermanita con las tijeras ***’He got hurt his kid sister with the scissors’ for the role-levelled event of (5.18) provides no role which might be played by the sister.4



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

5.1.3 Interpretation of case-neutral clitics If the event presupposes a DO role, but 1. the VC contains no explicitly Acc clitic, 2. the p.i.f. is not double mentioned, and 3. a DO is neither referred to beyond the VC, nor tacitly provided by the larger context, the lexically suggested Acc role is alloted to the least salient, and consequently least focus-worthy of the non-focus participants referred to in the VC,5 cf. (5.21) [Jealous young man to girl-friend] Ese impertinente de Andrés me miró con una sonrisita cuando salíamos del baile ¿por casualidad te me besó cuando bailabas con él? ‘That smart-aleck Andy grinned at me as we were leaving the dance: did he by any chance kiss you (= DO) “on” me (Di) when you were dancing with him?’6 If the event does not presuppose a Central non-focus role (= DO), all non-focus participants, whether in or beyond the VC, are understood to play a Peripheral role, cf. (5.22) ¿te sonrió? ‘Did he smile at you (= Dat)?’ (5.23) ¿(le) hablaste a Pedro? ‘Did you speak to Peter (= Dat)?

5.2 The interpretation of clitic clusters Both Wanner (1994) and Haspelmath (2004) regard clusters as grammaticalized and presumably unanalyzed combinations of clitics. This is unlikely to be the case, for clusters make out so small a part of clitics’ overall use that their very com-position must trigger some computation:7 not only must the referents of 3*rd ps clitics be identified, but the case-neutral 1st and 2nd ps clitics must be allotted a specific case-role. The referents of clustered clitics are de jure understood to be distinct, and consequently to play different case-roles (cf. Sect. 3.2.2), but the extreme phonological compression of the VC, coupled to the fixed order of clitics, precludes any calculus but the simplest.8 Role/referent allotment is greatly simplified if answering the questions: “who/what is referred to? how is that referent involved in the event?” for one clitic, half-way answers them for the other. As seen in Sect. 5.1, the case-roles relevant to an event emerge from the meaning of the verbal form and from its larger context beyond the VC. But one thing is already certain within the VC itself, i.e. the clitics’ Person, which implicitly ranks their referents in terms of inherent salience.9 This immediately given VC-internal hierarchization is likely to steer the allotment of case-roles to the sure-fire participants referred to

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

by means of clitics, inasmuch as congruent role/referent allotments, where personand case-role rankings match,10 are easier to process, and arrived at faster, than incongruent ones (cf. Trueswell and Tanenhaus 1994:€164; Spivey-Knowlton and Tanenhaus 1994:€433; Miikkulainen and Mayberry 1999:€154).11 Role/referent allotment is easiest in clusters containing lo, for its Acc case congruently assigns the lowest non-focus role to a non-salient 3*rd person, whose identity must be retrieved from the larger context beyond the VC. It follows that participants who are inherently salient, particularly those identifiable already within the VC, such as the referents of me, te, and se, should be hard to visualize as ranking in case-role below a non-focus 3*rd person.12 If the role/referent allotment to be conveyed is incongruent, it will be wise to provide more processing time by resorting to extra-VC reference for at least one participant. Role-referent allotments are thus driven, and limited, not by arbitrary, conventional, or diachronic “constraints”, but rather by the cognitive consequences of the clitics’ fixed order; that explains why 1. some clitic clusters never occur; 2. occurring clitic clusters prove variably acceptable under different role/referent allotments; 3. different combinations of clitic plus non-clitic reference are variably acceptable for a specific role/referent allotment. In this chapter we concentrate on points (2) and (3), by considering increasingly complex role-allotments; absolutely impossible clusters will be examined in chs. 6 (*le lo) and 7 (*se se).

5.3 Centrifugal events: Dative + Accusative participants The higher-ranking Dat role congruently falls to the inherently more salient non-focus participant.

5.3.1 1st vs. 3*rd ps participants At least in the mind of the Speaker, the 1st person ranks above a 3*rd person: this explains why, of the two readings admitted by (5.24) me presentaste a tu hermana a. ‘You introduced your sister (Acc) to me (Dat)’ b. ‘You introduced me (Acc) to your sister (Dat)’ (5.24a) comes to mind first, for here the two non-focus roles are allotted congruently, with the 1st person as Dat and the 3*rd person as Acc; the less congruent (5.24b) reading is more dependent on a supporting context.



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

Clitic reference to both non-focus participants is possible, but only for the congruent allotment of (5.24a), cf. the fully acceptable (5.25)

me la presentaste 1st > 3*rd D >A ‘You introduced her (DO) to me (IO)’

while the all-clitic version of the less congruent (5.24b) yields the notoriously unacceptable (5.26)

*me le presentaste 1st > 3*rd A
(5.26) is uninterpretable because the case-role and person rankings fail to match;14 the simplest alternative is to resort to an a-phrase as single reference to the Dat participant, cf. (5.27) [me presentaste] a ella ‘[You introduced me (= DO)] to her (= Dat)’ In (5.27) the VC, shown between square brackets, contains only one clitic, i.e. me, thereby allowing the 1st person to assume the DO role, for within the VC (s)he contrasts only with the p.i.f.; the relatively incongruous allotment of the higher ranking Dat role to the 3*rd person takes place beyond the VC, where the a-phrase reference provides more processing time. In (5.27) the references to the two non-focus participants thus iconically match the roles they play: the Central O is referred to with a VC-internal clitic, while the VC-external a-phrase introduces the Peripheral participant.15 Pace Grimshaw (1997), then, the Peripheral role of the 3*rd ps participant is suggested better by a case-neutral a-phrase with a tonic pronoun than by the case-explicit le, for the processing of (5.27) is cognitively more economic than the inferential double-take required by (5.26).16 Our account of the unacceptability of (5.26) is supported by a large body of data. 5.3.1.1 IInd vs. 3*rd ps Dative in me le cluster First and foremost, as pointed out in Sect. 2.1.3.1, the role/referent allotment me = Acc, le = Dat becomes almost fully acceptable as soon as le refers not to a bona-fide 3*rd person, but to a respectfully addressed IInd person, cf. eg. (2.15), repeated here for the reader’s convenience:

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(5.28) a. Context: minor Argentine attaché addresses Mexican minister of Foreign Affairs at a diplomatic reception: Temo que Su Excelencia no me recuerde: me le presentaron en Toronto hace tres años, en la conferencia de la FAO. ‘I fear that Your Excellency will not remember me: I was introduced to You (lit: they introduced me [DO] to You [IO]) three years ago in Toronto, at the FAO conference.’ b. Context: minor Argentine attaché addresses Colombian colleague, speaking of the Mexican minister of Foreign Affairs: Temo que Su Excelencia no me recuerde: ** me le presentaron en Toronto hace tres años, en la conferencia de la FAO. ‘I fear that his Excellency will not remember me: I was introduced to him (lit: they introduced me [DO] to him [IO]) three years ago in Toronto, at the FAO conference.’ While the 1st person unquestionably stands above a 3*rd in terms of inherent salience, polite address blurs the relative person-ranking of the 1st and IInd persons, and thus mitigates any conflict with the role-ranking.17 5.3.1.2 Relative activeness of the Dat under single mention of the p.i.f. When le refers to a bona fide 3*rd person, the unacceptability of (5.26) increases in correlation with the Dat participant’s activeness, for the greater his independence from the p.i.f., the larger the gap between Dat and Acc becomes and, consequently, the clearer the clash between role- and person-rankings. This is why the me le cluster is progressively less acceptable in (5.29) ??/* me le pusiste delante/echaste encima ‘You put me in front of him/ threw me on him’ (5.30) * me le presentaste/recomendaste ‘You introduced/recommended me to him’ (5.31) ** me le entregaste/sometiste ‘You delivered /submitted me to him’ 5.3.1.3 Role of the 1st person me le becomes acceptable as soon as the 1st person plays not a DO but a Di role, whose extreme Peripherality practically removes the participant from the p.i.f.’s control. Since the 1st ps Di role ranks above the 3*rd ps’s IO (Datobj) role (cf. Sect 3.3.2), person- and case-role rankings congrue:



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

(5.32) Ahora mismo vas a casa de Juanito, y me le devolvés ese autito: ¿no te da vergüenza aprovecharte de uno más chico que vos? ‘You now go straight to Johnny’s house, and (mind you! me = Di) return to him (IO) that toy car (DO): aren’t you ashamed to take advantage of one who is smaller than you?’ Here the DO role is claimed by ese autito ‘that toy car’; the participants’ person-ranking within the VC matches that of their Peripheral roles. 5.3.1.4 1st person as double mentioned p.i.f. The me le cluster is quite acceptable when me double mentions the 1st ps p.i.f., cf. (5.33) Segundo 113 me le enhorqueté al Comadreja, proponiéndome sacarme pronto el mal humor ‘I mounted Comadreja with a leap (lit.: I forked myself [me] onto Comadreja [le]), soon to get rid of my ill humour’ (5.34) me le paré delante ‘I stood (up) in front of him’ (5.35) me le eché en los brazos ‘I threw myself into his arms’ (5.36) me le acerqué18 ‘I approached him’ In the unacceptable (5.26), the referential distinctness of p.i.f. and DO enforces caserole differentiation and consequently sharp role-ranking, but in egg. (5.33–36), rolelevelling results from the double-mention of the 1st ps p.i.f.: since no specific non-focus case-role need be allotted to the double-mentioned 1st ps p.i.f. (cf. Sect. 4.1), he need not per se rank below the 3*rd ps Dat in terms of case-role.19 5.3.1.5 Relative activeness of the Dat under double mention of the p.i.f. Clusters consisting of a double-mentioning clitic + le increase in acceptability the more passive the 3*rd ps Dat is, for this prevents him from outshining the 1st ps p.i.f.’s nonfocus involvement (cf. Sect. 5.3.1.2). This is clear from the greater acceptability of (5.33–36), as against (5.37) ?me le presenté ‘I introduced myself to him’ (5.38) ? me le asocié ‘I associated myself to him’ (5.39) ?me le acostumbré ‘I got used to him’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(5.40) ?me le recomendé ‘I recommended myself to him’ (5.41) ?me le entregué ‘I gave myself to him’ In all the situations described in (5.37–41), the Dat participant is at least cognizant of the p.i.f.’s activity, which he to some extent reciprocates (5.37, 38), or elicits by his own acts (5.39–41). That the difference in acceptability is not arbitrary, and cannot be attributed to the specific lexical items in the two sets, is clear from the following minimal pair, where the larger context suggests different degrees of activity for the 3*rd ps Dat, cf. (5.42) a. Ese detective me estaba siguiendo, seguramente por órdenes de mi marido, pero en la estación central, donde había muchísima gente, aproveché y OK me le perdí en la muchedumbre. ‘That detective was certainly following me on my husband’s account, but in the Central Station, where there were lots of people, I saw my chance and I lost myself (to him) in the crowd.’ b. Juan continuamente me sigue con los ojos, pero me dijo que ayer tardecita había tanta gente en la plaza que ?? me le perdí en la muchedumbre.20 ‘John keeps following me with his eyes, but he told me that yesterday evening there were so many people in the square that he lost sight of me (lit: I lost myself to him in the crowd)’ The cluster becomes totally unacceptable when the 3*rd ps Dat participant is more responsible for the event than the double-mentioned 1st ps p.i.f., as is the case in (5.43) *** me le olvidé ‘I was forgotten by him (lit. I got forgotten ‘on’ him’)’ an utterance that formally parallels the impeccable (5.44) ¡Señor, se le olvida el paraguas! ‘Sir, you are forgetting your umbrella / your umbrella is being left behind (lit.: the umbrella forgets “itself” to you)’ (5.43) becomes acceptable as soon as the double-mentioned 1st ps p.i.f. turns out to be more active than the 3*rd ps Dat, cf. (5.45) Mamá está irritada porque me le olvidé de comprar el pan ‘Mother is annoyed because I forgot “on her” to buy bread’ In the unacceptable (5.43) the forgetting is actually done by the 3*rd ps Peripheral participant, while the double-mentioned 1st ps p.i.f. plays the passive role of forgotten object (cf. Section 4.1.1). In (5.45) the role of “forgetter” is assumed by the 1st ps p.i.f, though the absence of a DO prevents him from being actively responsible for the event;



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

here the 3*rd ps Dat mother is merely inconvenienced by the p.i.f.’s negligence, and plays no active role in the forgetting.21 The role/referent allotment of (5.45) is consequently more congruent than that of (5.43), where the cluster is ruled out by the same mismatch in role- and referent- rankings that dooms (5.26). 5.3.1.6 Person of the double-mentioned p.i.f., plus 3*rd ps Dat The data presented in Sects. 5.3.1.2,4,5, show that agentivity – real, potential or attributed – is the dimension along which Acc and Dat participants contrast syntagmatically: me le is unacceptable when, for whatever reason, the 1st person plays a role that is less active and salient than the one played by the less salient referent of le. It is thus to be expected that in the case of a 3rd ps p.i.f., a se le V3 cluster should prove acceptable where me le V1 is questionable, for a 3*rd ps Dat differs, as to referential salience, less from a (double-mentioned) 3rd ps p.i.f. than from a 1st ps p.i.f., cf. the contrast between egg. (5.43) and (5.44). And indeed, our informant AECh agreed with us in finding (5.46) OK se le asoció/consagró/sometió/habituó ‘she associated/consecrated/submitted/accustomed herself to him’ certainly more acceptable than (5.47) ?me le asocié/consagré/sometí/habitué22 ‘I associated/consecrated/submitted/accustomed myself to him’ 5.3.1.7 Asymmetry between 1st/2nd and 3rd person p.i.f The unequal salience of speech participants vs. 3(*)rd persons discussed in Sect. 5.3.1.6, in combination with the overt case expression that characterizes 3*rd ps clitics, explains why two different role/referent allotments can be formally distinguished when a double-mentioned 1st ps p.i.f. combines with clitic reference to the 3*rd person: (5.48) me lo asocié ‘I associated him to myself ’ (5.49) me le asocié ‘I associated myself to him’ while, as in (5.24), ambiguity results from reference to the 3*rd person with a caseneutral a-phrase, cf. (5.50) me asocié a Pedro a. ‘I associated Pedro (DO) to myself (IO)’ b. ‘I associated myself (DO) to Pedro (IO)’ When the double-mentioned p.i.f. is a 3rd person, however, the case-neutral cluster of 3rd ps se with me or te admits only one interpretation, namely, that the more salient speech-participant plays the higher Dat role (Bello 1980:€278–82), cf.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(5.51) se me asoció a. OK ‘He associated himself (DO) to me (IO)’ b. ** ‘He associated me (DO) to himself (IO)’23 In order to distinguish the two role-referent allotments, the Dat participant must be referred to beyond the VC, just as in (5.27), cf. (5.52) se asoció a mí ‘He associated himself to me’ (cf. 5.51a) (5.53) me asoció a sí (mismo) ‘He associated me to himself ’ (in lieu of 5.51b) 5.3.1.8 Person of the Dat with a distinct human DO, under single mention The data in 5.3.1.2 finds its mirror image in clusters composed of a case-neutral clitic, plus Acc lo in reference to an active human: such clusters prove variably acceptable depending on the person of the Peripheral participant. Clitic reference to both DO and the Dat participant becomes tolerable only if the difference in case-roles congruently matches a difference in person, with the Dat role falling to the higher-ranking referent, cf. (5.54) Quisiera pedirte un favor: mi hijo busca trabajo y necesito que me lo ayudes ‘I would like to ask you for a favour: my son is looking for a job and I need you to help him for my sake (lo = my son)’ But the cluster becomes hard to interpret when both Dat and Acc roles are played by equally 3*rd humans, cf. (5.55) Quisiera pedirte un favor: el hijo de Da. María busca trabajo, y ella espera que€??/* se lo ayudes24 ‘I would like to ask you for a favour: Doña María’s son is looking for a job, and she hopes you can help him for her sake (lo = her son)’ 5.3.1.9 Clitic vs. a-phrase reference for distinct Dat vs. Acc Exclusion from the VC is far less acceptable for the 1st and 2nd person than for 3*rd persons: that is why the impossible (5.26) has as an alternative the acceptable (5.27), repeated here, (5.27) me presentó / presentaste a ella ‘He / you introduced me to her’ rather than the intolerable (5.56) **le presentaste a mí ‘You introduced me (DO) to her (IO)’25 Note that in the impossible (5.56), clitic reference is – uniconically – denied to the Centrally involved 1st person.26



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

In short, the acceptability of a cluster does not depend on its form, but on its easy interpretability:27 what makes or breaks a cluster is whether the ranking established already within the VC by the clitics’ Person, matches the ranking of their referents’ case-roles. Since the interpretation of clitic clusters clearly involves some inferential computation, Haspelmath’s “usage-based” account of the unacceptability of (5.26) must be rejected. The postulation of an individual cluster as a conventionalized structure (Haspelmath 2004:€41), defined in terms of a finite list of semantic case-roles (2004:€47), ignores the many diverse lexical, referential, and contextual factors whose interaction actually determines the relative acceptability of the me + le combination. Finally, not even the postulation of homonymous clitic groups eliminates the need for calculus, for the putative homonyms differ as to the role played by me, its (non) coreferentiality with the p.i.f., the person (IInd or 3*rd) referred to by le, etc. Which particular me + le cluster actually occurs in a given utterance can consequently be established only on the basis of the computations invoked by our analysis. There is, thus, no reason to assume non-compositionality of me le: its eventual non-interpretability follows straightforwardly from the impossibility to process the cluster according to the inferential strategies relied on in the interpretation of other clusters, and of unclustered clitics plus non-clitic expressions.

5.3.2 1st vs. 2nd ps participants The 1st and 2nd persons, who are set apart from any 3rd person by engaging in speech with each other, are hard to rank on grounds of inherent salience: egocentric ranking of the 1st over the 2nd person is incompatible with politeness on the part of the Speaker. The cluster te me consequently admits two distinct role/referent allotments, or proves uninterpretable in the absence of strongly supportive context, cf. the marginal acceptability of (5.57) te me presentó a. ?’He introduced you to me’ b. ? ‘He introduced me to you’ As in the acceptable (5.27), clitic reference is generally limited to the Acc participant, with an unduplicated a-phrase for the Dat, cf. Bello (1980:€278 #934):28 (5.58) a. b.

te presentó a mí ‘He introduced you to me’ me presentó a vos ‘He introduced me to you’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Like me le, te me is more acceptable when one clitic double-mentions the p.i.f., cf. (5.59) te me asociaste a. ‘You associated yourself to me (IO)’ b. ?’You associated me (DO) to yourself (IO)’ where the (a) reading is fully acceptable and indeed preferred (Bello 1980:€279 #935), for the Dat role congruently falls to the 1st person. The less congruous (b) reading strongly depends for its acceptability on the participants’ person. In the acceptable (5.60) te me asocié ‘I associated you (DO) to myself (IO)’ the 2nd person congruently plays a lower role than the inherently more salient 1st ps p.i.f.: this makes (5.60) more acceptable than (5.59b), where the higher 1st person is cast as the least active DO.

5.3.3 Distinct 3*rd ps participants When the non-focus participants are both 3*rd persons, clitic reference is possible for both, either one, or neither (cf. Sect. 4.2.2), cf. (5.61) le presentaste a María ‘You introduced Mary to him’ (5.62) la presentaste a Pedro29 ‘You introduced her to Peter’ (5.63) se la presentaste30 ‘You introduced her to him’ The more passive the DO, the more acceptable clitic reference to the Dat participant becomes:31 independently active human DO’s disfavour simultaneous clitic reference to both Dat and Acc participant.32

5.3.4 Same 3*rd person in both Dative and Accusative roles Given the availability of the case-explicit le and lo, and the possibility of referring to a 3*rd ps Dat by means of spur. se, one might assume that the same 3*rd ps participant could be referred to with distinct clitics as involved in different roles, but this is ruled out by the presumption of referential distinctness inherent to clitic reference. The envisaged situation can be referred to only by reserving clitic reference for the event-Central DO role, and allowing an unduplicated a-phrase to suggest the Peripheral engagement, cf.



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

(5.64) a. OK loi devolví a síi mismo ‘I gave him (Acc) back to himself (IO)’ b. **sei loi devolví ‘I gave him (Acc) back to himself (Dat)’ c. **lei devolví (a) síi/?? éli mismo ‘I gave him (le, Dat) back himself (DO)’ The recourse to the tonic prepositional sí in (5.64a), rather than to a tonic reflex of ille (él, ella) etc., prevents the a-phrase from being seen as duplicating the clitic, and thus allows it to suggest a second, distinct role, albeit played by the same participant (cf. Sect. 4.3.4). The same thing holds, a fortiori, when a participant is further involved in some non-participant capacity. Clitic reference certifies the referent’s participant status, while the PP which refers to him beyond the VC specifies his non-participant involvement, cf. (5.65) la doblé sobre sí misma ‘I bent her over herself’ (5.66) le hablé de sí mismo ‘I talked to him of himself’

5.4 Syntagmatic differentiation of Peripheral roles Peripheral participation lies rather in the eye of the Speaker than in the scene as such (Sects. 3.2.2, 3.3.2), and hence eludes precise definition. Clitic reference guarantees the participant status of the referent, but the actual nature of the Peripheral involvement emerges only in context, as shown by the large gamut covered by overlapping Dat roles (Sects. 3.3.2 and 4.3.3), cf. (5.67) le alcé la mano a. ‘I raised my hand to her (I threatened/struck her, Datobj)’ b. ‘I lifted her hand (during physiotherapy, Dataff )’ (5.68) le puse el tapado ‘I put her coat on / the coat on her’ (le = Datobj? Datposs?) (5.69)

le dejé los libros sobre la mesa a. ‘I left the books for him (Datben/Datobj) on the table’ b. ‘I left his books on the table’ (Datposs) c. ‘I left the books on his table’ (Datposs)

The co-occurrence of distinct Peripheral participants engaged in diverse Dat roles within the same event does not favour clitic reference to all of them, for since the same Peripheral involvements are in principle open to all human participants, role/referent

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

allotment is necessarily much harder than when the participants differ in animacy, as is generally the case in Dat/Acc contrasts. Though not all two-Dative clitic clusters are uninterpretable, as implied by Franco and Landa (1995:€111), they are far from being equally acceptable. The need to differentiate multiple Peripheral roles leads to the inherently more salient participant claiming clitic reference, in the case-role best suited to him; whatever other Dat involvements may be suggested by the context fall to the lot of less salient participants, who may thus require reference beyond the VC. Three things follow: 1. it makes a big difference whether the diverse Dat participants are distinct from the p.i.f., or whether the latter himself assumes a Peripheral role; 2. the communicative viability of the cluster stands or falls with the congruency of the role/referent allotment: what Peripheral role falls to which Dat participant is determined by person-ranking; 3. differentiation of expression is the only way to refer to more than one 3*rd ps Dat.

5.4.1 All Dat participants distinct from the p.i.f. In Sects. 3.3.2 and 4.3.3.2 we argued that Peripheral roles can be ranked in terms of the degree to which they are prefigured by the event, and come under the actual control of the p.i.f.: the most p.i.f.-independent role, that of a Di, is practically limited to the Speaker or Hearer, cf. (5.70) a. ¡Pobre mujer! me le temblaba la voz cuando hablaba de la muerte del hijo. ‘Poor woman! Her (le, Dataff ) voice trembled ‘on’ me (me, Di) when she told me about the death of her son’ b. No fue nada fácil anunciarle a Da. Teresa la muerte del hijo: me **le temblaba la voz mientras le hablaba. ‘It was very hard to tell Da. Teresa about her son’s death: my (me, Dataff ) voice shook??? her (le = Di) as I spoke to her’ Similarly, (5.71) Premiaré a quien mate el dragón. Te haré rico si.... ‘I’ll reward whoever kills the dragon. I’ll make you rich if...’ may plausibly introduce (5.72) me le cortas la cabeza ‘You cut his (Dataff[poss]) head off ‘on’ me (Di)’ but it depends on the nature of the Dat role whether it can introduce (5.73) me le traes la cabeza a. * ‘You bring me (Datobj [IO]) his (Dataff[poss]) head’



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

b. OK’You bring his (le) head (Datposs) ‘on/for’ me (Di/Datben)’ c. OK’You bring her (le) (Datobj) the head ‘on’ me (Di)’ In the unacceptable (5.73a) the 1st person’s Datobj role ranks lower than the 3*rd person’s Dataff. A 1st or 2nd person’s Dat role thus becomes increasingly Peripheral as further, referentially lower Datives come to participate in the event: (5.74) a. b. c.

te escribió ‘He wrote to you (Datobj, IO)’ te escribió al hijo ‘He wrote to (your) son (Datobj, IO) for you (Dataff[ben])’ te les escribió al hijo ‘He wrote to (their) son (Datobj, IO) for them (les, Dataff[ben]) ‘on’ you (Di)’

If the nature of the event is incompatible with the extreme peripherality of a Di involvement, unacceptability ensues (5.75) a. ¡Traidor! ¡Me denunciaste el hijo!33 ‘You traitor! You betrayed my son! (me: Dataff; hijo: DO)’ b. ??¡Me denunciaste el hijo a la guerrilla! ‘You betrayed my son to the guerrilla! (me: Dataff; hijo: DO; guerrilla: Datobj = IO)’ c. ??/* ¡Me les denunciaste el hijo! ‘You betrayed to them the son “on” me! (me: Di; hijo: DO; les: Datobj = IO)’ The possessive relation between me and the DO holds in all three cases equally, but it is backgrounded in (5.75c) to Di level under the prominence given by clitic reference to the 3*rd ps guerrilla. This unacceptably tones down the 1st person’s involvement in the drama: the 1st person can be seen as a Datposs, and thus as more “centrally” affected by the betrayal, in (5.75a) and (5.75b), for there he is the only Dat participant referred to within the VC. The same rationale explains the dubious acceptability of (5.76) ??¡Te aprovechaste de mi ausencia para alquilármele la casa! ‘You took advantage of my absence to rent to him (Datobj) my house/ the house ‘on’ me (Dataff/ben!’ (5.77) [Mecenas to beautiful mistress] ??Quiero que Canova te me esculpa la cabeza – pero nada más, ¿eh? ‘I want Canova to make a sculpture of your head for me – but of nothing else, hey? (lit.: to sculpt the head ‘you’ ‘me’)’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(5.78) [Baron addressing serf] ??/*¿No sabías que te lei prometí la hija a Pedroi como esposa? ‘Didn’t you know that I promised your daughter to Pedro (him) as wife?’ If the person of the two Dat participants provides no reliable clue to their distinct Peripheral roles, clitic reference is limited to a single Dat participant, and participant status is denied to the other, cf. (5.79) a. (i) ??/* te me compró el libro ‘She bought the book from me (Datobj) for you (Datobj/aff, Recipient) (ii) OK Te compró el libro de mí She bought the book for you from me’ b. (i) ??/* te me compró el libro ‘She bought the book from you (Datobj) for me (Datobj/aff, Recipient)’ (ii) OK Te compró el libro para mí ‘She bought the book from you for me’ When distinct 3*rd ps Dat participants are involved, one of them can be referred to with an a-phrase:34 since that directional expression readily suggests a Datobj role (cf. Sects. 4.3.1, 4.3.3.2), clitic reference is appropriately reserved for the less presupposed Dataff role (cf. egg. 5.74b, 5.75b). The success of such referential differentiation depends, of course, on its being immediately clear that clitic and a-phrase do not duplicate each other, cf. (5.80) a. lesi escribí al hijoj (i) OK/?’I wrote to their sonj (Datobj) for themi (Dataff )’ (ii) *’I wrote to them on their son’s behalf ’ (mismatch in number, distinct Dats) b. lei escribí al hijoj ??? ‘I wrote to her sonj for heri’ (le is Gender neutral) The non-duplication on which the interpretation of (5.80b) depends must emerge from a strongly supportive context. Distinct Dat roles are practically unallottable if the different 3*rd ps Peripheral participants are referred to with equally unduplicated a-phrases: (5.81) *** escribí a los padres al hijo ‘I wrote for/to the(ir) son for/to the/his parents’ (5.81) is the 3*rd ps counterpart of the case-neutral cluster in (5.79) and is equally unacceptable.35 For the same reasons that exclude clitic reference to a single participant in the Acc and some Dat role (cf. Sect. 5.3.4), double clitic reference cannot present one and the same participant as playing distinct Peripheral roles. To convey such a message a single



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

clitic must be resorted to in order to assert the referent’s participant status in some unspecified Peripheral capacity, with his other involvements specified in PPs that cannot possibly duplicate the clitic, cf. (5.82) De mí me compró la casa para mí mismo ‘From me he bought (me) the house (DO) for myself (benef.)’ (5.83) Le escondí la propia hija de él mismo ‘I hid his own daughter from himself ‘on’ him (le)’ The differentiation of Peripheral roles necessarily becomes very complex when all Dat participants are referred to with clitics; role/referent allotment becomes even more difficult when clitic reference is resorted to for the DO as well, cf. (5.84) a. te me presentó a Pedro ‘She introduced Peter to you ‘on’ me’ b. ??te me lo presentó ‘She introduced him to you ‘on’ me’ The inferential relief afforded by non-clitic reference to the DO is particularly noticeable when one of the Datives is a 3*rd person, cf. the unequally acceptable (5.85) a. ¡¡Me le vendiste la casa!! ¡Felicitaciones! ‘You sold the house to him (le) (Dobj) – hurrah (me)(Di)! Congratulations!’ b. ??? ¡¡Se me la vendiste!! ¡Felicitaciones! ‘You sold it (DO) to him – hurrah! Congratulations!’

5.4.2 Multiple Dat role/referent allotment under double mention As seen in Sect. 4.1.2, different inferential routes can be followed in the processing of a twoDat cluster when a distinct DO forces a Peripheral role on the double mentioned p.i.f.: 1. the double-mentioned p.i.f. stands as it were aloof from the event in which the distinct Dat participant plays a role (cf. Strozer 1978), cf. (5.86) me le confesaré mis pecados (me + [le confesaré mis pecados])’ ‘I’ll up (me) and confess my sins (DO) to him (le)’ 2. the p.i.f.’s involvement in a Dat role as it were introverts the event along the Peripheral dimension; a distinct participant plays a further Dat role, cf. (5.87) Cuatro 114 Estos gallegos, cuando se mueren, siempre son divertidos. Lo hubieran visto en el cajón con la galera. Menos mal que me le traje los tamangos. ([me traje los tamangos] + le)

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

‘These Dagos, when they die, are always funny. You should have seen him in the coffin with his bowler on. But at least I brought with me (double mention) his (le) shoes (DO) (off him)’36 (5.88) A gente así me le saco el sombrero ‘I take my hat off to people like that (lit: To/for people like that I take the hat (DO) off me (Dataff ) them (le = (Datobj,IO)’ (5.89) se le comió la manzana ([se comió la manzana] + le) ‘She ate ‘up’ (Datben) his (Datposs) apple’ The two inferential routes involve the allotment of different Peripheral roles to the same set of Dat participants, and are naturally supported by different contexts, cf. (5.90) a. Aunque la nena se resistía, igual me le puse los zapatos ‘Though the kid strove against it, I sure did (me, Di) get the shoes on her (le Datobj)’ b. Esa egoísta de Maruja no me quiere prestar sus cosas: pero cuando se fue de vacaciones, aproveché y me le puse el sombrerito. ‘Molly is so selfish she won’t lend me her things: but when she was away on holiday, I took advantage [of the fact] and put on/wore (me, Datben) her (le, Datposs) bonnet’ The first grouping routine is basically limited to 1st or 2nd ps p.i.f.’s, who can claim the Di role on inherently referential grounds; with a 3rd ps p.i.f., the second inferential route is strongly preferred,37 cf. (5.91) me le llevé el dinero a. ‘(gloatingly) I (Di) brought the money to him (Datobj, IO)’ b. ‘I carried away his (Datposs) money with me (Datben)’ (5.92) se me llevó el dinero a. ?/* ‘He (gloatingly, Di) brought the money to me (Dobj, IO)’ b. OK ‘He carried off (Datben) my (Datposs) money’ Clitic reference to the DO necessarily increases the complexity of the overall role/referent allotment. An all Peripheral three-clitic cluster is possible (Bastida 1976:€ 92), though extremely infrequent and at best marginally aceptable for most informants; but the corresponding impeccable four-clitic plus three-Dat cluster is absolutely rejected (Bastida 1976:€86), cf. (5.93) a. Ellos se te me comieron el bocadillo ‘They ate your (Poss = te) sandwich ‘up’ (unspecified Ben. role = se) ‘on’ me (Di = me)’ b. */??? Ellos se te me lo comieron.38 ‘They ate it (lo) ‘up’ (se) from you (te) ‘on’ me (me)’



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

The fact that it is much harder to rank distinct Peripheral roles than a Peripheral vs. the Central DO role, explains why all-Dative clusters are harder to process, less acceptable, less frequent, and far more dependent for their interpretation on the participants’ person, than is a Dat + Acc cluster.

5.5 Clitic clustering in centripetal events Since copulative events by definition centre on a single Central participant, they offer little scope for syntagmatic differentiation of non-focus roles, and are consequently likely to disfavour clitic clustering.

5.5.1 Subject Complement (SC) plus Peripheral roles Addition of a Dat clitic to a predicate lo is most acceptable when the Peripheral involvement bears on the centripetal relation itself, as with parecer ‘to seem’ (cf. González and Whitley 1999:€307 fn. 2): (5.94)

– ¿Te parece tonto? – ¡Vaya si me lo parece! – ’Does he seem a fool to you? – You bet he does [seem it to me]’

The cluster is also attested with ser (cf. Sect. 3.2.3, eg. 3.14), where it is however less acceptable: (5.95)

– ¿Juana le será fiel? – ?? Claro que se lo es. – ’Can Juana (be said to) be faithful to him? – Of course she is (it to him)’

The combination appears to gain in acceptability if lo refers to a SC expressed earlier by an adjective rather than with a noun, cf. (5.96) Siempre creí que Luisa me era amiga, pero ahora resulta que no??/* me lo es. ‘I always believed that Louisa was my friend, but now it turns out that she isn’t [it to me]’ (5.97) No sé si me es infiel, pero temo que OK/? me lo sea. ‘I don’t know whether she is unfaithful to me, but I fear she is [it to me]’ We have no explanation for the fact, which certainly merits further study.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

5.5.2 Distinct DO plus Object Complement (OC) An Object Complement results when a predication targeted on the DO is grafted onto a centrifugal event; the role lacks any formal standing and is strictly the result of inference, cf. (5.98) a. b.

la nombré María ‘I named her (DO) Mary (OC)’ lo nombré ministro ‘I appointed him (DO) minister (OC)’

Since the centripetal relation of OC to DO crucially hinges on the DO’s Central role in a centrifugal event, the DO enters into distinct syntagmatic relations, oriented in opposite directions.39 A DO + OC combination is thus inherently complex and requires careful husbanding of the expressive means with which DO and OC are referred to. Given that Acc lo is the only way of referring to the centripetal SC (cf. Sect. 3.2.3), an inferential impasse is sure to result if clitic reference is attempted for DO and OC simultanously, cf. (5.99) a. * se (DO) lo (OC) nombré *** se (OC) la (DO) nombré **** la (DO) lo (OC) nombré ‘I named her that’ b. * me lo nombraste ‘You appointed me (DO) that (OC)’ The uttering of a name referentially straddles the centrifugal/ centripetal divide, and thus simplifies the processing of the DO in distinct capacities, but it leaves unclear whether the “name” is a result of the “naming” event, and thus an OC, or an already established part of the person, and thus the DO. By its very meaning, nombrar ‘to name’ casts the person as the verb’s DO (cf. García 1975:€339–41): a bare NP is thus the only way of referring to the OC, no matter how the DO is referred to, cf. egg. (5.98, 99). Decir ‘to say’, conversely, implies distinct centrifugal non-focus roles: this allows the case-categorization of person and name to proceed according to the rationale followed in the case of parts and wholes (cf. Section 5.1.2; García 1975:€292–5), and this makes clitic reference possible for both the person and an independent “name”: ( 5.100) a. b.

No le digas “tonta” ‘Don’t call (say to) her (IO) fool (DO)’ “Tonta” es una palabra muy fea: no?? se lo digas ‘”fool” is a very ugly word: don’t call her (IO) it/that (DO)’

Llamar ‘to call’ allows both perceptions, and admits reference to the person with either le or lo, cf.



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

( 5.101) a. b.

le llamo María ‘I call her (Dat) Mary (Acc; DO? OC?)’ la llamo María ‘I call her (Acc) Mary (OC)’

Though simultaneous clitic reference to person and name is unacceptable with llamar, ( 5.102) ??/* se lo llamo ‘I call her (Dat) it (Acc)’ it is not as intolerable as with nombrar ‘to name, appoint’, cf. eg.(5.99).40 What is totally ruled out, naturally, is recourse to lo for the OC when the DO is referred to by non-clitic means, for such a deployment of referring expressions presents the DO’s attribute as participating in the event directly, and consequently allows it to preempt the place of the centrifugal verb’s DO. Such an inversion of the DO’s centrifugal vs. centripetal involvements is completely uniconic, and quite unacceptable: ( 5.103) a. Considero tonta a María ‘I consider Mary (DO) a fool (OC)’ b. OK la considero tonta ‘I consider her (DO) a fool (OC)’ c. ***lo considero a María ‘I consider Mary (DO) it (= a fool, OC)’41 The observed deployment of referring expressions ensures that the SC and OC are always sharply differentiated from the targets to which they are respectively attributed, i.e. the p.i.f. and the DO. Since the p.i.f. is referred to with the morphologically most central means available, i.e. the verb-ending, clitic reference with lo is possible for the SC; but since the morphologically most central reference available for the DO is an Acc clitic, his OC must be referred to by formally distinct, i.e. lexical means. The hierarchical relation between the two Complements and their respective targets is thus congruently mapped onto the different expressive means with which the predicates are referred to: focus p.i.f. : SC :: verb-ending non-focus DO : OC :: clitic

: clitic lo : lexical reference

Our claim that structural mapping is an essential part of the formulation and processing of VC’s (cf. Sects. 5.2, 5.3.1, 5.4.1) is clearly supported by this correlation.

5.5.3 Double mention of the p.i.f. and S/O Complementation It should in theory be possible to graft a centripetal predication onto the non-focus role played in a centrifugal event by a double mentioned p.i.f. However, double mention

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

induces role-levelling, and thus blurs the event’s centrifugality (Sect. 4.1); the resulting suppression of a Central DO (cf. Sect. 5.1.2, eg. 5.20) removes the pivot on which centripetal attribution of an OC depends. The processing of a structure combining double mention with a predicative Complement may proceed, in principle, along three different inferential routes, which naturally result in distinct interpretations: 1. the event is seen as an essentially copulative one, and the predicate is taken as the Central SC; double mention serves to cast the p.i.f. in a quasi Di role; 2. double mention introverts the event, so that the predicate can be seen as indifferently SC and/or OC; 3. the double mentioned p.i.f. “reflexively” plays a distinct DO role, with the predicate as its OC. The three different interpretations critically depend on how the meaning of the verb is affected by the p.i.f.’s double mention; they are consequently unequally compatible with clitic reference for the predicative complement. We discuss them in order of increasing inferential complexity. 5.5.3.1 Subject Complement + double mention as Peripheral involvement of the p.i.f. A double mentioned p.i.f. did combine with a SC in earlier stages of the language (Bello 1980:€237 #766), cf. Rocinante’s impertinent characterization of Don Quixote: ( 5.104) asno se es de la cuna a la mortaja ‘He would be (insists on wholly being, double mention) an ass (SC), from the cradle to the shroud’42 The combination is still acceptable provided the copulative verb is not ser, as in the unproblematical ( 5.105) me estoy bien quieta cuando el dentista me trabaja en la boca ‘I keep perfectly still when the dentist is at work in my mouth’ Here the double mention emphasizes the p.i.f ’s commitment to inactivity. Reference to the SC with lo, however, is at best questionable: ( 5.106) ?? me lo estoy ‘I am it/so’ A cluster of double-mentioning clitic plus predicative lo is more acceptable with pareÂ� cer ‘to seem’, a verb that in itself presupposes a Peripheral involvement (cf. e.g. (5.94): (5.107) Anoche dije tantas tonterías que seguramente les parecí un idiota a mis amigos – ahora que se me pasó la borrachera me lo parezco hasta a mí mismo. ‘I said so many foolish things last night that I must have seemed an idiot to my friends – now I’ve sobered up I seem it even to myself’



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

5.5.3.2 Event introversion + Subject Complement Some transitive verbs, e.g. poner ‘to put’, volver ‘to (re)turn’ can be interpreted, under role-levelling, as designating a process of “becoming” (González and Whitley 1999:€305–6); such quasi centripetal events presuppose a SC, as in ( 5.108) me puse contenta ‘I become happy (lit. I put myself happy)’ ( 5.109) se volvió loco ‘He went mad (lit. he turned himself mad)’ Lo reference to the SC, however, yields a barely marginal cluster, cf. ( 5.110) – ¿Luis estaba contento/conforme con el arreglo? – Al principio no, pero?? se [dm] lo [SC] puso cuando le explicamos las ventajas del negocio. ‘– Was Luis happy/reconciled to the deal? – Not so at first, but he became it when we explained to him the advantages of the deal.’ The reason is simple: unless lo is immediately recognized as referring to the SC, it will be taken as a distinct Acc, whose existence precludes introversion of the event (cf. Sects. 4.1; 5.1.2) and simultaneously forces Dat case on the other clitic. The dubious acceptability of (5.110) reflects the uncertainty as to which wins out: lo’s reference to a distinct participant, which polarizes the event, or the double mention of the p.i.f., which introverts it, rendering it quasi centripetal.€ The recognition that lo = SC, and that under double mention poner ‘to put’ = copulative ‘to become’, must thus take place simultaneously; the cluster is consequently viable only in an extremely supportive context. As in egg. (5.96, 97), clitic reference to a SC is more acceptable when the SC has earlier been referred to with an adjective rather than with a noun: cf. the difference between (5.110) and ( 5.111)

– ¡Juan parece loco! – *Se lo puso cuando lo dejó la mujer. ‘– John acts like a madman! – He became it (lit: he put himself it) when his wife left him’

The more “nominal” the earlier reference to the SC, the greater the chance that lo will be understood as referring to a DO, which in turn prevents the critical introversion of poner by the p.i.f.’s double mention. 5.5.3.3 Double mentioned p.i.f in a DO role + Object Complement This inferential route involves the attribution of an OC to a bona fide DO: regardless of whether that role is played by the p.i.f. or somebody else, clitic reference to the OC is ruled out for the reasons that make egg. (5.99b) and (5.103c) unacceptable

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(cf. Sect. 5.5.2; González and Whitley 1999:€305–6). Lexical reference to the OC is thus inevitable, cf. (5.112) a. Haciendo uso de su poder, se nombró primer ministro, comandante en jefe de las fuerzas armadas, cabeza de la iglesia nacional, y director del servicio secreto. ‘Making use of his power, he appointed himself Prime Minister, Commander in Chief of the Army, Head of the national church, and director of the secret service’ b. Ambicionando el poder asociado al cargo de primer ministro, *** se lo nombró. ‘Aspiring to the power associated with Premiership, he appointed himself it’ The contrast between inferential routes (2) and (3) becomes clear with the highly versatile hacer ‘to make’, which under double mention allows two interpretations, i.e. ‘pretend, make oneself out to be’ and ‘make oneself, become’. The two senses can be seen as event-introverting vs. literal readings of double mention, and respectively follow from route (2), i.e. introversion of event + SC (cf. Sect. 5.5.3.2), vs. route (3), which results in a [p.i.f. = DO] + OC reading. The two interpretations are illustrated by ( 5.113) no te hagas el tonto ‘Don’t act the fool, don’t pretend to be a fool (lit.: don’t make yourself the fool)’ (route 2) ( 5.114) me haré monja / famosa ‘I’ll become a nun/famous (lit: I’ll make myself [a] nun/famous)’ (route 3) The sense ‘to pretend’ in (5.113), which results from event-introversion, naturally has no extrovert analogue, cf. ( 5.115) **Trato de no hacerte el tonto ‘I try not to pretend you a fool’ while the extroverted analogue to (5.114) is perfectly acceptable: ( 5.116) Este cuadro te hará famoso ‘This picture will make you (DO) famous (OC)’ From our earlier discussion it follows that a cluster consisting of the p.i.f. double-mentioning clitic plus predicate lo should be impossible under route (3), but prove more acceptable under inferential route (2), cf. ( 5.117) a. ? no te lo hagas ‘Don’t play it (= the fool)’ (cf. 5.113, route 2) b. ***me lo haré ‘I will become it (= a nun/famous)’ (cf. 5.114, route 3)



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability 

In fact, the interpretation of (5.117a) is attested, cf. ( 5.118)

Tres 46 – Y yo soy sueco – No sólo lo es Usted, sino que se lo hace. ‘– And I am Swedish. – You not only are it, but you pretend to be / act it (lit.: you make yourself it)’43

Careful research and thorough lexical analysis is required to establish what determines the eventual acceptability of such a cluster with verbs other than hacer. In any case it is clear that, pace González and Whitley (1999), “predicate” lo can be part of a cluster, whose acceptability depends on the same kind of structural mapping applied in other clitic combinations, and reflects lo’s equally Central value in both centrifugal and centripetal events (cf. Sect. 3.2.3).

5.6 Summary and partial conclusions Clitic clustering has been shown to prove acceptable only when the role/referent allotment is congruent, i.e. the ranking of the participants’ case-roles matches, or at least does not contradict the paradigmatic ranking of the participants in terms of their inherent salience. The values postulated in Chs. 3 and 4 for the diverse clitics, as against other referential expressions such as the verb-ending, bare NP’s, a-phrases and other PP’s, permit/enforce different inferential routines:44 these make role/referent allotment easier for me lo and se le than for me le, and in particular explain the unequal acceptability of the latter cluster under the diverse computations required by the different readings.

Notes to Ch. 5 1. While the DO role is prototypically played by a non-topical inanimate 3*rd person (cf. Dahl 2000, 2008), the prototypical Dat is human, ideally a speech-participant; cf. also Haspelmath (2004:€25, 35 et pass.). From the understandably anthropo/egocentric perspective of language users, humans are more topical than inanimates; this makes the following role/referent combinations progressively less “natural”, acceptable and frequent in discourse: human Dat + inanimate Acc human Dat + human Acc inanimate Dat + inanimate Acc inanimate Dat + human Acc

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs It also favours clitic reference to humans, as against lexical reference for inanimates, cf. (i) te di el libro ‘I gave you the book’ >>, i.e. better than (ii) te lo di ‘I gave it you’ >> (iii) lo di a Pedro ‘I gave it to Pedro’ == (iv) di el libro a Pedro ‘I gave the book to Pedro’ >> (v) ?? le sacrifiqué a mi hija ‘I sacrificed my daughter for it (i.e. my career)’ >>> (vi) ?/* se la sacrifiqué ‘I sacrificed her for it’ 2. We confine ourselves to verbs with a specific human p.i.f.; for clitic reference to non-focus participants with impersonal verbs, cf. García (1975:€376–77; 383–85). 3.

The clusters in (5.8 a, b) are acceptable as pronominalizations of respectively (i) le cobra $100 ‘he charges him/her (Dat) $100 (DO)’ (ii) le cobra la visita ‘He charges him/her (Dat) (for) the visit (DO)’

4. (5.20) can of course be understood as (5.19), with the double-mentioned p.i.f. playing a Peripheral role whose exact nature emerges from the context beyond the VC: OK ‘He (wilfully/unwillingly, i.e. Daff = se ) got his kid sister (DO) hurt with the scissors’ In (5.20) the a-phrase a su hermanita cannot be understood as a Dataff because there is no duplicating 3*rd ps le clitic (cf. Sect. 4.3.3.2). 5. This applies to case-neutral clitics and le in polite reference to the IInd person (cf. Section 3.3.1). 6. Since the Di role can be most easily claimed by the Speaker, it is allotted to the addressee only when the latter has an undeniable interest in the event; cf. two possible answers by the girl: (i) Me besó en la puntita de la oreja, pero ¿quién le hace caso a ese idiota? ‘He kissed me on the tip of my ear, but who cares about such an idiot?’ (ii) No te enojes, amor mío, pero la verdad es que sí: cuando menos me lo esperaba te me besó; sabés qué rabioso está que ahora soy novia tuya. ‘Don’t be angry, my love, but in fact, yes, he did: when I least expected it he kissed me (DO) “on” you; you know how mad he is that I am your girl now.’ 7. According to Hills and Anderson, only 4.8% of the clitic tokens in their corpus were part of a cluster (1931:€336). Two-participant situations, with a single Object, are far more frequently referred to than three-participant ones; simultaneous clitic reference to two non-focus participants is also less frequent than clitic reference to only one, with lexical reference to the other.



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability  8. High speed processing of material that appears in rapid sequence can easily result in cognitive overload (Elman, Bates, Johnson, Karmiloff-Smith, Parisi and Plunkett 1997:€377; cf. also Caplan and Waters 1999:€79). 9. Human ego-centrism ranks animates above inanimates and credits the 1st and 2/IInd persons with greater importance than the merely discourse-given 3rd persons: remote 3*rd persons are thus least salient (cf. Branigan, Pickering and Tanaka 2008:€172 et pass.). 10. As pointed out in Sects. 3.2.2, 3.3, case-roles are implicitly ranked in terms of increasing submission of the O to the p.i.f. Being in focus, the p.i.f. ranks above the verb’s Objects; the relatively more independent and potentially active Dat ranks above the fully p.i.f.-controlled Acc. Relative ranking will be expressed, when useful, with the “greater” (vs. “lesser”) signs > and <. 11. The role/referent allotments in (i) I gave you the book (ii) I introduced her to you where the 1st person plays the p.i.f. role, the 2nd is a Dat, and the DO is a 3*rd person, are more congruent and “natural” than those in (iii) That accident gave me to you (iv) She introduced me to you where the 1st person is cast as the Acc and a 3rd person is in focus. 12. It is no accident that in the analysis of Algonquian languages, in casu Potawatomi, the terms “direct” vs. “inverse” are resorted in referring to events where the Actor is more discourse-relevant than the Goal, as against those where the Goal is more salient than the Actor (Hockett 1966:€65). Hockett identifies relative salience with position along a scale that goes from Local referent, i.e. Speaker and Hearer, through Proximate, Obviative and “further Obviative” animates (1966:€60). Within this scale, Obviative referents are exceptional and “marked” vis à vis Local or Proximate ones; the marked status of Obviative referents is confirmed by the fact that “plurals are never obviative, and [explicitly] obviative forms are always indefinite as to number” (Hockett 1966:€62, emphasis in original) 13. me la appears for an obviously intended me (Acc) le (Dat) cluster in Mex Pop 387/15 [Context: the Speaker recounts her experiences in a hospital where she and her daughter were both patients] se me ocurrió decirles que me llevaran a ella, y me la llevaron (sic). ‘I thought of asking them [i.e. the nurses] to take me to her, and they took her to me’ The context shows unmistakably that the one to be moved was the Speaker, cf. not only the earlier reference to the 3*rd ps Dat in an a-phrase, but also the critical use of llevar ‘take’, instead of traer ‘bring’. If the patient to be moved had indeed been the daughter, the expected formulation would have been pero me la trajeron ‘but they brought her to me’. We assume that the transcription is reliable; experimental research is needed to establish to what extent a strongly supporting context, such as the one above, may induce the production of me le or promote its acceptability.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs 14. Cross-linguistically 1st or 2nd ps DO’s are unlikely to co-occur with 3rd ps IO’s, cf. Silverstein (1976:€134); the bias is characterized by Bonet (1994:€51) as a “weird morphological constraint”. In Old Spanish, where the atonic pronouns were not yet morphologically part of the VC, such interpretations of me le were just as possible as (5.24b) is in Mo. Spanish, cf. PCG 519a24 Ca yo fazerle ya algo, assi como lo prometi al mio padre el rey don Fernando quando nos le comendo a mi et a mios hermanos. ‘for I would benefit him, as I promised it to my father the king don Fernando, when he entrusted us (Acc) to him (Dat), me and my brothers (Acc)’ That the role/referent allotment is indeed 1st ps pl. = Acc; 3*rd ps sg. = Dat, is clear from the earlier context, in particular PCG 494a35. 15. It stands to reason that recourse to an a-phrase in lieu of le is possible only when the 3*rd person referred to plays a Datobj role, which can be suggested by a on its own. Since clitic reference is indispensable when the Peripheral involvement is a Dataff one, which ranks higher than a Datobj, and thus outranks a 1st ps DO even more (cf. Sect. 4.3.3.2) the incongruent role/referent allotment of a Dataff role to a 3*rd person can be suggested only by casting him as a non-participant, and specifying his involvement by lexical means, cf. (i) a. Ayer *me le saludaste b. Ayer *me saludaste a ella c. Ayer OK me saludaste a pedido de ella/ por ella ‘Yesterday you greeted me (DO) on her behalf/for her’ (i) contrasts with the congruent and acceptable (ii) Saludámelai a Maríai cuando la veas ‘Do greet Mary (3*rd ps DO) for me (1st ps Dataff ) when you see her’ Note also that though formally (5.27) parallels (5.24), it is not equally ambiguous. In (5.24) the lexical a-phrase referent is only preferentially cast as an Acc (reading a), while in (5.27) the tonic a-phrase is strictly confined to a Peripheral role. The reason is that tonic pronominal aphrases are almost categorically clitic-duplicated (Sect. 4.3.3.1): if the highly topical 3*rd ps ella in (5.27) were indeed to refer to the DO, she would have been referred to within the VC by means of the duplicating la. The absence of the Acc clitic practically guarantees that a ella is not to be taken as DO; it can consequently be involved only Peripherally. 16. A further reason why me le is hard to interpret as [1st ps Acc + 3*rd ps Dat] is that it requires the Hearer to retrieve an incongruent role/referent allotment from an unfamiliar sequencing of case-roles. In clitic clusters where case-role differentiation is enforced, lo is always preceded by a case-neutral clitic in a Dat role. The me/te (Acc) le (Dat) interpretation under discussion requires the same role-differentiation, but the order of the case-roles is reversed. Aphrases, which may be interpreted as either Acc or Dat (cf. Sect. 4.2.2), can freely precede or follow the VC, and are thus not bound by such expectations. 17. Strong evidence for the salience-enhancing effect of polite address is provided by PR, a leísta speaker of Madrid Spanish (cf. Glossary). Her judgments for different role/referent allotments of the me le cluster were: (i) me le presentaron a. * Dat Acc IInd ‘They introduced You to me’ b. OK Acc Dat IInd ‘They introduced me to You’



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability  c. * Acc Dat 3*rd ‘They introduced me to him’ d. OK Dat Acc 3*rd ‘They introduced him to me’ Concerning (ia), PR observed that casting the IInd person in the Acc role was incompatible with the highly respectful address; recourse to Acc lo, as in (ii) me lo presentaron ‘They introduced You to me’ was found equally inappropriate; she proposed (iii) nos presentaron ‘We were introduced (to each other)’ as the best way out of the impasse. Concerning (ic) in particular, PR remarked “I cannot get it [the intended reading] from what is said there”. Clearer reference could hardly be made to the processing difficulties responsible for the cluster’s unacceptability. It remains for further research to establish to what extent a me le cluster is acceptable, in a Dataff reading of le, with a IInd ps referent, cf. (iv) Querido Coronel, le estoy tan agradecida: ¡ayer ??/* me le nombraron en ese puesto! ‘Dear Colonel, I am so grateful to you: yesterday they appointed me (DO) “for” You, to that job!’ 18. Clitic reference to the Dat participant can be avoided by resorting to a referentially equivalent a-phrase, a possessive pronoun, or some other extra-verbal reference, cf. (i) me paré delante de él ‘I stood (up) in front of him’ (ii) me eché en sus brazos ‘I threw myself into his arms’ (iii) me acerqué a él ‘I drew near to him’ With movement verbs especially there is disagreement as to the acceptability of clitic reference to the target of the motion: Fernández rejects me le acerco ‘I approach him’ (1986:€399), while López García accepts it (1998:€496); both admit se me/le acerca ‘he approaches me/her’. 19. Role-levelling allows even an inanimate to play a Peripheral role, something impossible when the p.i.f. and Acc participants are distinct: (i) a. ***me le afeccionaste al trago ‘You made me (DO) fond of booze’ b. me le afeccioné al trago ‘I got addicted to booze (le) (lit: I got addicted to it, i.e. booze)’ (ii) a. **se la afeccioné al trago ‘I made her (la DO) fond of booze (se)’ b. se le afeccionó (al trago) ‘she got addicted to booze’ 20. The acceptability pattern reverses for me perdió de vista ‘he lost sight of me’, which is preferred by our informant PR in (5.42b), but rejected in the context of (5.42a). Our analysis thus explains the “ungrammaticality” noted by Rivero (2004:€495–97). 21. The forgotten bread-buying, being referred to in a PP, does not count as a participant, and is hence compatible with the role-levelling triggered by double mention (cf. sects 4.1.2; 5.1.2). 22. Cf. also

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs (i) No sé por qué el Dr. Jiménez no hizo caso a tu recomendación. Quizá, entre tantos candidatos para el puesto, justo a. se le pasó tu carta b. OK/? se le pasó tu amigo Roberto c. ** me le pasé yo ‘I don’t know why Dr. Jiménez ignored your recommendation. Perhaps, among so many candidates for the job, a. he overlooked your letter (lit.: your letter passed itself to him) b. your friend Robert happened to slip by (lit. passed himself to him) c. I happened to slip by (lit. I passed myself to him)’ The role/referent allotment in (ic) is so unnatural that the only alternative is (ii) me haya pasado por alto ‘he happened to overlook me’ where the 3rd person is cast as active p.i.f. 23. So far we have come across only two attested instances of this interpretation. One is (i) Sueño de unos hombres que se nos comían ‘Dream of/about some men who ate us (DO) up (se; for themselves)’ i.e. the title of Goya’s Capricho 13, where the engraving shows two peasants watching some friars gorge themselves. Nos obviously refers to the peasants, who clearly play the DO role, while the double mentioning se signals the friars’ selfish benefit. The second involves a possibly idiomatic expression, cf. (ii) Lázaro 323 (1982) Se me llevarían los demonios contra los que emplean reivindicar. ‘I get raging mad (lit.: the devils could take me (DO) [with] themselves; se = Dat) against those who use [the word] reivindicar’ Both expressions were rejected, in no uncertain terms, by all native speakers to whom they were presented. Se me with the 1st person as DO does occur in (iii) Mex Pop 624 y se me quedaba viendo así, para arriba ‘and he kept (se) looking at me (me, DO of ver) like that, up and down’ but here the double-mentioning se is associated exclusively with the auxiliary quedar ‘to remain’, and does not bear on the Gerund viendo of which me is the DO. 24. Different types of discourse, such as Mexican popular speech and literary narrative, not surprisingly show a higher proportion of human DO’s when the Dat role is assumed by the p.i.f. rather than by a third, distinct participant. Thus, the three-role but two-participant (i) OK me lo compré ‘I bought him (a corrupt police officer, senator) for myself ’ is not only more acceptable, but far more frequent in use than the three-participant (ii) ?? me lo compraste ‘You bought him for me’ 25. Fernández Soriano is unable to explain the unacceptability of (5.56), which she expects to occur (1999:€1267).



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability  26. Clitic reference is a fortiori required when the p.i.f. himself plays a non-focus role: no matter how strongly contrastive the context, clitic reference cannot go to the Peripheral participant while the p.i.f ’s non-focus involvement is signalled only beyond the VC, as in (i) Ya que no le gustaba ninguno de mis candidatos, **le propuse para el puesto a mí (misma) ‘Since he did not like any of my candidates, I proposed myself to him for the job’ The arrangement in (i) was possible in Old Spanish, before the atonic pronouns grammaticalized into verbal clitics, cf. (ii) CZP 135a16 E pues a mi vos do, non deuedes dubdar que vos non diese qualquier cosa que yo touiese. ‘And since [it is] myself (a-phrase, DO) I give you (clitic, IO), you must not fear that I should not give you anything [else] that I might have’ 27. Nor does it depend on the clitics’ expressed or inferred case, or on role-differentiation or levelling: Acc and Dat roles are sharply differentiated in the acceptable (5.28a), and levelled in the unacceptable (5.43). 28. That expressive differentiation recalls the choice of a bare NP rather than an a-phrase for the DO in events where two equally individualized 3*rd ps humans play the Dat and Acc roles (cf. Sect. 4.2.2). 29. The combination of an Acc clitic with an unduplicated Peripheral a-phrase is claimed to be ungrammatical by Fernández Soriano (1999:€1266, eg. 184.e) and Campos (1999:€1548 fn. 65); it is accepted by Demonte (1994:€ 434) and Torrego (1995a:412). The combination is inevitable when the Peripheral participant is less topical than the DO; at least seven instances of such a combination occur in Cortázar’s Fuegos alone, eg. Fuegos 18 ...volvieron con algunos bizcochos y los llevaron a la anciana del ID. ‘...they returned with some biscuits and they took them to the old lady of the ID.’ 30. Here, too, the allotment of roles to referents is facilitated by diversification of the clitic reference, thus accounting for the allegedly spurious recourse to se; the manoeuvre is discussed in Ch. 6. 31. That is also why clitic reference to the DO is more likely to vary between lo and le in events which presuppose an active non-focus participant, such as obedecer ‘to obey’ or ayudar ‘to help’ than in those which presuppose a passive DO, such as matar ‘to kill’ or comer ‘to eat’ (cf. Sect. 3.3.1). 32. In French, a Dative + human Accusative combination cannot be referred to exclusively by means of clitics, not even when the IO is co-referential with a 1st ps subject (Watson 1997:€84). Fr. je me les attire ‘I draw them towards me’ becomes ungrammatical if the referent of les is human (e.g. les amis ‘friends’) rather than inanimate (e.g. les ennuis ‘troubles, bothers’), cf. BlancheBenveniste (1975:€208). 33. The helplessness, victim status, and questionable survival of the son not only admits, but actually calls for omission of a in reference to this definite human DO. 34. Why *se le cannot refer to distinct 3* ps Dat participants is discussed in Sect. 7.2.1. 35. The cumulation of a-phrases is less acceptable in reference to distinct Dat participants, than when a human DO and an IO are at issue (cf. Sect. 4.2.2). Since two Peripheral roles differ less

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs in terms of relative agentiveness than do a Peripheral and the Central non-focus role, they are harder to distinguish, and stand in greater need of differentiated referring expressions. 36. Eg. (5.87) can be rendered as [me traje los tamangos] + le, i.e. (i) ‘I lifted (brought with me) his shoes. The context does not support the very different reading (ii) ‘I (sure did, and how! me = Di) bring the shoes to him (Datobj)’ yielded by the converse grouping, i.e. [le traje los tamangos] + me. 37. This parallels the restriction in Dat/Acc role-allotment under double mention of the p.i.f., Sect. 5.3.1.7. 38. Interpretation of (5.93b) requires the kind of processing practised with words in clauses: that is not possible with clitic clusters, given the morphological compactness and cognitive conpression of the VC (cf. Sect. 5.2). The cluster is much more readily acceptable if se is interpreted as imp. se, cf. Sect. 2.1; why this is so is discussed in Sects. 7.1; 7.4.3. Note, finally, that the fully acceptable se me le comieron el bocadillo ‘they ate up (se) his (le) sandwich “on” me (me)’ has no all-clitic counterpart: there is in Spanish no way of combining double mention of the 3rd ps p.i.f. with the spur. se reference to the 3*rd ps Dat enforced by lo reference to the 3*rd ps DO (cf. Sect. 7.3 and García 2002). 39. It also holds for centripetal events that the same scene can be presented from different perspectives, depending on the lexical characterization of the event, and/or the case-categorization of the participants (cf. Sect. 3.3.1): John’s foolishness can thus be described diversely, depending on the choice of p.i.f., cf. (i) loj consideroi tontoj ‘I (p.i.f.) consider him (Acc, DO) a fool (OC)’ (ii) mei parecej tontoj ‘He (p.i.f.) seems a fool (SC) to me (Dat)’ The participant responsible for the predicative targeting is demoted to Peripheral status when the target is focussed on, paralleling the introversion discussed in Sect. 4.1.1. 40. The cluster in eg. (5.102) was still possible in the early XVI century, when clitics were not so fully grammaticalized as they now are (Keniston 1937:€75 #7.54). Verbs that in Latin governed two Accusatives alternated in Old Spanish between lo plus NP and le plus NP (Folgar 1993:€179), but gelo (i.e. Dat plus Acc) was the only possibility in cases of double pronominal reference (Lapesa 1968:€ 536). Folgar deals with verbs of naming (1993:€ 183–89) in his insightful diachronic reatment of Direct and Indirect Objects, but unfortunately fails to discuss the possibility of double clitic reference for both person and designation. 41. Interpretation of (5.103) with lo as DO and a María as a Dat is ruled out because a María would implausibly have to be seen as a Datobj, in conflict with the non-directional meaning of considerar ‘view, regard, consider’ (cf. Sect. 4.3.3.2). 42. The combination of double mention with a SC is now so unfamiliar that Schmidely misinterprets (5.104) as an instance of imp. se, rather than as a Di (1983:€219). The fact that Rocinante is immediately afterwards reproved for defaming his master shows that the subject of es in (5.104) is Don Quixote, double mentioned with se.



Chapter 5.╇ Variable clitic-cluster acceptability  43. The reply involves a word-play on the idiom hacerse el sueco ‘pretend to be a Swede’, i.e. pretend not to understand. 44. The distributional facts which support the postulated values are many, and come from a variety of domains, i.e. centrifugal vs. centripetal events; participation vs. non-participation; Central vs. Peripheral participation; different types of Peripheral participation; single vs. double mention of the p.i.f.

chapter 6

Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se The different uses of se will now be shown to follow naturally from the meaning attributed to that form in Sect. 3.1, given (1) the inferential routines practised with the remaining clitics, and (2) the iconic appropriateness of referential dissimilation for similar participants and/or case-roles.1

6.1 The problem(s) A le lo cluster seems the simplest way of referring to two 3*rd ps Objects,2 but the combination is absolutely rejected: le invariably yields to se when clustering with lo.3 There is some loss of information for, unlike le, se does not distinguish Number, cf. (6.1) a. b.

le diste el libro ‘You gave him the book’ *le lo diste ‘You gave it him’

(6.2) a. b.

les diste el libro ‘You gave them the book’ *les lo diste ‘You gave it them’

(6.3) se lo diste ‘You gave it him, them’4 Se can also double mention a 3rd ps p.i.f., as in (6.4) se compró el libro ‘She bought the book for herself’ The contrast between (6.4) and (6.5) le compró el libro ‘She bought him the book’ is lost when the DO is referred to with lo, cf. (6.6) se lo compró a. ‘She bought it for herself’ (refl. se) b. ‘She bought it for him/her/them’ (spur. se)

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Now the impossible *le lo of (6.1b) might in theory give way to (6.7) ** se le diste ‘you gave it to him/her’ but it never does: why this should be the case has seldom been discussed. Different questions must thus be addressed: 1. why is the combination of two ille reflexes impossible in Mo Spanish, while it is observed in Old Spanish, French and Italian?5 2. what is the “proper formulation of the spurious se rule in Spanish” (Aissen and Rivas 1975), i.e. why can se replace le only before lo (Fernández Soriano 1999:€1257; Otero 2002:€196–7)? 3. what allows se to stand in for 3*rd ps le but not for the 3*rd ps Acc lo? And last, but far from least, 4. how many se’s are there in Modern Spanish?

6.1.1 Unsatisfactory accounts The “spurious” recourse to se has been explained in a variety of ways: a. as an arbitrary feature of MoSp grammar, with an exclusively historical explanation, cf. Maiden (1997:€550), Brakel (1979:€664–7), Schmidely (1979) and Bello (1980:€284 #946). Note that the non-occurrence of le lo follows automatically if MoSp “spurious” se lo is the phonological reflex of OSp ge lo < l. illi illum/d, while “reflexive” se lo goes back to Latin se + illum/d. b. as an instance of arbitrary morpho-phonological dissimilation, cf. Mayerthaler (1977:€75); Menn and MacWhinney (1984:€526, 527); Grimshaw (1997); Fernández Soriano (1999:€1257); Gerlach (2002:€154, 181); Sharp (2005:€114 fn. 2); Nevins (2007:€274–75, 278). c. as due to synchronic grammatical dissimilation, i.e. a sort of morphological “horror aequi”,6 cf. Bonet (1995), Piera and Varela (1999:€4399). This solution was most cogently argued for by Hewson (1981) and has been recast in terms of optimality constraints by Heap (1998:€228); like Bonet (1995), Heap deals with clitic sequences only at the morphological level, and does not discuss their syntactic implications. Why recourse to spur. se is limited to *le lo appears self-evident from the diachronic perspective of (a): Brakel anticipated Usage-based analyses in characterizing se lo as a “linguistic fossil” (1979:€664) and a “lexical item” (1979:€661). However, spur. se does combine with le when, as in leísta dialects (cf. Glossary), this clitic happens to refer to the DO, cf. (6.8) se le presenté ‘I introduced him (le) to her (se)’



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se 

(6.9) se le dejó7 ‘She left him (le) with her (se)’ For Wanner (1994:€20 fn. 18) and Bonet (1995:€633), the conditions for the le > se rule are simply “obligatory contiguity of spurious se with an l-clitic”; the contiguity is stipulated in order to exclude the intrusion of a 1st ps Di, as in (6.10) ?? se me lo dijiste! ‘You went and told it (lo) to him (se) “on” me (me)’ Like Nevins’ equally liberal formulation, namely that the 3*rd ps Dative “precedes another 3rd person” (2007:€277), Wanner’s and Bonet’s condition allows the unacceptable two-3*rd ps Dat se le cluster (cf. Sect. 2.1.3.2), as in (6.11) *se les sonreíste ‘You went and smiled at them “on” him’, which parallels the acceptable (6.12) me les sonreíste ‘You went and smiled at them “on” me’ Spur. se may thus precede le--but only if le’s referent plays the DO role. The proper formulation of the “spurious” se rule is consequently “le > se / ____ l- [Accusative]” (Harris J. 1996:€178, 173) However, if the l- clitic’s case-role must be specified, computation of syntactic function is unavoidable, which invalidates Brakel’s analysis of se lo as an unanalyzed lexical item (1979:€661). The triad (6.8) OK se le presenté ‘I introduced him to her’ (6.11) *se les sonreíste ‘You smiled at them “on” him’ (6.10) ?se me lo dijiste ‘You went and told it to him “on” me’ clearly poses critically interrelated issues.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

6.2 The number of se’s in Modern Spanish 6.2.1 One vs. two Analysts who explain the non-occurrence of *le lo diachronically, naturally posit two se’s: refl. se, the reflex of Latin se, and spur. se, which stems from l. illi via OSp ge (Brakel 1979:€664). Analysts who account for spur. se synchronically seldom take a clear stand on the number of se’s. Wanner claims that Spanish has a reflexive morpheme {se} besides a homophonous /se/, which is presumably a syntactically conditioned allomorph of the morpheme {le} (1994:€19),8 but he notes that despite the difference in morphological status, the two se’s share the same “sequential properties” in clitic clustering (Wanner 1994:€19–20). Seuren implicitly suggests that two morphemes must be distinguished by referring to “the reflexive se” as well as to “spurious” se (1976:€23), nor is Hewson more explicit: though he appears to posit a single se (1981:€444), its value is never stated, and he does not discuss the ambiguity which arises with 3rd ps verbs. The same holds for Jaeggli: he lists se as [+ reflexive] (1986:€26) but admits that se also functions as the impersonal and middle clitic, and it also functions as a suppletive form of the clitics le and les when these clitics precede an accusative clitic [...] It is usually called the “spurious” se. (1986:€25, fn. 7)

According to Heap, morphological dissimilation forces le’s replacement by a single se whose only value is [ARG](ument) (1998:€230, 237, 240); the resulting ambiguity in reference is left undiscussed, nor does Heap explain why the dissimilation is possible only before an adjacent Acc clitic. Bonet’s superficial discussion of Spanish (1995:€632– 6) does not go into the relation between syntax and morphology (1995:€618 fn. 16), and leads to no conclusion as to how many se’s are postulated. For Harris J., the spurious allomorph of [3*rd ps Dat] is homophonous with the other, genuine, se (1996:€194 fn. 2, 182), whose value is however never made explicit.9 Since the feature REF[lexive] attributed to it is in any case superfluous in Morphological Structure (Harris J. 1996:€195 fn. 11), it is unclear what makes one se less genuine, or more spurious, than its homophone.10 Most analysts claim distinct se’s on syntactic grounds, though morphologically only a single clitic is justified: more or less arbitrary morphophonemics are assumed to span the gap.

6.2.2 Two or three? How many se’s must be actually distinguished is a far from trivial question, for the cluster se lo admits three, rather than only two, distinct readings:



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se 

(6.13)

se lo compró a. ‘She bought it from him’(spur. se) b. ‘She bought it for herself ’ (refl. se) c. ‘It was bought, “someone” bought it’ (imp. se; cf. Otero 1999:€1478 et pass.)

The referentially “indefinite” or impersonal (imp.) interpretation of se in (6.13c) is further illustrated by (6.14) Fuegos 152 Cada movimiento está previsto aunque se lo ignore en sí mismo ‘Each movement is foreseen, though one be unaware of it in itself ’ (6.15) se come bien aquí ‘One eats well here’ (6.16) se arregla bicicletas ‘Bicycles repaired; (one) repairs bicycles’ The threefold interpretability of (6.13) has received little attention in the literature (for some discussion cf. Sánchez López 2002:€138–140), but imp. se is generally shrugged off as a variant of refl. se, of which it is indeed a historical outcome (Monge 1954; Mendikoetxea 1999:€1651). Utterances such as (6.14), where a reflexive interpretation of se is automatically ruled out, are either labelled “active impersonal” or “irregular quasi reflexive” (Bello 1980:€242 #787); they are generally rejected as ungrammatical when, as in (6.16), the verb fails to agree in number with the NP, preventing the latter from being interpreted as a double-mentioned p.i.f. Now if the ambiguity between reflexive (6.13b) and non-reflexive (6.13a) readings justifies the postulation of a distinct spur. se, the distinct reading of (6.13c) clearly requires that a separate impersonal (imp.) se be further distinguished:11 recognition of only two se’s (refl. cum imp. se, vs. spur. se) reflects an incoherent mixing of synchronic and diachronic criteria, and/or a cavalier disregard of the facts. Note, finally, that the alleged ambiguity of (6.6) se lo compró ‘He bought it for him, her, him/herself ’ is in principle comparable to the referential versatility of le in (6.17) le dió un libro ‘He gave him/her/it [John, or Tom, or Dick, or Harry, or....or Mary, or Jane, or Ruth, or Alice, or...or the library, or the church, or the club, or...] a book’ Since “reflexivity” lacks any morphological basis as a grammatical category (Harris J. 1996:€195 fn. 11), the need for homonymous se’s will vanish if the three readings of (6.13) can be shown to follow from the processing routines to which se must be subject, given the way in which se differs from le, and the inferential mechanics of the VC.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

We accordingly postulate a single se: its value not only accounts for all its observed uses, but also makes sense of *le lo’s absolute non-occurrence.

6.3 The unitary meaning of se The value of merely “third person” follows from se’s place in the pronominal paradigm (cf. Table 3.1), and is supported by the obvious formal parallelism between clitics (me, te, se), tonic objects of prepositions (mí, [ti], sí), atonic possessive adjectives (mi, tu, su) and tonic possessive pronouns (mío, tuyo, suyo).12 Inasmuch as they are pronouns, clitics are supposed to refer. The referents of me and te are identified by the speech situation, while those of the l-clitics are identifiable in the larger context beyond the VC.13 Se stands apart in providing no information of any sort as to the identity of any eventual referent: all it guarantees is that reference is not being made to Speaker or Hearer. It also differs from the other clitics in lacking a distinct tonic counterpart capable of referring to the p.i.f. (cf. Sects. 3.1, 3.2): se’s “tonic” counterpart is, at most, the absence of any extra-VC reference to the p.i.f. Absence of explicit reference to the p.i.f. can either intimate that the participant is specific and so topical as not to require further mention (cf. Sect. 4.2.3), or conversely suggest the actual non-existence of any p.i.f., as is regularly the case in impersonal events. Two diametrically opposed inferential routines thus follow from se’s almost total uninformativeness: 1. normal (unmarked) processing of the VC: the finite verb-ending is interpretable on its own, in which case se refers positively to some non-focus 3rd ps participant; this holds for “spurious” and “reflexive” interpretations of the clitic;14 2. unusual (“marked”) processing of the VC: the 3rd ps sg. verb-ending refers vacuously, while se excludes reference to Speaker and Hearer. The combination of the two facts suggests that the identity of any potential p.i.f. is actually irrelevant: this is the essence of imp. se. Since se’s person value is strictly negative, whether it refers at all, and the identity of its referent when it does so, must be determined on the basis of the VC in which the clitic appears and that VC’s larger context.

6.4 Three inferential routines Pointing out that se’s lack of semantic content is responsible for its extreme versatility (Otero 2002:€168) does not get one very far, unless it is also made clear how se’s interpretation is derived in context. The simplest way of identifying a bona fide referent of se is to follow the inferential routines practised with more informative clitics: le provides the obvious model when



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se 

Dat case is forced on se by the presence of lo; the case-neutral me and te serve as models when se double-mentions the p.i.f.15 Though it may appear paradoxical, the processing of se is most transparent in its controversial use in positive reference to a 3*rd person.

6.4.1 Case-based identification of se’s positive referent: the se + lo cluster With the verb-ending pointing to a specific and identifiable p.i.f., the referents of all clitics must play a non-focus role. When the Acc lo is part of the VC, se’s referent is automatically cast in a Dat role: this fact leads to his eventual identification. When the p.i.f. is a 1st or 2nd person, as in (6.18) se lo compré ‘I bought it for/from him/her/them’ se refers to the 3*rd person most likely to play whatever Dat role is suggested by the nature of the event compré in its actual context. (6.18) differs from (6.19) se lo compró ‘He bought it for him(self)’, only as to the person of the p.i.f.: in (6.19) the set within which se’s referent must be identified is larger by one than in (6.18), for it necessarily includes the 3rd ps p.i.f. But in all cognitively and grammatically relevant aspects (6.18) and (6.19) are identical: in both se’s referent is forced, by the presence of lo, to play a Dat role, and since the search for se’s referent runs exclusively on this inferred case-role, the person of the p.i.f. is irrelevant. A 3rd ps p.i.f. will be identified as se’s referent only if he proves to be the best candidate for the specific Dat role projected by the event-in-context, and not because he happens to be in focus. As pointed out in Sect. 5.4.2, 3rd ps p.i.f.’s can participate in an event in non-focus capacities unlikely to be available to referentially distinct 3*rd ps participants, cf. (6.20) me la comiste! ‘You ate it ‘on’ me (e.g. my apple)’ (Dat ≠ p.i.f) (6.21) Por fin te la comiste! ‘You did finally eat it up!’ (Dat = p.i.f.) The fact that different Peripheral involvements are open to p.i.f.’s as against 3*rd ps “outsiders”, explains why the alleged ambiguity of (6.22) se los comió! a. ‘he ate them “on” her’ (cf. 6.20) b. ‘he ate them up’ (cf. 6.21) poses no problem in actual use.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

The larger context foreshadows both the nature of the event, and the perspective from which it is envisaged; this makes clear what kind of Peripheral role is relevant, and consequently what third person is most likely to play it.16 Assume that the p.i.f. in (6.22) is a snake which has just devoured some nestlings: though that activity suffices to put the snake in focus, it does not guarantee her a further Peripheral involvement. Who is Peripherally involved in the event thus depends crucially on the Speaker’s view of the event, which in coherent discourse is also reflected in the larger context (cf. Sects. 1.3.1, 3.2.2). Thus, if the overall discourse centers on the snake, the satiation generally following a meal is more to the point than the mother-bird’s loss: in that case, se will be understood as “reflexively” referring to the p.i.f. If, however, the discourse centers on the bird’s care for her little ones, the mother’s loss gains in relevance, and she will consequently be seen as se’s 3*rd ps referent, Peripherally affected by the fledgeling-eating. It is true that, out of context, se in (6.19) is normally understood to refer to the p.i.f.: but that is due only to the nature of purchases, for reference to a 3*rd person is conversely favoured in (6.23) se lo vendió ‘He sold it to her (??himself)’ If the verb is kept constant, the nature of the Dat role--and with it the identity of se’s referent--will shift depending on the nature of lo’s referent, cf. (6.24) se las pintó a. ‘She painted them/her own’ [las = uñas ‘nails] (se = p.i.f.) b. ‘He painted them for her’ [las = persianas ‘window shutters] (se ≠ p.i.f.)’ When both the verb and the identity of the DO are kept constant, the interpretation of se as 3rd vs. 3*rd person depends on the nature of the p.i.f., for this determines his appropriateness to the kind of Dat role projected by the context, and on whether the larger context includes a distinct candidate to the role, cf. (6.25) a. El carpintero se las pintó ‘The carpenter painted them (persianas (fem.) ‘shutters’) for her’ b. La manicura se las pintó (i) ‘The manicurist painted her (own nails)’ (ii) ‘The manicurist painted them (nails) for her (the customer)’ Finally, verb, DO and p.i.f. can all be kept constant, but the referent of Dat se may still vary, always depending on the kind of Peripheral role suggested by the larger context. If in (6.26) se lo cortó ‘He/she cut it for x’ lo refers to some salami, and the “cutting” takes place in a store, se is most likely to refer to a 3*rd ps customer distinct from the slicer, who is in focus. But if the event takes place



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se 

at home, it matters whether the person slicing the salami is alone (se = p.i.f.) or a guest is present; if the latter, whether the host is polite (se ≠ p.i.f.) or not (se = p.i.f.), etc. The unequal appropriateness of 3rd vs. 3*rd persons for a Di/Dataff role (cf. Sects. 5.4.1, 5.4.2) thus explains the unequal acceptability of (6.27) a. Quiero lo mejor para mi hija, y seré feliz que Luis se la haga su esposa. ‘I want the best for my daughter, and I will be happy if Luis does indeed (se = p.i.f., Di) make her (DO) his wife (OC)’ b. Pedro quiere lo mejor para su hija, y será feliz que ?? se la hagas tu esposa. ‘Pedro wants the best for his daughter, and will be happy if you make her (DO) your wife (OC) ?’on’ him (se ≠ p.i.f., Dataff )’ Though (6.27b) is formally impeccable, the identification of se as “Pedro” depends on his role being recognized as a Datposs one, for this would give him an interest in the girl’s fate; Luis’ more direct involvement as husband in the wife-making of (6.27a) makes him the obvious referent for se. The role/referent allotment being easier in (6.27a) than in (6.27b), the former is more acceptable. Note, finally, that it is the larger context, and in particular the nature of the Acc participant, that defines the type of event and thus allows the identification of le’s referent in (6.28) le pintó las persianas ‘He painted her shutters’ When clustered with lo, se simply follows the interpretational routine so frequently practised for le in three-participant combinations of the form le + Acc NP. The only difference is that se does not exclude--as le does--reference to the p.i.f. in a non-focus role.17 Our account of how se is interpreted when clustered with lo is particularly supported by the unequal acceptability of a “reflexive” vs. “spurious” reading of se when the VC is supplemented by an a-phrase, which may--but need not--introduce a distinct Peripheral participant (cf. Sect. 5.4). Thus, three different readings are possible for (6.29) se lo entregó a la madre. a. ‘he gave it to the mother’ (spur. se + duplicating a-phrase, Datobj) b. ‘wilfully (refl. se = p.i.f. Di), he gave it to the mother (non-duplicating aphrase)’ c. ‘he gave it to the mother (non-duplicating a-phrase; Datobj) “on” him (spur. se = Dataff )’ Reading (6.29a) results if se duplicates the a-phrase, and consequently does not corefer with the p.i.f.; here only two non-focus participants are involved, i.e. the Acc lo, and the Dat se...a la madre. (6.29b) illustrates the p.i.f.-coreferential reading of se, with a Di role alloted to the double mentioned p.i.f., while the distinct mother plays a Datobj role (cf. Sect. 5.4.2). Note that se’s “reflexive” reference in (6.29b) is less acceptable than its spurious inter-

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

pretation (6.29a), for more supporting context is required to help distinguish the different Peripheral roles played by the two distinct Dat participants. The (6.29c) reading, finally, is the hardest to work out, for here the Dative participant referred to with se is distinct from the 3rd ps p.i.f. as well as from the 3*rd person mentioned in the a-phrase: figuring out the correct role/referent allotment requires a very strongly supporting context, cf. (6.30) Carlosj quería quedarse con el nene después del divorcio, pero pese a todos sus argumentos y lamentos, el juezi se???j lo entregói a la madrek. ‘Charlesj wanted to keep the baby after the divorce, but despite all his pleadings and wailings the judgei gave it “on” himj (Dataff ) to the motherk (Datobj)’ In short: a de jure Dative se seeks its referent in all of the available context, including the VC, just as a 3rd ps verb-ending does, but the two searches proceed along different lines: se’s quest is conditioned by a referent’s appropriateness to a specific Dat case-role, while the verb-ending looks at a participant’s focus-worthiness. While nothing prevents the two operations from zeroing in on the same referent, nothing requires that they do so: when se clusters with lo, eventual co-reference between se and the verb-ending is thus established retroactively, subsequent to the Dat case-based identification of se’s referent. The ambiguity claimed for se in (6.19) thus stems from the assumption that capacity to refer to the p.i.f. itself suffices to establish the “reflexivity” of a clitic (cf. Otero 2002:€169 fn. 5). 6.4.1.1 “Spurious” se and the migrant pl. -s To the best of our knowledge, only one distributional fact might support the grammatical distinctness of refl. vs. spur. se: a migrant pl. -s is observed only under the latter interpretation (cf. Fernández Soriano 1999:€1257–58).18 Thus, in (6.31) Los tenientes cometieron un grave error y pese al deber de informar a sus superiores, no se los confesaron. ‘The lieutenants made a serious mistake, and despite the obligation to inform their superiors, they did not admit it (los) to them (se)’ the plural ending on los reflects the plurality of the higher ups, for se clearly refers to a 3*rd pl Dat. However, no plural ending is admissible on lo in (6.32) Los tenientes cometieron un grave error pero no se lo(*s) confesaron a sí mismos. ‘The lieutenants made a serious mistake, but they did not admit it to themselves’ though the Dative participants referred to by the “refl.” se are just as plural. The unacceptability of (6.32) might consequently be seen as evidence that “spurious” se is implicitly marked for Number, in contrast to the genuinely unmarked “reflexive” se. But the fact that migration of the Acc -s is limited to 3*rd person reference of se in no way forces the postulation of homonyms: attention is also due to the calcu-



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se 

lus underlying the production of a se lo cluster (cf. Gibson, Schütze and Salomon 1996, on production vs. interpretational strategies).19 A Speaker is aware of what he intends to communicate, and hence of the identity of the Dat participant he is referring to with se. When that happens to be the p.i.f., as in (6.32), the Dat participant’s number is already clear from the verb-ending; and since the Hearer can be trusted to figure out that the Dat role is actually played by the p.i.f., the number of se’s referent need not be expressed independently, for it must already be obvious. But when, as in (6.31), the Dative participant referred to with se is a remote 3*rd ps pl. entity, and his number is either relevant or salient, the Speaker can make the plurality clear, provided the adjoining Acc clitic se is singular, and thus able to host a plural ending.20 Far from proving the existence of homonymous se’s, the “migrant” plural ending of 3*rd ps Datives suggests that the Speaker does not retrieve a pre-fab cluster, but constructs se lo, bearing in mind the clitics’ referents. 6.4.1.2 The absolute non-occurrence of *le lo. It is in no way problematic that under clitic reference to the Acc, se should be able to refer to 3*rd ps Datives; a quite different matter is why le is unable to shoulder that task. The diachronic question why le lo disappeared in Spanish, while cognate clusters survive in other Romance languages, is answered when we note that se lo replaced OSp gelo rather than *le lo.21 A second, strictly synchronic issue is whether le lo might be re-composable in Modern Spanish, in which case it might alternate with se lo in reference to illi illud situations. Brakel claims that le lo is beyond resuscitation, given the availability of the familiar se lo cluster (1979:€667). Nonetheless, re-combination of le with lo is not only always possible in principle, but might even be expected, did such a cluster enjoy some communicative advantage over the established se lo. Now the obvious fact that a hypothetical le lo is more informative than se lo as to the participants’ case and number does not, of itself, constitute a communicative plus: the great value of informative expressions is that they alert the Hearer to a departure from the norm, i.e. to the exceptional fact that an expected situation fails to occur. In normal, expected situations, one can make do with less specific and hence more versatile signals--which is why the latter are so frequently resorted to (cf. García 1994:€334– 35; Hawkins 2004:€44–48). The viability of a re-com-posed, explicitly non-reflexive and number-specific le lo hinges, then, on how useful it is explicitly to exclude the p.i.f. from playing the Dat role. The answer to that question is “hardly at all”, for in actual discourse illi illud situations outnumber instances of se illud by 3 or 4 to 1 (cf. Wanner 1994:€ 48; García 2003a, Table 1): the contribution of a re-composed le lo would be to alert the Hearer to the trivial fact that the situation referred to does fall within the norm.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

6.4.1.3 Cognitive economy and the lelo/selo contrast It might be argued, nonetheless, that the direct signalling of Dat case provided by the hypothetical le lo ought to facilitate the identification of a 3*rd ps Dat referent: recourse to le lo should thus prove cognitively more economical than the already available--and highly entrenched--se lo in reference to illi illud events. That is hardly likely: historically, the various illi(s) illud/m(a/os) combinations have proved notoriously unstable (cf. Maiden 1997 in confirmation of Lausberg 1962:€131–132), for in the evolution of different Romance languages, clusters of l- clitics survive only as long as some better alternative does not become available through phonological or semantic change. It is particularly striking that the weak member in the combination should happen to be the reflex of Dat illi.22 Why l- reference to the Dative participant in an illi illud cluster is so widely eschewed becomes intelligible if we note that a Hearer presented with a le lo cluster must undertake two searches, of precisely the same deictic type, for distinct 3*rd ps referents. The two searches, however, are hard to pursue simultaneously, for the participants play interrelated roles, and thus stand in syntagmatic contrast within the same VC: with both l- clitics enjoying the same right to immediate processing, the cluster as a whole risks the fate of Buridan’s ass. It is more efficient to proceed by steps, identifying first the referent of one clitic and then tackling the other, on the basis of the additional information yielded by the first search. Such a “divide et impera” strategy will be followed automatically if the two searches are not triggered simultaneously, and this will infallibly be the case if the two 3*rd persons are not both referred to with l- clitics.23 The question, then, is who should be identified first: the Dat, or the Acc? Early identification of the Central DO, like that of the p.i.f., provides useful clues to the nature of the Dat role, and thus helps identify that participant; but no light is shed on the DO’s identity by knowledge of a Peripheral participant: the informativeness of an lclitic is consequently best invested in reference to the single non-focus Central role. Processing of the highly informative Acc lo clitic is sure to take place immediately if the search for the 3(*)rd ps Dat participant is put on hold, an end easily achieved by resorting to the totally uninformative se. The search for se’s referent in fact profits from not being undertaken immediately, for the prior identification of lo’s referent facilitates the identification of the Dative: that is why se replaces le and not lo, cf. eg. (6.3) vs. (6.7). In short: se lo is easier to process than le lo, for the diversification of the references allows the two 3*rd ps participants to be identified in the cognitively most economic order, i.e. first the Central, and then the Peripheral participant (cf. n. 17).24 It is neither conventional use nor morpho-phonological dissimilation that makes *le lo yield to se lo: se lo is preferable to le lo for essentially the same reasons that me presentaste a ella is preferable to me le presentaste in conveying ‘You introduced me to her’ (cf. Sect. 5.3.1). For le lo to be re-generatable, co-occurring clitics would have to mechanically aggregate their individual uses, as the grammatically independent OSp atonic pronouns did, cf.



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se 

(6.33) Grail 32/4 1468 ms. verdaderamente enbia tu merçet al rrey Evolat que tan desconsejado es que non quiere entrar en la carrera de la verdat sy por tu grand poder lo non le metes en coraçon ‘[the Deity is addressed] do indeed send Thy grace to King Evolat, who is so illjudging that he refuses to enter the path of truth, if Thou, by Thy great power, dost not put it (lo) into his (le) heart (lit: if thou it not him puttest into heart)’ But such aggregation is neither possible, nor communicatively efficient, for clitics that are morphologically part of a VC, as is the case in Modern Spanish. For le lo to prove viable at all, Spanish would have to resemble French and Italian in far more than the retention of specifically illi illud reflexes: se lo would have to be barred from referring to illi illud situations at all, and be confined to strictly “reflexive” reference. Against our account of why and how, in the presence of lo, se does duty for le (cf. García 1975, 2003b), it could perhaps be argued that if se lo is the only possible choice, there is little point in trying to justify that use: attempts at explanation must be out of place when only one expressive procedure is available. In fact, its very obligatoriness might render the “spurious” use of se mechanical, conventional, and thus de facto synchronically arbitrary. Such an objection does not hold, for se lo is by no means the only possible alternative to *le lo. In the case of *me le presentaste ‘you introduced me to him’, le gives way to an unduplicated tonic a-phrase: the same option is in principle also available for an illi illud combination, since lo can and does co-occur with unduplicated Dat aphrases (cf. Sect. 5.3.3). The critical question, then, is why *le lo yields to all-clitic se lo, rather than to the certainly conceivable lo...a él. The obvious answer is that the clitic nature of se ensures participant status for the anthropocentrically important Dat participant at no extra cognitive cost, since its interpretation in reference to a 3(*)rd person not only fails to pose any inferential problems, but actually prevents them from arising. But if the choice of se lo over lo...a él is communicatively motivated, the clitic cluster is not arbitrarily obligatory:25 se lo fits far better than le lo into the general pattern of clitic reference, and since there is no need to resort to the latter cluster, it fails to occur.

6.4.2 Self-salience of 3rd ps p.i.f.’s The presence of lo in the VC automatically forces a Dat role on other clitics, and this allows the identification of se’s referent. But what if there is no lo in the VC? In that case, se’s case-role remains indeterminate within the VC. However, if the VC’s p.i.f. happens to be a 3rd person, thus eo ipso providing a salient referent for se, the clitic is automatically inferred to double mention the p.i.f. in some non-focus role.26

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Many examples of this use have already been provided in chs. 4 and 5; here we shall concentrate on situations comparable to those discussed in 6.4.1 in that they involve a DO, which is however referred to with non-clitic means, cf. (6.34) se compró el libro ‘She bought herself the book’ Within the VC se compró, the 3rd ps sg. p.i.f. invoked by the verb-ending cannot but come to mind as the most obvious candidate for reference by se. Since the bare NP el libro ‘the book’ provides a plausible candidate for the Acc role, the 3rd ps p.i.f. is taken as the agent of the polarized “buying” event; his double mention by se suggests that he further plays a non-focus Peripheral role. In the interpretation of (6.34) se is understood to refer to the 3rd ps p.i.f. within the VC, and thus before se’s role is understood to be a Dative one, for that becomes clear only when the extra-VC el libro is recognized as the DO in the ‘buying’. In (6.34) the interpretation of se thus ends with the recognition of his Dat role, which conversely constitutes the point of departure in the interpretation of se lo in the earlier example (6.19), repeated here for the reader’s convenience: (6.19) se lo compró a. ‘He bought it for himself ’, b. ‘He bought it for her’ For the same reason, se’s reference to the p.i.f. lies at the very base of the interpretation of (6.34), but crowns the interpretation of de jure Dat se in (6.19a). Despite the fact that se is just as Dative in (6.19a) as in (6.34), and that in both instances se refers to the p.i.f. of what is de facto the same event, the two utterances are processed along diametrically diverse inferential routes. These differ necessarily because the Acc participant is referred to inside the VC in (6.19a), but outside it in (6.34). The structures illustrated by the two examples are thus inferential mirror images: we highlight the critical difference by outlining the VC with square brackets in the relevant earlier examples, cf. (6.18) [se lo compré] ‘I bought it for her’ (6.19) [se lo compró] ‘He bought it for her/himself ’ (6.34) [se compró] el libro ‘She bought herself the book’ While in (6.18, 6.19) se primarily contrasts syntagmatically with its cluster partner lo, and thus automatically assumes a Dat case-role, in the VC of (6.34) se contrasts only with the verb-ending: co-reference between the two can thus be assumed, thanks to



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se 

their coincidence in person; that participant’s non-focus involvement emerges only from the processing of the extra-VC reference to the DO.27 Our argument is supported by the utter unacceptability of (6.35) **** [se compré] el libro ‘I bought???? the book’ where the VC neither sheds any light on se’s specific case-role, nor provides a possible referent for se. That inferential deficit makes (6.35) unintelligible and totally unacceptable. Two fundamental claims thus distinguish our analysis from the traditional and/or mainstream view of se: 1. the interpretation of se depends on the grammatical means by which reference is made to an eventual Central non-focus participant; 2. clitics are cognitively dependent on the verb to which they are morphologically bound: adequate processing of the VC requires that any se it may contain does not remain totally uninterpreted. It is consequently not true that se is “always bound to the surface subject of its clause” (Otero 2002:€168, our translation): what is absolutely required is that se prove interpretable within the VC of which it is part. This insight as to the computational implications of the VC’s morphological structure lies at the heart of our analysis, and sheds light on the negatively referring use of se, to which we now turn.

6.4.3 Focus defeasing by impersonal se The familiar term “impersonal” se (cf. Sect. 6.2.2) is not totally inappropriate to the exploitation of the clitic in (6.36) En España se vive bien ‘It’s good living in Spain; in Spain one can live well’ (6.37) Se vende bicicletas usadas ‘Second hand bicycles for sale (lit. “one” sells used bicycles)’ (6.38) se los fusiló ‘they were shot; “one” shot them’ (6.39) Fuegos 152 Cada movimiento está previsto aunque se lo ignore en sí mismo ‘Each movement is foreseen, though one be unaware of it in itself ’ because in these examples the 3rd ps sg. verb-ending refers to no specific p.i.f., at best suggesting a Ulyssean ‘no man’.28 Three questions must be answered: 1. what is the precise communicative effect achieved by resorting to se “impersonally”? 2. why is se resorted to at all?

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

3. along what inferential route does recourse to se lead to the communicative effect of “impersonality”? 6.4.3.1 The pragmatic value of imp. se. P.i.f.’s, and agents in particular, are characteristically topical, which makes them good candidates for focus. There are occasions, however, in which a Speaker is either unable to guarantee the identifiability of a p.i.f., or specifically wishes nobody, particularly not himself, to be seen as in any way responsible for the event.29 Attention can be deflected from the agent in various ways: a. by resorting to an explicitly passive construction;30 b. by focussing on a non-agentive participant, and relying on double mention to ensure role-levelling and event-introversion (cf. Sect. 4.1); c. by ensuring that the verb-ending refers vacuously. This result can be attained in two ways: 1. by resorting beyond the VC to indefinite referring expressions such as uno ‘one’, which consign the agent to lexical limbo (García 1975:€15); 2. by resorting to case- and focus-neutral se within the VC itself, and thereby undermining the referring potential of the verb-ending. The difference is subtle but significant, cf. (6.40) Uno sabe cuando no tiene razón ‘One knows when one is wrong (i.e. I, you, we all know)’ (6.41) Se sabe cuando no se tiene razón ‘(generic) “One” knows when “one” is wrong’ In (6.40) the verb-ending explicitly claims the existence of a bona fide p.i.f., but the claim is neutralized by the indefiniteness of the extra-VC uno ‘one’. In (6.41), however, the verb-ending’s referential power is nipped within the VC itself by the clitic se, which prevents anybody from being focussed on, in particular the 1st or 2nd person. Note that, unlike se, recourse to the indefinite uno invites the inference that the 1st or 2nd person may be involved (García 1975:€18–9); in fact, its Gender generally reflects the sex of the Speaker, with a woman resorting to una ‘one (fem. sg.)’, cf. (6.42) Una sufre lo indecible cuando el marido la engaña ‘One (fem.) suffers unspeakably when her husband cheats on her’ 6.4.3.2 The morpho-syntactic need for se The verbal root, in combination with the larger context, makes clear what kind of event is at issue, and thus what kind of entity--if any--must be focussed on as the fully referential starting point to the utterance (MacWhinney 1999:€232). In (6.43) Siempre llueve in invierno ‘It always rains in winter’



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se 

the 3rd ps sg. ending prevents focus from falling on the Speaker, the Hearer, or any plural entity. “Nothing”, however, is imaginable as being likely to be focussed on in a “raining” event. In most human discourse, however, most verbs-in-context do suggest the existence of an actual p.i.f., so that when they evoke a human agent, the mere omission of overt reference to a 3rd ps p.i.f. will not prevent the verb-ending from triggering a search for his identity: in fact, the very absence of extra-VC reference to the p.i.f. is sure to be interpreted as due to the participant’s contextual givenness, which makes any reference besides the verb-ending totally superfluous (cf. Sect. 4.2.3, and García 1975:€196–99, 200–04). To ensure that “nobody” is indeed focussed on when the nature of the event does suggest a human agent, the VC itself must contain a focus absorber to co-opt the verbending, and thus short-circuit any search for its referent. That focus co-opting role is played by se, and we refer to it as “focus defeasing”. We concentrate on cases with a 3rd ps sg. Verb (cf. Campos 1989:€1, Suñer 1990:€214 fn. 8) in which there is no DO at all, as in (6.36), where an Acc clitic enforces polarization of the event, as in egg. (6.38, 39), or where a mismatch in number with a plural NP prevents the latter from being interpreted as a double-mentioned p.i.f., as in (eg. 6.37), thus ruling out a “pasiva refleja” reading (cf. Glossary, and Sect. 4.1).31 6.4.3.3 The inferential mechanics of focus defeasing The impersonal interpretation of se originates diachronically in the middle/“passive” interpretation of double mention, cf. Monge (1954), Barry (1985), Mendikoetexea (1999:€1649), Otero (2002:€188–9) but synchronically constitutes its mirror image. As seen in Sect. 4.1, double mention with se is the only way to focus on an inherently passive inanimate participant in events that presuppose a human agent. An utterance such as (6.44) se abrió la puerta ‘The door (was) opened’ allows three referentially overlapping interpretations which span a pragmatic continuum from focus on an inactive participant, through a “passive” reflexive reading, to a defocussed agent in an imp. se structure, cf. (6.44) a. b.

En un golpe de viento [sei abriói] la puertai ‘in a gust of wind the door opened (“middle” reading of double mention)’ El programa preveía que la puertai [sei abriríai] a las 9 en punto. ‘The programme foresaw that the door would be opened (“pasiva refleja” reading of double mention) at 9 a.m. sharp’ c. Pedro habiendo huido por el techo, sei [abriói la puertaj a la policía], que ya amenazaba con desfondarla. ‘Pedro having succeeded in getting away on the roof, “one” opened the door (focus defeasing) to the police, who were threatening to break it down’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

The first and second as against the third interpretation of (6.44), become formally distinct under pronominalization of “the door”, that participant playing one Central role or the other, i.e. p.i.f. or Acc: (6.45) a,b. 0 se abrió / abriría ‘It opened’ (se double mentions the p.i.f.) c. Se la abrió ‘Someone opened it’ (se defeases focus) The different pronominalizations directly reflect the diametrically opposed perspectives that distinguish double-mention from focus-defeasing. In the double-mention reading of (6.44a), where the door is clearly in focus, se implies that the actual agency of the role-levelled event is irrelevant; in the “impersonal” reading of (6.44c), with the door seen as the verb’s DO, role-differentiation is conversely very relevant, but no specific entity can be called upon to play the role of agentive p.i.f. Se’s contribution in its “impersonal” use is thus to ensure the absence of a specific p.i.f. in an event that in fact presupposes one; and the “focus” that is thus prevented from highlighting a specific agent falls, by default, on the event itself (cf. Bello 1980:€242 #787), thus “impersonalizing” it.32 Evidence for the reinterpretation of the double-mention exploitation of se as focus-defeasing is provided by the fact that imp. se is compatible with copulative and intransitive verbs where a double mention interpretation makes no sense at all, cf. (6.46) Se sufre ‘There is suffering going on; “one” suffers’ (6.47) Se es tonto cuando se cree que los olmos dan peras ‘One is foolish when one thinks that elm-trees yield pears’33 We will now show that, from a synchronic point of view, the focus-defeasing use of se is actually to be expected, given that 1. se is focus-neutral; 2. qua clitic, se refers to a participant in the event referred to in the VC; 3. its total lack of referential content requires se to be interpretable within the VC (cf. Sect. 6.4.2). The two categories which define Participancy, i.e. Focus and Case, are by definition relevant to the VC (Sect. 3.2); they jointly define three participant roles, i.e. (Central) p.i.f.; non-focus Central Acc, and non-focus Peripheral Dat. Se’s semantic vacuity allows it to a. refer to a specific participant whose non-focus Dative case-role is directly established within the VC (Sect. 6.4.1); b. refer to whatever non-focus role is suggested by event and larger context when it double-mentions the p.i.f. of its VC (Sect. 6.4.2);



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se 

c. assume the p.i.f. role itself, thereby defeasing focus-allotment to any specific 3rd person who might plausibly be seen as agent of the event. In the last case, se de facto co-refers with the verb-ending: not surprisingly, native speakers feel se to be the “subject” in “active impersonal” sentences,34 for the verbending and se “agree” in their joint failure to refer beyond the VC. Double mention differs from focus-defeasing as to the kind of co-reference established between se and the verb-ending: in double mention, se looks to the verb-ending for its referent, of whatever number, while in focus-defeasing it is the 3rd ps sg. verbending that wastes its focus value on se’s referential vacuity. Se can double mention the p.i.f., but the verb-ending single-mentions a focus-defeasing se. The focus-defeasing interpretation of se is thus the inferential converse of double mention:35 while role-levelling takes place under double mention (cf. Sect. 4.1), caseroles remain fully distinct under imp. se. Long practice in the extremely frequent manoeuvre of double mention probably paved, and still paves, the way for its inverted application along a different grammatical dimension. A natural question, of course, is how se’s three uses are kept apart in actual use, for imp. se overlaps formally with double mention in (6.44) se abrió la puerta a. ‘the door opened’ c. ‘One opened the door’ and with Dative se in (6.38) se los fusiló a. ‘he shot them for himself/for another’ b. ‘Someone shot them’ “Reflexive” and “spurious” se readings have been shown to arise in distinct contexts, which highlight different entities as the most likely candidate to the Dative role; it is consequently to be expected that double-mention and focus defeasing interpretations of se will similarly prove to be distinguished by different larger contexts, which either provide a suitable candidate for the role of double-mentioned p.i.f., or make it unnecessary--or inappropriate--to identify whoever is responsible for the event. Since se contributes nothing on its own, and we eschew homonyms, the positive information relevant to its interpretation can only come from its immediate or larger context. This will be shown in detail to be the case in Sect. 7.4, after we have discussed the equally context-dependent non-uses of se.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

6.5 Contrasting the analyses The traditional view of se as an essentially reflexive clitic attaches more weight to the situation referred to than to the form of linguistic expression; we conversely give priority to the expressive distinctions made by the language itself (cf. Dryer 1997, Fortescue 2002, Everett 2005). The mainstream analysis differs from ours not only as to the view taken of se, particularly of imp. se, but also in the basic categorization of the phenomena, and in the reasons given for why *le lo is eschewed. Though both views agree that three interpretations of se must be recognized, the uses actually distinguished are neither the same, nor characterized grammatically in the same way. In the traditional approach, refl. and imp. se are seen as essentially one (cf. Wanner 1994:€25, Harris J. 1996, Otero 2002:€169), to be sharply distinguished from a homonymous spur. se.36 Se’s impersonal reading in (6.48) se las abrió ‘They were opened; “someone” opened them’ is consequently viewed, on essentially referential and diachronic grounds, as a variant of the refl. se in (6.49) se abrieron las puertas ‘the doors opened’ A coincidence in reference similarly identifies (6.50) María se lo compró para sí misma ‘Mary bought it for herself’ with (6.51) María se compró un vestido ‘Mary bought a dress for herself ’ while the difference in Dative referents results in (6.50) being distinguished from (6.52) María se lo compró a su amiga ‘Mary bought it for her friend’ Our analysis distinguishes primarily between positive reference to a non-focus participant, and the focus-neutral blocking of any specific agent. The focus-defeasing in (6.48) se las abrió ‘They were opened; “someone” opened them’



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se 

thus differs very fundamentally from the double mention in both (6.49) se abrieron las puertas ‘the doors opened’ and in (6.51) María se compró un vestido ‘Mary bought a dress for herself ’ But the fact that in (6.50) María se lo compró para sí misma ‘Mary bought it for herself’ se is allotted Dat case already within the VC, makes (6.50) grammatically equivalent to the equally case-endowed se in (6.52) María se lo compró a su amiga ‘Mary bought it for her friend’ both differing sharply from (6.51) María se compró un vestido ‘Mary bought a dress for herself ’ where the Dat case of se is established not within the VC, but follows only from the presence of an Acc participant referred to beyond the VC. Our analysis is strongly supported by the relative frequency of se’s three exploitations. One might ask, for instance, what uses are to be expected of a pronominal clitic with se’s impoverished meaning. Positive reference should be favoured over non-reference, for in human communication the former is required far more often. Since se provides no Focus, Case, Gender or Number clue that might help identify its referent, whatever 3rd ps participant is envisaged must be very easily identifiable, and locally very salient. And since the most salient participant is the p.i.f., se is easiest to use in double-mentioning a 3rd ps p.i.f, as in (6.53) se cayó! ‘It fell down! One step away from this minimum of inferential effort is to use se in reference to a non-focus 3(*)rd ps participant identifiable only on the basis of his inferred case-role, as when se clusters with an explicit l- Accusative. Much, much further away, in terms of inferential directness, is the exploitation of se to defease focus. On the basis of increasing inferential effort, the uses of se thus rank as follows,37 1. most direct: case-neutral double mention of p.i.f. 2. less direct: Dat-case based reference 3. quite indirect: defeasing of focus-allotment by the verb-ending

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

This ranking directly matches the relative frequency of se’s different interpretations, for Hills and Anderson inform us not only that clitic clusters are very infrequent, but that in the corpus they analyzed “the ratio of se reflexive to se non-reflexive (= le, la etc.) was [...] approximately 11 to 1” (1931:€ 336); even minimal acquaintance with Spanish reveals that the focus-defeasing use of se is quite infrequent (cf. its marginal discussion in Butt and Benjamin 1988:€303, 306–307). That signs should be deployed with Zipfian economy, i.e. most frequently in the cognitively least costly use, and least frequently in the interpretation whose cognitive cost is highest, makes eminent functional sense. Our analysis thus not only accounts coherently for the distribution of se, but also sheds light on the relative frequency of that clitic’s diverse uses. One would expect this to speak in its favour.

Notes to Ch. 6 1. Cf. Sect. 4.2.2 on double a-phrase reference to Dat and Acc, and Sect. 5.4 on two-Dat events. 2. Dat. illi and Acc. illud co-occurred in Latin: OSp ge (a reflex of illi) appeared only before lo. We remind the reader that the non-feminine singular form stands for all variants of a given case. 3. Use of se in lieu of le has intrigued descriptive linguists and language historians alike, but synchronic and diachronic accounts of the phenomenon leave equally much to be desired (Folgar 1993:€ 148 fn. 18). Our present analysis thoroughly revises the account given in García (2003b), to which we refer the reader for a fuller discussion of the literature on the problem; for a detailed account of spur. se’s diachrony, cf. García (2003a). 4. In substandard or colloquial speech the number of a 3*rd ps pl. Dat referent often “migrates” to the Acc clitic (Bello 1980:€284, fn. to #946; Rojas 1980; Rivarola 1985; Company Company 1998:€533–47 et pass.), cf. (i) Les conté la historia ‘I told them the story’ (ii) Se las conté ‘I told it (pl.) them’ In (ii) the -s on the Acc las reflects the plurality of the Dat participant. 5. In a me illi cluster French does avoid lui, resorting instead to the locative y (Couquaux 1978:€211; Dumas 2000:€93 et pass.). Cf. García (2002) for discussion of the me illi cluster in diverse Romance languages, and its relation to the illi illud combination. 6. Cf. Mondorf (2003:€279 et seq.) and Rohdenburg (2003:€236 et seq.) on the phenomenon generally. 7. Ormazábal and Romero ban clitic clustering when le refers to a human male DO (2007:€321, 338); however, [spur. se + DO le] clusters were produced by more than half the informants of highly leísta sites, like Valladolid and Madrid (cf. García 1992:€237–38). The survey was carried out in the mid 1980’s; earlier leísta texts (e.g. Cinco and Retahilas) show no case of a DO le clustering with spur. se.



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se  8. The content of the feature [+ R] (?reflexive) attributed by Wanner to the genuine {se} is never specified (1994:€25,32). 9. According to Harris J. “some [of its] uses”, are “reflexive, middle, reciprocal, unspecified subject, inalienable, and lexical” (1996:€194 fn.2). 10. Homonymy is much more likely in the case of Fr. lui, usable as a tonic masc. sg. pronoun or a Dative sg. clitic (cf. Huffman 1997:€317), as in Lui, il lui a donné un baiser; Marie en est ravie ‘He, he gave her a kiss; Mary was charmed’ 11. That is admitted by Sicot-Domínguez (2002:€ 1022), who refuses to go into the implications. 12. The three possessive pronouns further coincide in expressing, in morphologically parallel fashion, the gender and number of the possessed item. 13. The speech situation plus the larger context are relevant to the recognition of the IInd person as the referent of an l- clitic. IInd ps reference by se results from the same inferential routines responsible for 3(*)rd ps reference, and will thus not be discussed separately. 14. While there are idiomatic non-referring uses of las and le (cf. Sect. 4.2), spur. se invariably refers to a specific entity: refl. se refers as much or as little as the verb-ending it co-refers with, cf. Sect. 4.1, n. 3. 15. Non-reference by se is keyed to the interpretation of the verb-ending itself, and has no parallel in the use of the “personal” clitics; it is thus inferentially more complex and will be considered last. 16. Mutatis mutandis, the actual degree to which the p.i.f. can be seen as agent varies depending on whether he or somebody else is Peripherally involved, as well as on the nature of the Acc participant (cf. Sect. 4.1). 17. The logical order of inferences in a se lo cluster is thus: 1. within the VC: Dat case of se, resulting from the presence of the explicitly Acc lo; 2. beyond the VC: a. identification of the referent of Acc lo; b. narrower specification of the nature of the Dat role, c. identification of se’s referent. On the rare occasions in which the identity of the Dat participant is not immediately clear from the context, it can be and generally is clarified by the addition of a clitic-duplicating a-phrase. The loss of the Dative’s number can be made up for by migration of the very infrequent plural to the Acc clitic, cf. n. 4 and Sect. 6.4.1.1 below. 18. Migration of the Dat pl. -s to a sg Acc clitic (cf. n. 4) does not differ, in principle, from the morpho-phonological displacement observed in subst. no los leyó ‘he read it to us’ for nos lo leyó (cf. Harris J. 1996:€186), or in the attachment of the 3rd ps pl. verbal ending -n to se or lo, as in substandard vaya(n)sen ‘you all go away!’ (Kany 1951:€112–114; Rivera-Castillo 1997:€248–50), or ¡Haganlon! ‘You (pl.) do it!’ (Harris J. and Halle 2005). Further research must establish to what extent the migration of the Dat plural in se lo clusters correlates with number invariance in le (Sturgis 1927; Rini 1998).

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs 19. From an interpretative perspective it is not only unnecessary, but actually impossible, to posit grammatically distinct se’s: they could only be distinguished by the inferential routines we have spelled out above (cf. Reid 2004:€117–18). 20. Morpho-syntactic migration of the Dative’s plurality is frequent only with so-called “neutre” lo. When lo refers to a mass-like entity, inherently incompatible with plural number, it can safely take on an -s ending, for the latter can only reflect the plurality of some other relevant participant, the Dative being the closest and most probable candidate. “Neutre” lo is itself particularly frequent in illi illud clusters (cf. the data in Company Company 1998:€541, Table 2), in consonance with the preference for referent-dissimilation in all-3*rd ps combinations (cf. Sect. 5.3.3). Recall that the referent of the Central lo is identified before that of the Peripherally involved se (cf. n. 17 above). 21. Co-occurrence of le with lo is sporadically attested throughout Old Spanish, but the combination was always far outnumbered by the frozen gelo, whose final demise in favour of the versatile se lo took place around 1530 (Keniston 1937:€73). Se lo’s victory was the result of two distinct sound changes, of the change in grammatical status of atonic pronouns (Rini 1990, 1995), and of strong sociolinguistic considerations. “Spurious” use of se was made possible by the very early apocope of word-final -e, which affected the combination g(e)lo: the merger of the phonotactically impossible /žlo/ < gelo with apocopated /slo/ < se lo led to reinterpretation of unapocopated se lo as reflexivity-neutral (cf. García 2003a). No such syntactic variation appears likely to have developed at any point between the French reflexes of illi illud (i.e. le lui) and of se illud (i.e. se le). 22. In a large number of modern Romance languages or dialects, illi illud clusters lose one or the other member, which either disappears, or is replaced by some non-ille reflex. The replacements chiefly affect Dat illi (Maiden 1997:€543–551, vs. pp. 549 and 551–2 for substitution of the Acc form). 23. The “best” cluster (cf. Grimshaw 1997) iconically maximizes the distinctiveness of the contrasted participants. It is no accident that leísmo is avoided when both Dat and Acc are 3rd persons (cf. Sect. 6.1), regardless of whether se refers “reflexively” or “spuriously” (Fernández 1951:€206 #109). 24. Highlighting the contrast between Dat vs. Acc participants is inferentially more useful than signalling the eventual (non) identity of Dat and p.i.f. Basically the same rationale operates, in the contrary direction, in the case of lexical a-phrases: these do not distinguish between Dat and salient specific human Acc participants but do ensure that a human Central Acc participant is not taken to be in focus (cf. Sect. 4.2.2, n. 16) 25. The “obligatory” recourse to a form may affect its informativeness, but not its meaningfulness (Weinreich 1966:€472). 26. Double mention critically depends on case-neutrality (cf. Sect. 4.1); since se is both focusand case-neutral, it may refer to the p.i.f. in a non-focus capacity, and thus achieve the same role-levelling and event-introversion that result from V1...me and V2...te combinations. As with the double-mentioning me, te, the exact nature of the 3rd ps p.i.f.’s involvement becomes clear in the course of overall role/referent allotment.



Chapter 6.╇ Accounting for all the uses of Sp. se  27. Just as the person of the p.i.f. is irrelevant when se is a de jure Dative, i.e. in the presence of lo, the case-neutral double mentioning se recognized within a VC is open to interpretation in either a Dat or an Acc role, cf. (i) se lavó ‘he washed (himself = DO, Acc)’ (ii) se lavó las manos ‘he washed his (Dat) hands (DO)’ 28. This is what imp. se shares with events such as haber ‘for there to be’, or llover ‘to rain’, which in themselves rule out any p.i.f. Just as Spanish verbs are not inherently transitive or intransitive (cf. ch. 3 n. 11), some can be used personally, in reference to activities engaged in by a bona fide p.i.f., or impersonally (Fernández Soriano and Táboas Baylín 1999:€1745–6 et pass.), cf. (i) Amanecí en un paraje desconocido: en la oscuridad había perdido la ruta ‘I woke up/was at dawn in an unknown location: I had lost my way in the dark’ (ii) En verano amanece muy temprano ‘In Summer it becomes day very early’ 29. Since from a human perspective a human agent is the type of participant most deserving of focus, he is also the only one worthy of explicit obfuscation: that is why only he is effaced with imp. se. However, a generic seeing-eye dog appears to be at issue in the following example, from unpublished material kindly provided by Prof. Ana María Barrenechea; note that the speaker is himself blind: (i) Buenos Aires, Interview # 44 ya de por sí son animales que tienen que tener un temperamento familiar ¿no?; es una de las condiciones que se necesitan para ser perro guía. ‘Already in themselves/by their own nature, they are animals which need to have a friendly temperament, right?; that is one of the requirements that one needs (are needed) to be a seeing- eye dog’ Here condiciones ‘requirements’ must be interpreted as the double mentioned p.i.f. of the pl. verb necesitan ‘are needed’: se necesitan tales condiciones is thus a “pasiva refleja” (‘reflexive passive’, cf. Sect. 4.1). However, ‘one, some’ dog is understood as the the implicit but unidentifiable p.i.f. of the infinitive ser perro guía ‘to be a seeing-eye dog’, suggesting an impersonal interpretation of se in relation to ser. With verbs which fail to presuppose a specific p.i.f. there is no need to block focus; such verbs are consequently incompatible with imp. se: (ii) Para arreglar ese asunto, basta Juan/alguien ‘To settle that affair, all it needs is John/someone’ (iii) Para arreglar ese asunto, *se basta ‘???To settle that affair, all it needs’ 30. Since by definition a passive structure has a p.i.f., its identity may be obliterated by imp. se (cf. Mendikoetxea 1999:€1704), cf. Se es querido por la gente cuando se es amable con ella ‘One is liked when one is polite (lit: One is loved by people when one is polite to them)’ 31. A verb-ending that does convey positive person or number information cannot be absorbed by the totally unmarked se, and its presence in the VC is justified only by positive reference to some 3(*)rd person (cf. Sects. 6.4.1,2).

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs 32. We will largely ignore 3rd ps sg. structures including a NP, for these admit a passive interpretation and are thus either ambiguous and/or indeterminate between double mention and focus defeasing, cf. García (1975:€196–196–256) for discussion of the relevant contextual factors that favour one or the other reading. The much debated grammaticality of focus-defocusing structures such as (6.37), where a singular verb combines with a plural NP which must be taken as DO, cf. Otero (2002:€190–1), is irrelevant to clitic clusters where se is interpreted as defeasing focus. 33. (6.47) contrasts with  Es tonto cuando se cree que los olmos dan peras ‘He is foolish when he kids himself (introverted “believe”) that elm-trees yield pears’ It can hardly be a coincidence that the impersonal use of se rapidly rose in frequency at the turn of the XVI cent. (Melis and Peña-Alfaro 2007:€51, 53) when the “spurious” use of se was displacing OSp gelo (Keniston 1937:€73), when double mention ceased to be common with copulative ser (cf. Sect. 5.5.3.1), and when atonic pronouns grammaticalized into verbal affixes (Rini 1990). 34. Cf. also Lyons (1982:€182); Rizzi (1976); Suñer (1990:€212); Mendikoetxea (1999:€ 1652); Sánchez López (2002:€140–2); Zagona (2002:€16, 17). 35. To characterize both as “reflexivity” (Otero 2002:€169 esp. fn. 5 et pass) is to ignore the opposed directionality of the two relations. 36. Otero admits se’s impoverished meaning (2002:€168), but nonetheless insists on the clitic’s abstract “reflexivity”, thus distinguishing it from the “spurious” use of the clitic (2002:€168–9, 196–7). 37. We expect the three exploitations to be acquired in that same order. Unfortunately, nothing on the subject is reported by Montrul (2004).

chapter 7

Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se Everything about se must be inferred: whether the clitic refers at all, who or what it refers to, and what role that (non-)referent plays in the event. In Ch. 6 all the observed uses of se were shown to result from inferential routines steered by the morphology of the VC: we will now argue that those routines also account for se’s (non)interpretability in diverse morpho-syntactic environments.

7.1 The variable acceptability of se me lo V3 It is taken for granted that for se to refer to a 3*rd person it must directly adjoin the Acc l- clitic (cf. Sect. 6.1.1): a cluster where me or te intervenes between se and lo is thus generally viewed as ungrammatical (Rivera-Castillo 1997:€256; Seuren 1976:€23; García 1975:€475), cf. (7.1) A tu hijo la guerra le complicó la vida, pero a mi hijo no *se me la complicó (Perlmutter 1971:€70). ‘Your son, the war complicated his life, but to my (me, Datposs) son, it did not complicate it (la Acc) to him (se Dat)’ Despite Seuren’s dismissal of spur. se me lo as “too marginal and too much in a limbo of uncertainty to constitute sound evidence for or against any theory” (1976:€23), the cluster critically argues against the reflexive value generally attributed to se. J. Harris’ stipulation that spur. se arises only in adjacency to an Acc -l clitic (1996:€178, 173) does rule out a spur. se + me + lo cluster, but cannot prevent one with either a refl. or an imp. se: postulation of homonymous se’s would thus be strongly supported if se me lo proved unacceptable only when se is “spurious”. Our analysis predicts that a se me lo cluster should be easiest to process when se defeases focus (cf. Sect. 6.4.3), for in that case the only participant playing a Dat role is me; when se does refer to an extra Dative, the cluster should prove acceptable as long as the identification of se’s referent is not imperilled by the presence of the Dat me (cf. Sect. 5.4). This prediction clearly differs from the traditional proscription of only spur. se + me + lo.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

7.1.1 Negative reference of se: imp. se + me lo The cluster se me lo is admitted to be fully acceptable under a focus-defeasing interpretation of se (cf. Wanner 1994:€20, fn.18; Perlmutter 1971:€29), as in (7.2) Situation: two politicians discussing a hush-hush affair A: No me explico cómo tanta gente pueda saber del asunto. El único a estar enterado era...ejem...bueno... B: A mí se me lo dijo hace tres semanas ya. ‘A: I do not understand how so many people can have heard about the affair. The only one to know was...hm...well... B: I was told about it (lit.: ‘one’[se] told it [lo] me [me]) already three weeks ago.’ Here A is so close to identifying the unnamed X that if B failed to resort to se, and uttered  me lo dijo, he would be understood implicitly to agree with A’s unvoiced suspicions as to the source of the leak.

7.1.2 Positive reference of Dat se: se lo + me The variable acceptability of se me lo under a reflexive reading of se is generally ignored. Now (7.3) se me las lavó a. ?? ‘He washed them (his own hands) ‘on’ me’ [se = Dataff, me = Di] b. ???/* ‘He willingly, boastingly washed them (my hands, DO) for himself ’ [se = Di, me = Datposs] allows two different readings of the “reflexively” referring Dat se: in (7.3a), the 1st person plays a Di role, while the p.i.f. possesses the hands referred to by Acc las; in (7.3b) me is the owner of the hands, and the 3rd ps p.i.f. is involved in a quasi Dataff capacity (cf. Sect. 5.4.2). The allotment of the two Dat roles is thus more congruent in (7.3a), which was greatly preferred to (7.3b) by our informants, who however did not find the cluster really acceptable under either interpretation, despite the reflexive reference of se. A similar rationale explains the difference in acceptability between two other “reflexive” instances of se me lo, where the semantic difference between the verbs traer ‘bring’ and llevar ‘take’ favours different roles for the Dat me: (7.4) ?? se me lo trajo ‘He brought it (with him) to me (me = Datobj)’ (se + [me lo trajo]) (7.5) OK se me lo llevó ‘He took it away with him (curses/hurrah!) (me = Di)’ ([se lo llevó] + me) In the less acceptable (7.4) the event traer ‘bring’ highlights the end-point of the movement begun by the p.i.f., thus suggesting as an IO somebody other than the p.i.f.: this makes the 1st person the best candidate for the role of Datobj recipient of lo, but leaves



Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se 

no obvious Dat role for the “reflexive” se to play. In (7.5), conversely, llevar ‘take, carry’ highlights the starting point of the motion, and thus provides a motivation for double mentioning the p.i.f. (cf. Sect. 4.1), which in turn allows the 1st person to assume the Di rather than a Datobj role. The role/referent allotment is consequently less congruent in (7.4) than in the more acceptable (7.5) (cf. Sect. 5.4.2). It is evident that co-reference between se and the p.i.f. does not guarantee the acceptability of the se me lo cluster:1 in fact, a “spurious” reading of se is preferred when the event presupposes a Datobj distinct from the p.i.f. Two different role/referent allotments of the Peripheral roles are possible in (7.6) se me lo vendió ‘se me it sold’ a. ??? me = Datobj; se = Di, qua p.i.f., ‘he up and (Di) sold it to me (Datobj)’ (refl. se + [me lo]) b. ? me = Di, ex officio; se = Datobj, and thus ≠ p.i.f. ‘he sold it to her (Datobj) ‘on’ me’ (Di); (me + [spur. se lo]) In (7.6b), where se is “spurious”, the Datobj role falls to a 3*rd person, which allows the 1st person to claim a Di role rather than the Datobj one forced on him in (7.6a): against all mainstream predictions, the greater congruency of the role allotment makes the (7.6b) interpretation preferable. Since a “spurious” reading of se is inevitable with non-3rd ps verbs, all analysts rule out the combination se me lo V1/2, but in a supporting context it nonetheless proved acceptable to native speakers of different standard varieties of Spanish,2 cf. (7.7) ¡Cómo se puede ser tan tonta! A todos nos conviene que el jefe no se entere de lo que pasó: yo sobre todo quedaría muy mal.€Ya pensábamos que todo estaba arreglado cuando vos, pedazo de infeliz, ¡vas y se me lo contás! ‘How can one be so stupid! It is in the interest of us all that the boss should not find out about what happened; I, in particular, would lose face badly. We were all hoping that the matter was settled, when – fool that you are – you must go and tell him [about] it “on” me!’ Our informant PR accepted (7.7) unconditionally, and further characterized the cluster as the only possible formulation given the situation at issue: se lo contás would have been inappropriate because “too objective”. (7.7) did not prove fully acceptable to F. Klein-Andreu, another speaker of Castilian Spanish, who went so far as to prefer the sub-standard ordering *me se lo contás.3 The fact that me se lo transparently decomposes into me + se lo, with the 1st ps Di iconically set off from the 3*rd ps Dat + Acc cluster, greatly facilitates the processing of the three-clitic sequence.4 The mainstream position on se is further undermined by the fact that addition of an a-phrase favours the proscribed 3*rd ps interpretation of se me lo. Clitic-duplication

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

of an a-phrase accounts for the presence of se and thus simplifies the processing of the cluster, but precludes that clitic’s reflexive reference. A duplicating a-phrase makes the se me lo cluster almost fully acceptable when a 3*rd ps interpretation is enforced by a 1st or 2nd ps p.i.f., cf. (7.8)

Mi novia ya no me quiere: estoy seguro que fuiste vos que ?sei me la presentaste a Pedroi Dat Di Acc Dat ‘My girl-friend doesn’t care for me any more: I’m sure that it was you that introduced her to Pedro [=him] ‘on’ me (Di)’

(7.9) Estoy seguro que fuiste vos que??? se me la presentaste Dat Dat Acc ‘I’m sure that it was you that introduced her??? to me??? to him’ In (7.8) the IO to whom the DO ‘she’ was introduced is sure to be Pedro: but with se duplicating the a-phrase in the IO role, me can be seen as a Di, with fully congruent allotment of the Dat roles to 1st and 3*rd persons. In the absence of an a-phrase, as in (7.9), se’s referent is less accessible, and me is free to claim the Datobj IO role; that makes the cluster less easily interpretable and less acceptable. Addition of an a-phrase favours a “spurious” over a reflexive interpretation of se even when the p.i.f. is a 3rd person (Sect. 6.4.1), cf. the unequal acceptability of (7.10) sej me los comprói a Maríaj ? 3*rd Dat Di Acc 3rd p.i.f Dat ‘Hei bought them (Acc) from/for Maryj (se = her, Dat) curses! (me = Di)’ (7.11) sei me los comprói a Maríaj a. * ‘He bought them from Mary (Datobj) for himself (se, Dataff ) ‘on’ me (Di)’ b. ** ‘He (exultingly, se = Di) bought them (Acc) for me (me = Daff ) from Mary (Datobj)’ While se me lo is almost acceptable in (7.10), where se is “spurious”, it becomes totally unacceptable under the reflexive interpretations of the clitic in (7.11a,b). The reason is simply that in the former case only two distinct Dat participants are involved, i.e. the 1st person and the doubly-referred to Mary, while in the latter there are three: the 1st person, the p.i.f. double-mentioned with se, and Mary, referred to by the unduplicated a-phrase. The need to sort out three distinct Peripheral involvements makes (7.11) harder to process than (7.10), with only two; (7.11b) is least acceptable because the Dat role-allotment is incongruent. That the addition of a potentially clitic-duplicating a-phrase should improve the acceptability of se me lo in a 3rd ps VC is understandable if easy role/referent allotment is a prerequisite for the communicative viability of a clitic cluster; it is totally arbitrary under the assumption of homophonous se’s.

Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se 



7.2 Non-uses of se Se can be used either to defease focus, or to refer positively to a non-focus 3(*)rd ps participant; in the latter case the VC must provide of itself some reliable clue as to the referent’s identity. If the VC fails to specify either se’s case-role or his identity, the semantically vacuous clitic remains uninterpretable within the bounds of the VC, and the processing of the utterance breaks down at its very inception, cf. (7.12) ***se maté se I killed ???’I killed him; he killed himself; I killed myself ’

7.2.1 Impossible reference by se to a 3*rd person As argued in Sect. 6.4.2, when the DO is referred to lexically, beyond the VC, it cannot establish the case-role of se’s referent already within the VC. Consequently, (7.13) *** se compré el libro ‘I bought her the book’ is as uninterpretable as (7.12). The same thing holds for any clustering of se with le or a case-neutral clitic, for neither one forces a specific case on se’s referent, cf. (7.14) *** se me presentaste5 ??’You introduced me to him/her/them // him/her/them to me’ (7.15) *** se le hablarás ?’You will speak to her on his account// to him on her account’ or Franco and Landa’s (1995:€110–11) * se le hice hablar ‘I made him speak to her’. Since a 1st or 2nd ps p.i.f. cannot be referred to by se, both the clitic and the VC as a whole are left in an inferential/referential lurch.6 The cluster in (7.15) is unviable from the Speaker’s perspective as well: 3*rd ps participants who play distinct roles, such as Dat vs. Acc, can be iconically differentiated by recourse to se in reference to the Peripheral participant (cf. Sect. 6.4.1.3), but how is one to distinguish between equally topical 3*rd persons who play equally Peripheral roles? Which of the two rates reference with case- and number-explicit le, rather than with se?7 *Le lo and * (spur.) se le are equally impossible because, unlike se lo, they hinder rather than aid the identification of se’s referent.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

7.3 Impossible *se se clusters The postulation of three homophonous se’s, i.e. “spurious”, impersonal, and “reflexive”, implicitly predicts their potential, but de facto impossible cumulation.8 The different possible combinations are illustrated below; for each we provide one or more acceptable alternatives: (7.16)

* se se foc. def. dm (= DO) OK Uno se lastima Se lastima a sí mismo ‘One hurts oneself’

lastima

(7.17)

* se se foc. def. IO = p.i.f. OK Uno se lo compra ? Se lo compra para sí mismo ‘One buys it for oneself’

lo compra

(7.18)

* se se foc. def. IO ≠ p.i.f. OK Uno se lo compra ? Se lo compra a él ‘(Some)one buys it from him’

lo compra

(7.19)

* Juan se se Dataff = p.i.f. Datobj ≠ p.i.f. OK Juan lo compró de ella para sí ‘John bought it from her for himself’

lo compró

(7.20)

* se se Dataff ≠ p.i.f Datobj ≠ p.i.f OK Se lo compraste para ellos ‘You bought it from her for them’

lo compraste

(7.21)

**se se se foc. def. Dataff = p.i.f. Datobj ≠ p.i.f. OK Uno se lo compra para sí mismo ?? Se lo compra a ella para sí mismo ‘One buys it from her for oneself’

lo compra

Se’s inability to recur within the same VC under different interpretations follows, in the first place, from the referential- and role-distinctness presumed by the VC, which rules out iteration of any clitic (cf. Sect. 3.1): such a cluster would require the Hearer to perform cognitive tours de force.9

Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se 



The reading in (7.18) is the least demanding one, for the inferential routines are not so blatantly incompatible as in the case of (7.16). (7.17) shares the interpretational problem raised by (7.16), for the identity of the p.i.f. qua agent must be irrelevant, while his involvement as a non-focus participant is not. What dooms (7.19) and (7.20) is that in both the same clitic refers to distinct Dat participants: if reference to two 3*rd ps Datives is impossible with a se le cluster (cf. Sect. 7.2.1), it will be even less feasible when the same clitic is iterated. (7.21), finally, cumulates the difficulties of (7.17, 18, and 19).10

7.4 Context-dependence of se’s diverse interpretations Se’s absolute non-occurrences (Sects. 7.2, 7.3) have been shown to follow from the interpretative routines discussed in Sect. 6.4, which make context-dependent sense of se’s lack of positive meaning. The discourse-motivated distribution of “spurious” as against “reflexive” Dative interpretation was discussed at length in Sect. 6.4.1; we will now examine potentially ambiguous syntagms which admit imp. se as one of their readings.

7.4.1 se V3sg A focus defeasing interpretation is favoured when the overall context makes the potential p.i.f.’s case-role – generally an agentive one – more relevant than his identity, while the converse is true when se double mentions the p.i.f.11 Double mention vs. focus-defeasing readings of se are illustrated by the pair (7.22)

–Y qué hubo de la torta? – () [Se quemó]! ‘–And what about that cake? –It (got) burnt!’

(7.23) En ese guerra pasamos de todo: se [mataba], se [violaba], se [quemaba], se... para qué hablar! ‘In that war we went through all sorts of horrors: killings, rape, arson, (lit: [someone] killed, [someone] raped, [someone] burnt], one... what’s the point of talking!’ The two readings follow respectively from the availability vs. absence in the larger context of an easily accessible referent for the verb-ending of quemar, and the concomitant irrelevance vs. relevance of role-differentiation in the event. Only the state of the cake matters in (7.22), while anonymous unidentifiable agents are responsible for the outrages in (7.23).

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

7.4.2 se V3sg NP The two readings contrasted in Sect. 7.4.1 are also possible in utterances with a bare sg. NP, which is interpreted as p.i.f. when double mentioned by se, but as non-focus DO under a focus-defeasing interpretation of the clitic, cf. (7.24) Cuando nos aproximamos a la casa todo estaba tranquilo, y no se veía un alma. De pronto [se abrió] la puerta, chirriando sobre sus goznes: pese a la oscuridad vimos que sobre la mesa ardía una vela y... ‘When we approached the house everything was quiet, and there was not a soul around. Suddenly the door opened, squeaking on its hinges: despite the darkness we saw that on the table a candle was burning and...’ (double-mention reading of se) (7.25) Debido a la sólita incuria, la ceremonia comenzó con horas de retraso. Desde el alba la gente se apelmazaba delante el palacio, pero recién a mediodía se [abrió] el gran portón central, se [desenrolló] un largo tapiz hasta la calzada y comenzaron a salir los primeros porta-estandartes de la larga procesión. ‘Due to the usual inefficiency the ceremony began hours too late. From early dawn, people crowded and jostled in front of the palace, but it was not till noon that “one” opened the big central doors, “one” unrolled a long runner up to the street, and the first standard-bearers of the long procession began to step out.’ (imp. se) A double-mention reading of se in (7.24) is inevitable, given that neither preceding nor subsequent context suggests a likely agent; furthermore, the reference to the squeaking hinges highlights the door’s self-sufficiency in its own opening: la puerta ‘the door’ can thus only be interpreted as p.i.f. of abrir. Conversely, some unknowable agent is prefigured in (7.25), for the earlier context emphasizes the poor organization of the ceremony; its participants are duly focussed on as soon as they are easily distinguishable by the impatient public.

7.4.3 se lo V3sg The critical question raised by this syntagm is how the presence of Acc lo can fail to impose Dative case on se: what steers the Hearer, in interpreting se, towards positive reference to a non-focus Dat participant, vs. non-referential focus-defeasing? In processing se los fusiló ‘se’ them (Acc) shot (3rd p. sg) the first and unavoidable effect of lo’s presence in a VC is to make clear that some agent is responsible for the role-polarized event (cf. Sect. 3.2.2), regardless of who the p.i.f. may be. Se can then be processed along two distinct inferential routes:



Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se 

(7.26) a. se [los fusiló] ‘they were shot; ‘someone’ shot them’ b. (i) i [sei los fusilói] ‘he (eg. the sadistic colonel) shot them for himself’ (ii) i [sej los fusilói] ‘he (eg. the sadistic colonel) shot them for her’ The (a) reading results when the context fails to supply an obvious candidate to the role of agentive p.i.f.: as a result, se’s semantic vacuity neutralizes the focus projected by the verb-ending. But with the clitic’s value taken up in the processing of the verbending, it cannot also assume, within the VC, a non-focus role in syntagmatic contrast with lo: se consequently cannot refer to any Dat participant in the event. Conversely, the interpretations in (7.26b) result when an appropriate referent for the verb-ending is identifiable in context, and the absence of explicit reference to the p.i.f. is taken as vouching for his salience (cf. Sect. 6.4.3.2). But in that case, se’s presence in the VC only makes sense if it refers – positively – to whoever plays a contextually relevant Dat role: that may be the p.i.f. (7.26bi), or someone else (7.26bii). 7.4.3.1 se lo V3sg: imp. se vs. refl. se A focus-defeasing reading of se follows automatically when the context provides no obvious candidate for the p.i.f. role; conversely, the greater the contextual salience of the agent, the more likely se is to refer to him in a Dative capacity, simply because actions are generally undertaken for the sake of an expected benefit. This accounts for the preferred interpretation of se in different contexts, cf. (7.27) Pese a las muchas amenazas enviadas a la redacción de su periódico, ese ingenuo de Guzmán seguía protestando (.) ‘Despite the many threats arriving at the bureau of his newspaper, that naive Guzmán character continued to speak out a. Como era de esperar, se lo mató. ‘As was only to be expected, he was killed (lit: one killed him; imp. se)’ b. ... en contra del Gobierno: como era de esperar, se lo mató ‘... against the government: as was only to be expected, he was killed (lit: one killed him; imp. se)’ c. ... en contra del Presidente: como era de esperar, se lo mató ‘... against the President: as was only to be expected, he was killed (lit: one killed him; imp. se / He (the President) killed him for his own benefit; se = p.i.f in Dat role)’ d. ... en contra del jefe de la banda de narcotraficantes, un tipo muy vengativo: como era de esperar, se lo mató ‘... against the drug-trafficking boss, a very vindictive guy: as was only to be expected, he, i.e. the boss, killed him for his own benefit (se = p.i.f. in Dat role)

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

The clearer it is from the context who specifically benefits by Guzmán’s death, the more probable a “reflexive” Dative interpretation of se becomes (cf. Sect. 6.4.1), for the beneficiary is plausibly seen as the likely agent of mató. That is why in the absence of further context, (7.27c) remains ambiguous, for while the President’s benefit is clear enough, there is insufficient information as to how far he is directly responsible for the killing. 7.4.3.2 se lo V3sg: imp. se vs. spur. se The assumption that the Datben is referentially identical with the p.i.f. of the event is naturally overruled when the context provides an obvious agent who is not the one to benefit most from the event, cf. (7.28) Pese a las muchas amenazas que le llegaban a la redacción de su periódico, ese ingenuo de Guzmán seguía protestando en contra del jefe de los narcotraficantes, un tipo vengativo que tiene un sicario muy eficiente. Como era de esperar, i sej lo matói. ‘Despite the many threats that arrived at the bureau of his newspaper, that naive Guzmán character continued to speak out against the drug-trafficking boss, a vindictive guy who has a very efficient trigger-man. As was only to be expected, he (the trigger man, p.i.f.) killed him (lo) for him (se = the boss)’ (7.28) differs from (7.27a), with imp. se, in that the context provides an obvious candidate for the role of agentive p.i.f., and from (7.27d) in that this p.i.f. is not the most obvious candidate for a Datben role, which must thus fall to a 3*rd person. But how is se lo V3sg interpreted if the context provides a bona fide candidate for the non-focus Dative role, but none for the agentive p.i.f.? Can se be interpreted as referring “spuriously” while the verb-ending is as it were left hanging, undefeased, though no agentive p.i.f. is suggested by the context? If we are right in claiming that the interpretation of the VC infallibly begins with the processing of the verb-ending and the allotment of focus (Sect. 3.1), the answer to that question must be: no; after all, focus allotment is logically prior to the case-role differentiation of non-focus participants (Sect. 3.2). We consequently predict that when focus-defeasing interpretation of se is at all possible, it will take precedence over a spur. se reading, i.e. “spurious” interpretation of se is possible only if the event has a bona fide p.i.f.12 Our informants PR and ACh agree with us in finding the imp. se interpretation inevitable when the context contains no obvious candidate for the role of p.i.f., regardless how strongly the Peripheral involvement of a specific 3rd* person is suggested, cf.



Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se 

(7.29)?? Pese a varias llamadas anónimas que le aconsejaban el silencio, el pobre Guzmán siguió protestando contra los negociados, para gran preocupación de su madre, que sufrió lo indecible cuando se lo mató. ‘Despite several anonymous calls that advised him to keep quiet, poor Guzmán continued to speak out against corruption, to the great concern of his mother, who suffered unspeakably when he was killed (“one” killed him)’ With Guzmán’s mother ruled out as her son’s killer, nobody is left to claim the role of assassin. But with se automatically interpreted as defeasing focus, it becomes impossible to refer to the obviously relevant grief of Guzman’s mother at her son’s killing. (7.29) is thus far less felicitous than (7.30) Pese a varias llamadas anónimas que le aconsejaban el silencio, el pobre Guzmán siguió protestando contra los negociados, para gran preocupación de su madre, que sufrió lo indecible cuando se lo mataron. ‘Despite several anonymous calls that advised him to keep quiet, poor Guzmán continued to speak out against corruption, to the great concern of his mother, who suffered unspeakably when he was killed (“they” killed him “on” her)’ Here the 3rd ps pl. verb-ending makes imprecise – but positive – reference to Guzmán’s unnamed enemies; se is consequently not taken up in the interpretation of the verb-ending and can thus refer to the victim’s mother. This suggests that Hearers must be relied on not only congruently to allot roles to referents in individual utterances, but to do so on the basis of the overall relative relevance of focus against case-role considerations in the VC’s overall context. What makes (7.29) unacceptable is that the imprecise se lo mató leaves unhonoured expectations raised in the larger context. Se can be exploited as fully as it is because Speakers tend to produce overall consistent, non-contradictory discourse, whose internal coherence steers the Hearer’s interpretation of a specific VC-in-context. But it cannot be exploited beyond that limit, as when it is iterated under different senses: not merely because of the VC’s morphological finiteness, but fundamentally because a multiple-se cluster would require iterated computation in terms of competing contextual traits that are hard to reconcile or rank. What fundamentally rules out a cumulation of se’s, then, is se’s quintessential context-dependence: the larger contexts that can properly support se’s different interpretations necessarily stand in pragmatic complementary distribution, the inferential routines responsible for the interpretations being by definition cognitively distinct. And a totally neutral context, which provides no pointers to the relative relevance of diverse semantic parameters, would leave a *se se cluster as inferentially stranded as the single se is in the clue-less VC’s of (7.12, 13). In short: the non-occurrence of *se se clusters is a pseudo problem, born of the attempt to analyze syntax “autonomously”, i.e. by putting aside both the morphology

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

of the items aligned, and the larger text within which the syntagm serves its communicative purpose.

7.5 The interpretation of se in non-finite VC’s Independent non-finite verbal forms, i.e. Infinitives and Gerunds, do not in themselves claim the existence of a specific p.i.f. (cf. Sánchez López 2002:€43), and are thus, in principle, in no need of se as a focus-defeaser (Mendikoetxea 1999:€1705–11). Infinitival PP’s that serve as adverbial adjuncts, however, do admit an explicit imp. se, but only when the verb is transitive, cf. Mendikoetxea (1999:€1714–15), some of whose examples we quote: (7.31) a. Al saberse los resultados, la gente empezó a celebrar la victoria (1999:€1714 eg. 87b) ‘When the results became known (lit: At “one” to know the results), people began to celebrate the victory b. Con encarcelarse al drogadicto, parece que ya se soluciona el problema (1999:€1714 eg. 87c) ‘With the drug-addict locked up (lit: With “one” to jail the drug-addict), it seems that the problem is solved’ (7.32) a. Después de gritar(*se) y protestar(*se), se acabó aceptando la propuesta (1999:€1714 eg. 88a) ‘After shouting and protesting (lit: after to shout “one” and protest “one”), “one” ended by accepting the offer’ b. Con ser(*se) bueno, no se consigue nada (1999:€1714 eg. 88b) ‘Being good (lit: with “one” to be good), “one” gets nowhere’ The possibility of resorting to imp. se is even more restricted with a Gerund, which must not only be transitive, but further admit perfective interpretation, cf. MendikoeÂ� txea’s examples: (7.33) Convocándose elecciones generales, se logró calmar el clima del país (1999:€1714 eg. 89a) ‘By “one” holding general elections, “one” succeeded in calming down the mood of the country’ (7.34) Convocándo(?/*se) elecciones generales, no se consigue nada (1999:€1714 eg. 89b) ‘By holding general elections, “one” does not get anywhere’



Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se 

As seen earlier, in finite VC’s se defeases focus, regardless of the verb’s transitivity, cf. (7.35) Se lo supo ‘It became known; “one” learnt it’ (7.36) Se grita cuando no se tiene razón ‘“One” shouts when “one” does not have reason on one’s side’ (7.37) Si se es bueno, conviene también ser listo ‘If “one” is good, it is also useful to be smart’ Why the transitivity of the event makes a difference in non-finite VC’s, and why Infinitives are more hospitable to imp. se than Gerunds cannot be determined without detailed analysis of the syntax of the non-finite forms, something that by far exceeds the scope of our study. The variable need for explicit focus-defeasing nonetheless appears to correlate with the likelihood of conceptualizing an actual agent, an impersonal reading of se becoming progressively less plausible, the less need there is explicitly to defease focus. Postulation of a p.i.f. is by definition most likely in finite VC’s, where the verbending allots focus: that is neutralizable only by the nature of the event per se, or by explicit recourse to se. Though an identifiable p.i.f. is not presupposed in non-finite VC’s, it is more easily envisaged with Infinitives, which are more verb-like than Gerunds; and it is also more likely to be suggested by transitive verbs, which imply an agent, than by intransitive or copulative verbs. It is thus understandable that Gerunds should stand in need of a focus-defeasing se only under the most agent-presumptive conditions, i.e. a transitive event that has actually taken place. The distributional difference noted by Mendikoetxea (1999) is well illustrated by two examples involving the cluster se lo: with the Infinitive, se is interpreted as effacing a potential agent, agentiveness as such being highly relevant in context; with the Gerund, se refers to a 3*rd ps Dat, the context obviously providing an appropriate candidate for that role. In (7.38) Cuatro 144 Se fueron en el tilburi. El auto hacía tres años que estaba en el galpón, sin poder usárselo porque no había repuestos para el carburador. ‘They left in the tilbury [a sort of gig]. It was already three years that the car stood in the barn, without [anyone] being able to use it (lo) because there were no spares for the carburetor.’ The context highlights the general unavailability of the car to all potential users, including the people forced to leave in the gig. Se clearly does not double mention the car, for that is referred to by lo; nor can se be taken to refer to an implicit p.i.f. playing a Dat role, because no candidate for such a role is suggested by the context.13

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

But se does not defease focus in (7.39) Inquietudes 63 «Gran vergüenza sería – dice el Dante – para aquel que rimase algo bajo vestido de figura o de color retórico el que, pidiéndoselo, no supiese desnudar sus palabras de tal vestido, de manera que tuviesen claro sentido» ‘«It would be a true disgrace – says Dante – for him who rhymes something under the guise of a figure, or of rhetorical colour, if, when being asked it (lit: [someone] requesting it him [Dat]) he should be unable to denude his words of that vest, that they might make clear sense»’ Here the poet of whom something is asked is much more relevant to the Speaker, i.e. Dante, himself a poet, than is the anonymous requester: se is thus immediately taken to refer to the topical poet, in a non-focus Dative role. A Gerund, then, does allow a Dat 3*rd ps reading of selo in the absence of any specific p.i.f., unlike what is possible with a finite verb, which by definition focusses on a participant (cf. Sect. 7.4.3.2. à propos of eg. [7.29]).

7.6 Independent support for the analysis of se In sections 6.3 and 6.4 we claimed that se’s lack of positive referential content allows the form to be used 1. positively: to refer to a 3(*)rd ps non focus participant who is as accessible in context as the 1st and 2nd persons are; 2. negatively: not to refer to anybody, in the focus role where a specific participant is pre-eminently expected. There are at least three ways in which the clitic’s positive use differs morphosyntactically from its negative exploitation, thus arguing in favour of the inferential routines to which we have attributed the diverse interpretations of se.

7.6.1 Clitic duplication and the positive/negative reference of se An extra-VC a-phrase, which always refers positively to a non-focus participant (cf. Sect. 4.2.2), can duplicate a positive reference by “Dat” se, or a double mention of the p.i.f. Such clitic duplication is naturally ruled out when se defeases focus allotment,14 cf. (7.40) Juana se lo confesó a él ‘Juana confessed it to him’ (7.41) Juana se lo confesó a sí misma ‘Juana admitted it to herself’

Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se 



(7.42) Se lava a sí misma a. ‘She washes herself’ b. ‘She does her own washing, i.e. she washes for herself ’ (7.43) Se lava y se plancha (**** a sí mismo): $10 el Kg de ropa ‘Washing and ironing done: $10 per kilo clothes’ (7.44) En España se come bien (**** a sí mismo) ‘It’s good eating in Spain (lit: in Spain “one” eats well)’ The fact follows automatically from the nature of focus-defeasing, but remains idiosyncratic within the traditional analysis of imp. se as a “reflexive” clitic.

7.6.2 Clitic order Imp. se invariably occurs as the first clitic in a cluster, but inversion of refl. se with me and te is widely attested in substandard use (Real Academia 1989:€427; Wanner 1994:€5; Rivera Castillo 1997:€242, 243, 253–4),15 though it is observed only in proclisis (Rivera Castillo 1997:€243), cf. (7.45) me se cayó ‘It fell down ‘on’ me’ To illustrate enclisis we resort to an auxiliary periphrasis (abbreviated aux-per), where the main Verb appears in the Infinitive, to which enclisis is obligatory (cf. ch. 2).16 (7.46) Cuidado con ese florero, puede caérsete *caértese ‘Watch out with that flower vase, it can fall down ‘on’ you’ That se’s closeness to the verb stem should depend on its actual interpretation is inexplicable if se is equally “reflexive” in double mention and focus-defeasing. But the distributional skewing does become intelligible if se’s different interpretations are the result of distinct inferential routines, for placement of se next to the role-suggesting verb-stem favours inferential association of the two. Such an association is particularly useful under double mention, which highlights the p.i.f.’s non-focus involvement, the exact nature of which depends on the verb stem; it is not motivated under focus defeasing, for here se bears on the processing of the verb-ending. It is probably not accidental that se adjoins the verbal root only under double mention.

7.6.3 Cliticization of se in auxiliary periphrases Our analysis is supported most strongly by the distribution of clitics in complex VP’s consisting of finite + non-finite verbal forms, in particular aux-per’s, for these admit the appearance at the finite auxiliary of both single clitics and clitic clusters semantically associated with the non-finite main Verb.17

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

It is unanimously agreed that if one clitic “climbs” from the Infinitive to the finite Auxiliary, the rest of the cluster must follow suit (cf. Bolinger 1949:€255; Aissen and Rivas 1975:€3; Rivera Castillo 1997:€257; Fernández Soriano 1999:€1257; Gómez Torrego 1999:€3332). The reason for such wholesale fronting is obvious: clitics are morphologically bound to a verb-stem, which defines the non-focus roles played by the different participants involved in the same event. The syntagmatic contrast between those non-focus roles links the referring clitics to each other, and is iconically expressed by their joint appearance in the same VC. The basic possibilities for a cluster of explicitly non-focus clitics are thus (7.47) a. b. c. d.

OK quiero comérmela OK me la quiero comer ****me quiero comerla ****la quiero comerme ‘I want to eat it up’

Exactly the same pattern is shown by referentially positive interpretations of se, i.e. refl. and spur. se: (7.48) a. b. c. d.

OK puede caérseme OK se me puede caer ****se puede caerme ****me puede caerse ‘It can fall down “on” me’

(7.49) a. b. c. d.

quiero dárselo se lo quiero dar ****le/se quiero darlo ****lo quiero darle/se ‘I want to give it to him’

However, imp. se does not refer positively to a non-focus participant, for it bears on the interpretation of the verb-ending (Sect. 6.4.3, 7.4–5). Where, then, should it stand in an aux-per: at the finite auxiliary, where the verb-ending appears, or at the non-finite main verb, clustering with a clitic reference to a bona fide non-focus participant?18 The focus-defeasing interpretation is obviously facilitated if se stands as close as possible to its inferential partner, i.e. the verb-ending, by cliticizing to the finite auxiliary, rather than to the Infinitive main Verb. That explains the unequal acceptability of (7.50) a. OK Se puede hablar con el doctor? b. ? Puede hablarse con el doctor? ‘Is it possible to speak to the doctor?’

Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se 



(7.51) a. OK En España siempre se quiere bailar b. *En España siempre quiere bailarse ‘In Spain “one” always wants to dance’ (7.52) Con el ruido que hacen en la calle, a. OK no se puede trabajar b. *no puede trabajarse ‘With all that noise in the street, “one” cannot work’ cf. Sánchez López (2002:€44) and Mendikoetxea (1999:€1711–12), who are unaware of the implications of these facts.19 With imp. se native speakers unquestionably prefer clitic disjunction to conjoint clustering at the Infinitive (Bolinger 1949:€257), cf (7.53) a. se quiere saberlo b. ?/* quiere sabérselo ‘One wants to know it’ (7.54) a. se puede creerlo b. ?/* puede creérselo ‘One can believe it’ Our informants PR and ACh furthermore gave the following acceptability ratings: (7.55)

María quiere un collar de perlas: su marido es tan rico que a. OK puede comprárselo b. OK se lo puede comprar c. * se puede comprarlo d. ** lo puede comprarse ‘Mary wants a pearl necklace and her husband is so wealthy that he can buy it for her’ (spur. se)

(7.56)

María quiere un collar de perlas: es tan rica que a. OK puede comprárselo b. OK se lo puede comprar c. * se puede comprarlo d. ** lo puede comprarse ‘Mary wants a pearl necklace and she is so wealthy that she can buy it for herself’ (refl. se)

(7.57) Professor: ¡En esta biblioteca no hay ningún ejemplar del Quijote! ¡Esto es un escándalo que no tiene nombre! Librarian: El problema es que faltan fondos: si los hubiera, a. OK se podría comprarlo b. ?? se lo podría comprar c. ?? podría comprárselo

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

d. ** lo podría comprarse ‘Professor: In this library there is no copy of the Quijote! This is a crying shame! Librarian: The problem is that there is no money: if there were, “one” would be able to buy it’ (imp. se) It is obvious that when defeasing focus, se preferentially – and iconically – cliticizes to the finite Aux, while the event-bound Acc lo stands at the non-finite main Verb.20 We are by no means claiming that the focus-defeasing exploitation of se prevents it from clustering with another clitic at the finite auxiliary, nor are we denying that in a suitable context both clitics may appear at the Infinitive (Bolinger 1949:€258–9): the point we are making is that 1. se, and only se, may appear disjoint from other clitics in auxiliary + Infinitive structures, and that this possibility arises 2. only when se defeases focus, and hence cannot refer positively to a non-focus 3(*)rd ps participant (cf. Sect. 7.4.3). The interpretation-conditioned placement of se in auxiliary periphrases strongly supports the inferential routes we have postulated to account for the clitic’s various uses; it remains arbitrary within the traditional analysis.

7.7 Disjoint se.....se sequences in auxiliary periphrases The fact that clitic disjunction is possible in aux-per’s makes it possible to test whether *se se clusters are ruled out by the essentially morpho-syntactic finiteness of VC’s, which precludes iteration of a clitic, or rather by the difficulty of processing the same clitic along different routines in relation to the same event. If the former were the case, disjunction of se’s should be totally acceptable in an aux-per, which refers to a single event. But if iteration of the clitic is prevented by the difficulty of reconciling distinct interpretations of se, disjoint se’s in an aux-per should be almost as bad as the single-VC *se se clusters discussed in Sect. 7.3. The sequence should conversely be fully acceptable if consecutive se’s relate to distinct events. Consider the unequal acceptability of (7.58) OK Juan [se va] [a comprárselo] dm Dat (= / ≠ p.i.f.) ‘John is going away (irse) to buy it for himself/from her (PP [a + Inf])’ (7.59) ??/* se [va a comprárselo] foc. def. 3*rd Dat; IO ≠ p.i.f. ‘It is gonna (aux-per: ir a Inf) be bought for him; “some one” (se) is gonna to buy it for him ‘



Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se 

In (7.58) the finite form of irse ‘to go away’ (cf. Sect. 4.1) does not coalesce with the Infinitival adjunct comprar ‘to buy’ introduced by a, so that the two can be seen as relatively independent events: processing the consecutive se’s presents no difficulty, and the se in comprárselo can freely refer positively, and either double mention the inferred p.i.f. of that Infinitive (cf. Sect. 7.5), or refer to a 3*rd person. (7.59), conversely, involves the aux-per ir a ‘gonna’ in reference to a single “buying” event: the first se, at the finite Aux va a ‘is gonna’ defeases focus, but the second, enclitic to the comprar ‘buy’, should refer positively to some Peripheral participant, possibly distinct from the defeased agent: this yields the same combination of senses illustrated by the impossible *se se cluster of eg. (7.18). Though (7.58) and (7.59) show precisely the same sequence of forms, the former is far more acceptable, because here the successive se’s are processed in relation to different events; conversely, se...se is ruled out when the clitic(s) must be processed differently in relation to one and the same event. *Se se clusters are in fact the limiting case of a continuum: the processing of multiple se’s, in relation to the same event, can be expected to increase in difficulty as the time available for their interpretation diminishes.21 We accordingly expect consecutive se’s in aux-per’s to prove more acceptable 1. the greater the temporal detachment of Aux from the main Verb (V) 2. the less similar the inferential manoeuvres at issue: focus defeasing followed by positive reference of se should be more acceptable than a sequence of positive references to some 3rd person(s).

7.7.1 Focus defeasing se followed by positively referring se The stronger the semantic bond between Aux and V, the likelier the two are to fuse, with a sequence of se’s increasingly resembling the impossible clusters of (7.16–18), cf. (7.60) ??/* Aquí se puede bañarse ‘Here one (se, focus-defeasing) is allowed to bathe (oneself = se)’ (7.61) Cuando se aspira a una bella sonrisa??/* se debe limpiarse los dientes después de cada comida ‘When one is aiming at a beautiful smile, one must brush one’s teeth after every meal’ (7.62) Recién cuando se advierten las primeras caries??se empieza a limpiarse los dientes después de cada comida22 ‘Only when one becomes aware of the first caries, “one” begins to brush one’s teeth after every meal’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(7.63) Fuegos 85 pero el campamento estaba momentáneamente a cubierto. Se pudo curar a los heridos, bañarse en el manantial, dormir, sobre todo dormir. ‘but the camp was safe, for the moment. One could (i.e. it was possible to) cure the wounded, (to) bathe (oneself) in the spring, (to) sleep, above everything else, (to) sleep.’ (7.64) se pudo examinar a los heridos, limpiar sus heridas, y vendárselas con los pocos trapos que quedaban. ‘One could (it was possible to) examine the wounded, clean their wounds, and tie them (= las) up for them (= se) with the few remaining rags.’23 In the barely possible (7.60–61), the Aux and the main V adjoin directly, so that the reference-defeasing and the double mention not only relate to one and the same single event (i.e. “being able to bathe”) but must be processed in very close succession. The unacceptability is somewhat smaller in (7.62), where a preposition is part of the auxper, and thus to some extent detaches the finite Aux from the infinitive V. In the acceptable (7.63), finally, the se at pudo ‘was able’ assumes its focus-defeasing interpretation in relation to the first subsequent infinitive, which is curar a los heridos ‘cure the wounded’;24 double mention of the anonymous agent takes place only at the second infinitive bañar en el manantial ‘bathe in the spring’,25 at which point the existence of a defocussed agent is contextually given, and carries over from the first infinitive.26 Our analysis of se accounts, then, for the fact that a combination of different interpretations of se becomes progressively more acceptable the less these are confined within a single VC: the difference in acceptability correlates with the unequal difficulty of the processing.

7.7.2 Consecutive positive interpretations of se As seen in Sect. 7.6.3, clitic references to participants involved in the same event must appear in the same VC; since one clitic cannot be fronted to Aux independently of the other(s), it is impossible to dissociate consecutive se’s which refer positively to participants involved in one and the same event, cf. (7.65) Cuando la amiga necesitaba un sombrero, María a la fuerza **se quiso prestárselo ‘When her friend needed a hat, Mary would (se, double mention) lend it to her (spur. se)’ (7.66) ** Juan se [va a comprár selo] dm 3*rd ps Dat (≠ p.i.f.) (cf. e.g. 7.20) a. ‘John is wilfully (dm Di) gonna buy it for him (3*rd Dat ≠ p.i.f.) b. John is gonna buy it from her (3*rd Dat ≠ p.i.f.) for himself (dm; Dataff )’

Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se 



However, a sequence of positively-referring se’s becomes increasingly acceptable if Aux and V do not truly fuse in reference to a single event, and Aux is increasingly disjoint from V, cf. (7.67) a. b.

?? se puso a pintarse las uñas ‘She started (lit: put herself) to paint her nails OK/?se quedó media hora pintándose las uñas ‘She spent (lit.: remained herself) half an hour painting her (se) nails’

Though in (7.67) both se’s double mention the same p.i.f., two different events are actually at issue. The double mention at poner ‘to put’ in (7.67a) and quedar ‘to remain’ in (7.67b) introverts those events, accounting for their aspectual value; this prevents the processing of the first se from interfering with the interpretation of the se which double-mentions the p.i.f. at the main V “painting”. A strung-out sequence of se’s is understandably easier to interpret, and becomes fully acceptable, when the disjoint clitics refer to distinct 3rd persons, cf. (7.68) A María le gusta mucho “El Rosario”, y cada vez que pasa, Pepe se pone a cantárselo. ‘Mary is very fond of «The rosary»; every time she comes along, Joe starts (lit. puts himself) to sing it to her’ (7.69) María tiene unas piernas preciosas, y cada vez que la encuentra, Pepe se queda mirándoselas. ‘Mary has lovely legs, and every time he runs into her, Joe stays (lit. remains himself) looking at them ‘on’ her’ It is even possible, though a little awkward, to resort to se thrice, in relation to distinct components of a complex VP: (7.70) ?? La serenata para María debía comenzar a las diez, pero recién a medianoche, cuando llegaron los mariachis, se pudo ponerse a dársela. ‘The serenade for María was due to begin at ten, but only at midnight, when the mariachis arrived, “one” (imp. se) could start [lit. put oneself, dm] to give it to her (Dat. se)’ The first se, at the finite modal auxiliary, prevents focus from falling on any agentive p.i.f.; the second se, enclitic to the non-finite auxiliary, double-mentions the (unidentifiable) p.i.f. and introverts poner ‘to put’, which thus takes on the aspectual value of ‘start’; the third se is attached to the infinitive main V, and refers to the 3*rd person most likely to receive the musical homage. Though one and the same se is interpreted in three different senses, the diverse interpretations take place in distinct VC’s, which makes the cumbersome (7.70) easier to process – and more acceptable – than (7.67) and, a fortiori, than (7.21).

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

The possibility of accounting for all and only the possible uses of se on the basis of the same inferential principles that account for clitic use generally, is offered as evidence that syntax is considerably less arbitrary than is often assumed, and that inferential computation is a crucial part of the interpretation of clitic clusters.

Notes to Ch. 7 1. Neither does the inherent reflexivity generally imputed to imp. se (cf. Sect. 6.4.3) explain why (7.2) should be so much better than any of the genuinely “reflexive” readings in (7.3, 4, 5). 2. Interpretation of a se me lo V2 sequence presupposes the factoring out of me, and thus a certain amoung of computation, rather than mere recognition of the lexicalized spur. se lo postulated by Brakel (1979:€664) and Company Company (1998:€532). 3. The ordering me se lo is attested in colloquial Madrid Spanish, under a “reflexive” reading of se (cf. Fernández 1951:€195 #104). 4. The non-standard me se lo sequence does not however add up to the juxtaposition of the very frequent substandard sequence me se with lo. The inversion se me > me se is observed only when the double-mentioning se role-levels the event (Sect. 7.6.2 below), but such role-levelling is incompatible with the presence of the explicitly Acc lo (cf. Sects. 4.1; 5.1.2). Me se lo must consequently be parsed as it is constructed, i.e. as an iconic sequencing of me (Di) + se lo. 5. This cluster is viewed as theoretically possible by Franco (2000:€178). Recall that, unlike the case-explicit lo, the case-neutral me lacks the power to polarize the event in the teeth of a double-mentioning clitic. That is why, as seen in Sect. 5.3.1.7, se me asoció admits only the reading ‘she associated herself to me (Dat)’ and not ‘she associated me to herself ’. 6. The acceptability of a two-Dative se le cluster, with se intended as reference to a 3*rd person, was checked with PR. She accepted a me le cluster without difficulty in (i) Necesito la ayuda de tu cuñado; quisiera que OK me le hables mañana mismo. ‘I need your brother in law’s help; I would like you to talk to him (‘Please’!) to-morrow and not a minute later’ She however emphatically rejected the corresponding se cluster, with reference to two equally 3*rd ps Datives (ii) María necesita la ayuda de tu cuñado: quiere que *** se le hables. ‘Mary needs your brother-in-law’s help; she wants you to talk to him [le/se] ‘for’ her [le/ se]’ PR, who is leísta, went so far as to propose (iii) quiere que se lo hables ‘she wants you to bespeak him (lo) for her (se)’ as preferable to (ii), for in (iii) the two 3*rd persons play distinct case-roles: rather than being “talked to” (Datobj), the brother in law is “talked into” as a DO. 7. The Buridan’s ass dilemma posed by *le lo for the Hearer (Sect. 6.4.1.3) would arise for a Speaker who attempted to produce *se le. 8. The impossibility of cumulating se’s follows perforce if a single se is diversely interpretable in different contexts (cf. Sects. 6.3, 6.4.3); it certainly does not when distinct but homonymous



Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se  se’s are postulated. An “autonomous morphology” (Bonet 1995) becomes necessary only under inadequate – because autonomous – syntactic analysis. 9. Equally impossible is simultaneous clitic reference to DO and OC in **la lo nombré ‘I called her it’ (Sect. 5.5.2), for that would require mutually incompatible applications of Central case. It is significant that, despite the formal distinctness of the three 3rd ps clitics, the French equivalent of (7.19) is totally unacceptable ?*Jean se le lui a acheté ‘John has bought it for her ‘on’ himself’ To the best of our knowledge, the equivalent – and morpho-syntactically possible – OSp se ge lo combination did not occur either. 10. If different inferences cannot be run from a sequence of se’s, one per instance of the clitic, it is most unlikely that distinct and sometimes contradictory inferences should be simultaneously drawable from a single se, as implicitly claimed by Gerlach (2002:€33, 133, 183), cf. Sect. 2.3.2. 11. For the sake of clarity, we present se as included in the VC when it double mentions the verb-ending, but outside it, blocking null reference to a potential p.i.f., when the verb-ending “agrees” with the focus defeasing se. 12. There does not appear to be any impersonal verb that requires or admits a se lo cluster (García 1975:€384). 13. Se might be thought to refer to the people who left in the tilbury, if these were understood as the p.i.f. of usar ‘to use’, but the identification is blocked by the focus placed on the car, on the basis of its general unavailability. If se is to refer to the tilbury travellers, they must be shown to be prominently involved – as Beneficiaries – in the use of the car, as in the following (clumsy) rewriting of the passage: Se fueron en el tilburi, renunciando al auto, no pudiendo???usárselo porque hacía tres años que estaba en el galpón, totalmente inservible, porque... ‘They left in the tilburi, giving up on the car, being unable to use it for themselves because it had already been three years in the barn, totally useless, because...’ Here se refers to the p.i.f. of se fueron ‘they left’ and the implicit p.i.f. of renunciando ‘giving up on’, who is further understood to be the implicit p.i.f. of pudiendo usar ‘being able to use’. What remains unsupported by the context is their claim to any Dat role in the event, for they are the only relevant users of the car. 14. An imp. se can naturally co-occur with a co-referential – but not duplicating – a-phrase, cf. (i) Se ayuda/hace bien a sí mismo cuando se ayuda/hace bien al prójimo. ‘One (p.i.f.) helps/does good to oneself (Dat) when one helps/does good to one’s fellowman’ (i) contrasts with (ii) 0 ayuda/hace bien a sí mismo quien ayuda/hace bien al prójimo. ‘(He/she) helps/does good (to) him/herself who helps/does good to his/her fellow man’ While intra- and extra-VC references can corefer (sections 4.3.4, 5.3.4), clitic duplication critically presupposes identity of case-role (Section 4.3). 15. The phenomenon is ignored by Harris J. in his discussion of clitic order (1996:€187–9). 16. The sub-standard me se order goes back to OSp freedom of clitic placement; the fixing of the grammaticalized clitics’ order developed by selection among the available alternatives

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs (cf. Rini 1995). Why in sub-standard use me se survived only in proclisis, while uniformity of ordering across pro- and enclisis is characteristic of the standard language, is a diachronic and sociolinguistic issue irrelevant to our current concern. 17. Considerable attention has been paid in the generative literature to clitic “climbing”, “movement” or “promotion” in complex VP’s such as auxiliary periphrases (aux-per’s) and Accusative cum Infinitives (AcI’s); when useful we will make use of these familiar terms. 18. Mendikoetxea explicitly claims that the pattern of (7.48–49) holds for imp. se as well (1999:€1712–3), with a reference to Fernández Soriano (1999); the latter’s examples, however, do not involve the impersonal reading of se (1999:€1262). 19. Though we are not concerned with the much debated issue of number agreement between a bare NP and a se VC (cf. Sánchez López 2002; Otero 2002:€ 184–5 et pass; Campos 1989; Mendikoetxea 1999:€1690–3; 1700), our analysis does lead to the following prediction: in “pasiva refleja” utterances which involve a plural NP (see Glossary and Sects. 4.1 and 6.4.3.2), an auxiliary in the singular forces impersonal reading of se, and should thus strongly favour its proclisis to the auxiliary: (i) OK Se debe barrer las escaleras ??? Debe barrerse las escaleras ‘”One” must (sg.) sweep the stairs; the stairs have to be swept’ No such difference in acceptability should result when the auxiliary has a plural ending, for then both placements of se are compatible with a double-mention reading: (ii) OK Se deben barrer las escaleras OK Deben barrerse las escaleras ‘The stairs must (pl.) be swept’ 20. The clitic deployment in (7.57d) is perversely uniconic. In the case of the clitic combination se + me + lo, the only possible disjunction is to have se cliticize at the auxiliary, under a focusdefeasing interpretation, with the other two clitics jointly attached to the Infinitive where they semantically belong. 21. According to Pierrehumbert in phonology there is “a gradient cumulative interaction between similarity and distance, with the prohibition against oversimilar elements weakening as a function of the number of intervening elements.” (1999:€299). The “horror aequi” exhibited by grammatical elements is just as strongly dependent on temporal contiguity, as shown by the difference in acceptability between (i) John was laughing at Bill yesterday, Tom is __ now, and Mary will be ___ tomorrow. (ii) Lilac was being worn last season, calypso pink is __ now, but aqua will be ___ next year In (i) the tacit element is laughing; in (ii) it is understood to be being worn after is, but only worn after will be. Cf. Warner on the rarity of be iteration, which is required by the combination of its progressive and passive auxiliary uses (1997:€162, 163, 170–1). 22. Note that clitic climbing is possible with the aux-per empezar a ‘to begin to’, cf. me empecé a limpiar los dientes cuando tenía ocho años ‘I began to brush my teeth when I was eight years old’ 23. In (7.63, 64) the first se at the finite auxiliary defeases focus on the agent of an event specified by a later non-finite form; the second se, at the conjoined infinitive, double mentions the anonymous agent in (7.63), but in (7.64) refers to a contextually given 3*rd ps Dat.



Chapter 7.╇ Accounting for the non-uses of Sp. se  24. From the context it is clear that se prevents focus from falling on any member(s) of Castro’s expedition in the Sierra Maestra, in particular on the narrator himself, i.e. Che Guevara, who in fact was a physician. 25. Recall that the se at the finite Aux merely blurs the identity of the agent, but by no means denies his existence (Sect. 6.4.3). 26. Since the focus-defeasing interpretation of se is developed as part of the processing of the finite Aux’s verb-ending, it need not be linked directly to any particular main Verb, and thus remains equally relevant to the entire series of Infinitives dependent on the auxiliary. Eg. (7.64) is even less problematic, for the se at the second Infinitive refers to a 3*rd person distinct from the agent obliterated at the initial Aux. I am indebted to A. Verhagen for the observation that considerable difficulties must attend any attempt to generate the parataxis of aux-per’s from the sequencing of fully explicit sentences: the attested (7.63) would have to derive from parataxis of se pudo curar a los heridos ‘one was able to cure the wounded’ with the dubious *se pudo bañarse en el manantial ‘one was able to bathe (oneself) in the spring’.

part ii

Clitic distribution in complex Verb-Phrases

chapter 8

The syntactic structure of AcI’s In complex VP’s which consist of a finite VC with a dependent non-finite VC, a participant in the latter event can be referred to with a clitic in either VC (cf. Sects. 7.6.3 and 7.7): this makes them particularly relevant to the study of clitic cluster acceptability.

8.1 Cliticization in complex VP’s Clitic reference to a participant can appropriately appear at the first available VC, even if he is involved in the event named by a later non-finite verb, provided 1. the participant is highly topical, and 2. the early reference does not hinder recognition of his actual role in the later event. Conversely, cliticization to a dependent non-finite VC iconically highlights the referent’s participation in that specific event.1 That the participant’s topicality motivates early clitic reference is evident in (8.1)

Mex Pop 1015 Enc. Y usted está feliz. Inf. Pues, señorita, ¿cómo le diría una cosa?...Pos aunque no lo esté... Enc. ¡Ay, no! Hay que estar... Inf. Lo hago por estar, señorita, porque ¿qué quiere usted hacer? De ponerme – como dice el dicho – de ponerme a renegar, es un imposible.

‘Interviewer. And you are happy. Informant. Well, Miss, how might I put it?... ‘Cos even if I weren’t it [SC = happy]... Int. Oh, no! One must be... Inf. I make [an effort] to be it, miss, because, what can one do? If I were – as the saying goes – if I were to start complaining, that is [becomes] impossible.’ Out of context, an Acc clitic associated with Inf would not be acceptable at hacer por, cf. (8.2) a. OK hago por conseguirlo b. ** lo hago por conseguir ‘I do [what I can] to attain it’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

The fronting of the SC lo in (8.1) is made possible by the fact that no other participant is referred to at the finite verb; it may also be favoured by the semantic overlap of hacer por ‘do what one can, endeavour’ with the auxiliary periphrasis tratar de ‘attempt to’, with which clitic fronting is common.2 Clitic reference at the finite verb to the O of a subsequent non-finite VC is possible as long as that placement neither hinders the association of the clitic with the non-finite verb, nor results in an uninterpretable cluster straddling two event-levels. This second caveat is particularly relevant to AcI’s, where the initial, finite VC (henceforth Vx) may host clitic reference to the “Accusative” (or “Causee”) participant who is implicitly in focus at the following Infinitive (henceforth Inf):3 in fact, disjoint cliticization of the “Acc Causee” and of Inf ’s O may provide a viable alternative to an unacceptable cluster, cf. (8.3) a. OK la oiste presentarme b. * me la oiste presentar ‘You heard her introduce me’ (cf. Sect. 2.2, eg. 2.27c)

8.2 AcI’s as complex VP’s A clitic may “climb” from the non-finite Inf to the finite Vx of an AcI (Bolinger 1949; Aissen and Perlmutter 1976:€5 et pass.; Myhill 1988; Fernández Soriano 1999:€1262), despite the fact that the two verbal forms are not understood to refer to a single event: unlike what is the case in auxiliary periphrases (aux-per’s), the Vx and Inf of an AcI are expected to have distinct p.i.f.’s. Processing a clitic cluster at the finite Vx of an AcI thus involves, in the very first place, the recognition of what event the clitics’ referents are involved in; furthermore, when one of the clitics refers to the “Causee”, and the other to an Object of Inf, the members of the heterogenous cluster at Vx contrast as to focus status at Inf, cf. (8.4) me la oyó recomendar a. OK ‘he heard her recommended (by someone) to me’ (homogeneous cluster: both clitics are O’s of Inf, me = Dat, la = Acc) b. OK ‘he heard me recommend it’ (heterogenous cluster: only la, i.e. the medicine, is O of Inf) c. ** ‘he heard her recommend me’ (heterogenous cluster: only me is O of Inf) The possibility of heterogenous clustering at Vx makes some calculus inevitable in the processing of AcI clitic clusters. Not only is the identification of Inf ’s p.i.f. absolutely critical but the congruency of the role/referent allotment is also at issue, i.e. to what extent the referents’ Person ranking is matched by that of their roles (cf. Sect. 5.2). This makes AcI’s the ideal testing ground for the claim made in Part I that a clitic cluster’s



Chapter 8.╇ The syntactic structure of AcI’s 

acceptability correlates with its interpretability in the limited time available for its processing (cf. Sect. 2.4 et pass.).4 Despite a large variety of formal analyses, there is little agreement as to how AcI’s really hang together: Campos refers to them as “exceptional infinitival clauses” because they feature as Subject an Accusative which, however, “is not necessarily the DO of the [finite] Verb” (1999:€1542–43), while Hernanz characterizes them as “Infinitives with subject in the accusative” (1999:€2236).5 The denomination “Accusative cum Infinitive” is adopted here on account of its familiarity – cf. the related structure in Latin, Pountain (1998) – and because it highlights the critical role of the Accusative, which vies with the Infinitive for the role of DO of the finite Verb (cf. Hernanz 1999:€2237–41, 2246, 2248–9). We particularly wish to avoid both the semantic claim implicit in the term “causative” (cf. Aissen and Rivas 1975), which is inaccurate for dejar ‘to let’ and perception verbs, and the cumbersome expression “causative or perception structure” resorted to by Mendikoetxea (1999:€1690–91). In this chapter we present the basic facts relevant to AcI’s; in the three succesive ones we examine their morpho-syntactic structure, (un)acceptable clitic clustering at Vx, and some little discussed aspects of clitic distribution in AcI’s.

8.3 Semanto-syntactic indeterminacy in AcI’s AcI’s can be paraphrased with a straightforward V + Clause structure (Hernanz 1999:€2246–7; López 2001), cf. (8.5) a. Segundo 77 o cuenta un cuento o le hago chispear la cerda de un talerazo ‘You either tell a story, or I make your (le) bristle sparkle with my whip (lit. from a whip-blow)’ (AcI) b. o de un talerazo hago que le chispee la cerda ‘or with a whip-blow I bring it about that your bristle sparkles’ (V + Cl) (8.6) a. b.

hice comer la sopa a Pedro ‘I had/made Peter eat the soup’ hice que Pedro comiera la sopa ‘I brought it about that Pedro ate the soup’

The que ‘that’ in (8.5b, 8.6b) connects two distinct finite-verb references to the two events; these are merged into a single complex happening in the AcI’s of (8.5a, 8.6a).6 That is why there is little point in trying to identify the “true” DO of Vx in an AcI, for in this structure two candidates to that role are juxtaposed: an Infinitive complement to Vx, and an actual participant in that event.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

That syntactic indeterminacy allows the implicit p.i.f. of Inf heterogenously to cluster at Vx with a reference to Inf ’s O, as in (8.4b), but it leaves unclear whether the relevant VC is confined to Vx, or comprises Vx + Inf.7 The indeterminate combination of two potential DO’s, essential to an AcI, is regularly indulged in with a tiny set of very frequent verbs: hacer ‘to make’, dejar ‘to let, allow’, ver ‘to see’, oir ‘to hear’, sentir ‘to feel’.8

8.4 AcI-roles: shared participants Since the point of an AcI is not that Vx took place, but rather that Inf ’s occurrence was “Verbed” by Vx’s p.i.f., it is Inf ’s nature which determines the AcI-roles at issue. Dynamic events highlight the activeness of their agents, while the passive p.i.f. of a static event allows attention to fall on the effect which the event has on a non-focus Peripheral participant, cf. eg. (8.5a).9 Note, however, that the participant roles possible in dynamic vs. static AcI’s are not signalled – as grammatical case is – by distinct pronominal morphology: they must be inferred from a variety of semantic and morphosyntactic cues. Vx’s p.i.f. plays the S role, mnemonic for “Super Subject” of the AcI as a whole; that AcI-role is unmistakably signalled by Vx’s verb-ending.10 The syntagmatically most Central role in an AcI is played by the so-called “Causee”, the participant who grafts Inf onto Vx, and can thus equally be seen as either the DO of Vx, and/or Inf ’s p.i.f. (Mendikoetxea 1999:€1690; Alfonso Vega 1998:€44, 50; López 2001:€221). In fact, in (8.7) Segundo 22 Yo vi la hoja cortar la noche como un fogonazo ‘I saw the blade cut the night like a flare’ the “Causee” which follows Vx iconically precedes Inf, as its implicit p.i.f., as it were linking the two events of (8.8) a. b.

Yo vi la hoja (del cuchillo) ‘I saw the blade (of the knife)’ la hoja cortó la noche como un fogonazo ‘the blade cut the night like a flare’

This participant common to both Vx and Inf will henceforth be referred to as M, mnemonic for “mediating Middleman in a moot role”.11 When Inf is dynamic, and M is consequently active, his status as Object of Vx is not in question; when Inf is static, however, the passive M is so much a part of that event as to overshadow its participancy in Vx (cf. Campos 1999:€1542–3).12 In fact, a static M cannot be left unmentioned, while a tacit dynamic M is perfectly conceivable,13 cf.



Chapter 8.╇ The syntactic structure of AcI’s 

(8.9) a. b.

*** Vi caer ‘I saw ( ) fall’ Hizo  matar los prisioneros ‘He had the prisoners killed (dynamic AcI: tacit Ÿ)’14

A static Inf, however, can prove very relevant to S if it happens to affect a human participant who is also Peripherally involved in the Vx, and thus shared by the two events, cf. (8.10) le viste brillar los ojos ‘You saw his eyes shine (lit.: You saw the eyes shine “on” him)’ Here the referent of le is involved in both Vx and Inf, cf. (8.11) a. b.

le veo los ojos ‘I see his eyes’ le brillaban los ojos ‘his eyes shone’

We refer to this critical Peripheral participant, shared by the two events of a static AcI, as a “Dative of reference” (Dr).15 As is the case for all Dat roles, reference to the Dr is optional (cf. Sect. 3.2.2): there is thus no tacit Dr in the static AcI’s (8.12) a. b. c.

Vi llegar la noticia ‘I saw the news (M) arrive Hice caer las macetas ‘I made the flower-pots (M) fall’ Pago 148 Joaquín y Matilde dejaban arder bien el pasto y luego lo apagaban. ‘James and Matilde let the grass (M) burn well and then put it out’

Since M’s inherent potential for agentivity plays a critical role in the interpretation of Inf, it is a matter of inference whether the latter is static or dynamic, cf. (8.13) a. Segundo 44 me parece que a mediodía el sol nos va a hacer hervir los caracuses ‘I think that at noon the sun (S) is going to make the marrow (M) of our (nos, Dr) bones boil’ (static AcI) b. Este nuevo cocinero es un animal: verás que cuando preparamos el ossobucco nos va a hacer hervir los caracuces ‘The new cook is a total idiot: I’ll bet that when we prepare the ossobucco he (S) will make us (M) boil the bone-marrows (O of Inf)’ (dynamic AcI)

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

AcI’s where both Vx and Inf are congruently dynamic are easier to process: this, in combination with the greater salience of a dynamic M, explains why the dynamic reading of Inf is preferred in (8.14) me vió pesar el bulto a. OK ‘He saw me (M) weigh the bundle’ b. ?? ‘He saw the bundle (M) weigh on me (Dr)’16 The Acc vs. Dat Objects of a dynamic Inf are distinguished by their respective case, and will be referred to as Oa and Od respectively. Whether a Peripheral participant at Inf plays a merely Od role or is a Dr, depends primarily on the extent to which he is subordinate to an agentive M, and/or relevant to Vx; the matter is taken up in Sect. 9.2.3.2. Five AcI-roles are illustrated in the dynamic (8.15) me lo dejaste presentársela Di M S Od Oa ‘”On” me (me) you let him (lo) introduce her (la) to him (se)’

8.5 Clitic vs. lexical reference to AcI-roles Clitic reference to the shared M occurs exclusively at Vx, the only event in which he is unquestionably out of focus (Hernanz 1999:€2249); the placement of any lexical reference to the participant depends on the nature of Inf. A dynamic M may stand before Vx, after Inf, or between the two, cf. (8.16) a. b. c.

A María (la) vi regar las rosas17 Vi regar las rosas a María Vi a María regar las rosas18 ‘I saw Mary water the roses’

Clitic reference to all M’s, even a passive one, naturally appears at Vx, and never at Inf (Hernanz 1999:€2243), for there M is implicitly in focus, cf. (8.17) a. Vi caer las macetas ‘I saw the flower-pots fall’ b. (i) OK las vi caer (ii) *** vi caerlas ‘I saw them fall’ In (8.17bii) the flowerpots referred to by las would have to be taken as the DO of a transitivized caer, and could never refer to that event’s p.i.f. Lexical reference to a passive M, however, does overwhelmingly follow a static Inf, cf.



Chapter 8.╇ The syntactic structure of AcI’s 

(8.18) a. b.

OK Vi caer la maceta ‘I saw the flowerpot fall’ ??/* Vi la maceta caer al piso ‘I saw the flowerpot drop to the ground’

The more passive M is, the less appropriate it is to refer to it between Vx and Inf, a placement that highlights M’s agentive responsibility for Inf. The fact that M can cliticize only to Vx explains why in the dynamic (8.19) la hice pintar a. ‘I had her paint’ (la = M) b. ‘I had it/her painted’ (la = Oa; tacit Ÿ) all speakers accept the (8.19a) reading, while some reject the less iconic interpretation of la as Oa in (8.19b) (Davies 1994:€56). Just as self-evidently motivated is the fact that clitic references to Od and Oa, who jointly participate in Inf, must cluster within the same VC (cf. Sect. 7.6.3): it is impossible to refer to one at Inf, while the other stands at Vx, cf. (8.20) a. b. c. d.

***le hiciste darlo ***lo hiciste darle OK se lo hiciste dar OK hiciste dárselo ‘You had it (Oa) given to him (Od) (by Ÿ)’

Further, since double-mentioning clitics by definition appear at the event to which they are relevant, M can be double-mentioned only at Inf (cf. Hernanz 1999:€2244, 50): (8.21) a. b.

loi hiciste suicidarsei M =M * sei loi hiciste suicidar =M M ‘You made him kill himself’

(8.22) a. Hizoi lavarsej a Maríaj =M M b. *Sej hizoi lavar a Maríaj =M M ‘He had María wash herself’ Vx’s p.i.f., i.e. S, is just as invariably double-mentioned at Vx when he plays the nonfocus role of M; but when he plays an O role in Inf, the placement of a clitic reference to him depends on whether or not M is explicitly referred to; the question is discussed in detail in ch. 11.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

8.6 Conflicting pressures on clitic clustering at Vx An AcI ideally fulfills two communicative goals: 1. to do justice to the unequal discourse salience of the different participants, by reserving the iconically prominent cliticization at Vx for salient non-focus participants; 2. to allow the Hearer effortlessly to figure out who or what is referred to, what role each participant plays in which event and, in particular, who is in vs. out of focus at Inf. These goals must be met with the same expressive means available for simplex events, for neither the number nor the order of Spanish clitics can be adjusted to cope with the greater variety of participant roles relevant to an AcI: a congruent allotment of roles to participants, and an iconic deployment of referential means, are crucially important to the interpretability of an AcI. Expressive leeway is only to be found in the way in which a participant is referred to, or in cliticizing Inf ’s O to either Vx or Inf. For instance, in a static AcI, clitic reference to Dr is made at Vx ex officio; this makes simultaneous clitic reference to M at Vx progressively less acceptable as M’s animacy and/or individualization allows him to compete in salience with the Dr, cf. (8.23) [Speaker: Chancellor’s confidential secretary, to undersecretary] Me acaba de llamar de urgencia el Canciller; en la conferencia de Londres se tratará la cuestión de Cococilandia y se siente perdido sin más información: le (Dr) harás llegar cuanto antes:

a. b. c. d. e. f.

OK los documentos pertinentes > se los harás llegar ??su equipo de expertos >?? se lo *algunos especialistas en el tema > *se los * un especialista > *se lo **al Dr. Ramírez > *se lo *** a mí > ** me le

‘I have just been urgently called by the Chancellor; that Cococilandia business will come up at the London meeting, and he feels quite lost without more information: you will have

a. b. c. d. e. f.

OK the relevant documents ?? his team of experts * some specialists in the subject * a specialist **Dr. Ramírez ** me

reach him (Dr) as soon as possible’ A static AcI provides no fully felicitous way of referring to an incongruously human and salient M: a bare NP, which is compatible with both Acc and p.i.f. status (cf. Sect 4.2.1) fails to do justice to his human nature, while an a-phrase, which excludes p.i.f.



Chapter 8.╇ The syntactic structure of AcI’s 

status (cf. Sect. 4.2.2) may be misinterpreted as a reference to the Dr at Vx, as shown by the dubious acceptability of (8.24) a. ? me harás llegar  el Dr. Ramírez b. ? me harás llegar al Dr. Ramírez Dr M ‘You will have Dr. Ramírez arrive (to) me’19 Similarly, clitic reference to Oa at Vx, while a dynamic M is relegated to an a-phrase after Inf, as in (8.25) ?? las vi regar a María Oa M ‘I saw Mary water them / them water(ed by) Mary’ is claimed to be ungrammatical by Contreras (1979:€ 176–78). But the arrangement does prove acceptable when the order of the referring expressions iconically reflects the relative salience of M and Oa, as in (8.26) Segundo 60 Y me cebaba en cada tirón, haciendo temblequear la jeta de mi víctima, tal como lo había visto hacer a los otros. Oa Vx Inf M ‘And I relished every pull [at the newly broken horse’s head], making the head of my victim shake, just as I had seen the others do it’ Here the introductory como suggests that the Inf hacer serves as a kind of pro-verb (Bello 1980:€320 #1093): its Oa (lo) is consequently resumptive, and refers to the immediately preceding AcI, namely “make the head of my victim shake”, an event which is clearly more topical than “the others” who play the role of M in the AcI centered on ver. Just as acceptable as (8.26), but not dependent on a resumptive reading of the Acc clitic at Vx, is (8.27) Esa palabra la he oído pronunciar así sólo a gente ignorante ‘That word, I have heard it pronounced that way only by ignorant people (lit: That word it [Oa] I have heard pronounced so only to ignorant people [M]) Here only Oa is salient, and M is quite indefinite. While heterogenous Oa + M clusters are ruled out if the former role falls to the highly salient 1st or 2nd persons as in (8.3b),20 in a static AcI an inanimate Dr can cluster at Vx with a super-salient human M who happens to co-refer with S, cf.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(8.28) Segundo 57 Tiré mis pilchas al suelo y me les dejé caer encima, como cae un pedazo de barro de una rueda de carreta. ‘I threw (the parts of) my gear on the ground and I let myself (M) fall on them (Dr), as a piece of mud falls off the wheel of a waggon.’ Clitic reference at Vx to M and an Od, both of which are human, is totally unacceptable when Inf is a dynamic verb of communication:21 (8.29) a. ** me le/lo hiciste hablar Od M ‘You had him (M) talk to me (Od)’ b. ** me lo oiste mentir Od M ‘You heard him (M) lie to me (Od)’ c. ** me le oiste mentir M Od ‘You heard me (M) lie to him (Od)’ In order to make sense of these diverse restrictions on clitic clustering at Vx, and to account for the preferred or only possible placement of O clitics, we will try, in ch. 9, to 1. accurately describe the formal difference between competing formal alternatives, and 2. specify the communicative implications of the differences posited in (1), which render one AcI variant more easily interpretable than the other under different semantic/pragmatic conditions. In Ch. 10 we present evidence that language users’ preference does go to the cognitively more economic alternative.22

Notes to Ch. 8 1. As noted in ch. 7 n. 17, the variable placement of clitics is generally referred to, in the mainstream literature, as the “climbing”, “movement”, or “promotion” of clitics; we will generally prefer the term “fronting”, which highlights the foregrounding effect of the manoeuvre. Bolinger points out that clitic promotion from non-finite to finite verbal is the norm (1949:€254), while clitic “demotion” from the finite verb to Inf is in fact observed only with se as focus defeaser (1949:€258–59), cf. our discussion in Sect. 7.6.3. 2. Hacer por adds emphasis to the speaker’s activity, and leaves open the extent of his success; tratar de is usually resorted to when the effort has so far proved unsuccessful. 3. Non-finite forms make no explicit reference to a specific p.i.f.: the recognition of one is thus strictly a matter of inference (cf. Sect. 3.2); we are assuming such an inferential process in speak-



Chapter 8.╇ The syntactic structure of AcI’s  ing of the p.i.f. of a non-finite VC in a complex VP. As will be seen throughout Part II, proper identification of the Inf ’s implicit p.i.f. is central to the interpretation of AcI’s. 4. Note that the Fr cluster me la lui, which is “ungrammatical” in a simple VP, proves acceptable in an AcI, cf. (i) Jeanne me la lui a fait raconter ‘Jane had me tell it to him’ despite the very low frequency of the combination (Miller and Monachesi 2003:€113 fn. 54), Something similar can be claimed for the marginal se me lo cluster Spanish (cf. Sect. 7.1). From the attested (ii) Cuentos 85 me lo veo volverlai a agarrar a la hijitai ‘By golly! (Di) I see him (lo) once again take hold of/grasp the little girl/her (la)’ it is easy to derive the cluster se me la in (iii) se me la veo agarrar. ‘By golly! (Di, me) I see him (se) grab her (la)’ Here the reference to the 1st ps Di intervenes between the Dat “Causee” (se) and the la reference to the DO of the Infinitive; the cluster was found acceptable by our informant AECh, as was also (iv) Librarian to Professor: Oiga, hace meses que su ayudante está acaparando la gramática de Bello: hay una lista de espera larguísima para ese libro. Por favor, ¡le recuerda al joven que el libro está más que vencido y se me lo hace devolver! ‘Say, your TA has been sitting for months on Bello’s grammar: there is big waiting list for the book. Will you please remind the young man that the book is long overdue, and do make him (se; Dat Causee) return it (lo; Acc O of Inf.) ‘for’ me ([me], Di)!’ i.e. me [se lo] The relative congruence of the role/referent allotment strongly affects the acceptability of the cluster: ‘She made me (Causee) return it (lo) to him (se)’ was admitted as acceptable, but not so good as (iv); ‘She made him (se) return it (lo) to me (Dat)’ was considered questionable, while ‘She made me return it to herself ’, with se reflexively referring to the subject of the main verb, was rated barely marginal.€In chs. 10 and 11 we discuss the unequal acceptability of clitic clusters at Vx under various role allotments. 5. It goes without saying that neither AcI’s nor other types of complex VP can be defined in such rigorous semantic or syntactic terms as totally to eliminate borderline cases. 6. In a V + Cl combination the finite verb of the subordinated clause presents its event as a fact; in an AcI, the Inf ’s “tense” is fixed by the finite Vx. The subordinate event named in the clause is set off by the subordinating conjunction and processed independently of the superordinate event; in an AcI, the sequence of Vx and Inf highlights their dynamic relation (Hernanz 1999:€ 2241); for diverse distributional consequences of the syntactic difference, cf. García (2003c). 7. In Chapter 11 we shall see that the indeterminacy is directly relevant to the processing of a cluster when Vx’s p.i.f. is double mentioned. 8. We shall not go into the degree to which the AcI structure is acceptable with other verbs (cf. Butt and Benjamin 1988:€252 #17.2 note i; Pountain 1998; Hernanz 1999:€2237) because our

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs fundamental concern is the unequal acceptability of clitic clustering at Vx, an issue that is best examined in indisputably AcI structures. 9. Cf. also the difference between (i) vió un fantasma ‘He saw a ghost’ (dynamic event) (ii) se le apareció un fantasma ‘He caught sight of a ghost’ (static event: lit.: a ghost, p.i.f., appeared itself to him) In (i) the p.i.f. is responsible for his perception; conversely, the vision referred to in the static (ii) merely happens to its Experiencer, with double mention absolving the ghostly p.i.f. from actual responsibility for its own appearance (cf. Sect. 4.1.1). 10. An extra, supra partes Di can always be added: since the role is by definition relevant to the entire complex event, the referring clitic appears only at Vx, cf. (i) ¿Por qué la tengo con Pepe? ¿No me lo veo ayer, tan fresco, pasearse por la plaza con mi hermana colgada del brazo? ‘Why am I mad at Joe? Didn’t I (me = Di) see him (M) yesterday, cool as a cucumber, promenading on the square with my sister on his arm? The iteration of the Di at Inf in (ii) Cuentos 85b ¿no me lo veo al finao [darse güelta de pronto y] volvermela a agarrar a la hijita de la trencita? ‘Don’t I see (+ Di) the deceased [turn round of a sudden and] once again grab “me” the little girl by her pigtail?’ is almost certainly due to the fact that the relevant Inf is coordinated to an earlier one (darse güelta ‘turn round’) and consequently does not immediately follow the Vx where the Di appears. 11. = M stands for a double-mention of M at Inf, while M’ or O’ signals a clitic that duplicates a lexical reference to either M or O. With Ÿ we signal a tacit M. 12. If S is somehow to bring about Inf, a static M provides little leverage, cf. (i) ???/* Vi/hice sobrar tres sillas ‘I saw/had three chairs be superfluous’ Inanimates can hardly be seen in the process of being superfluous, nor can they be made to be so. Such situations are consequently best referred to with a V + Cl structure, cf. (ii) vi que sobraban tres sillas ‘I saw that there were three superfluous chairs’ (iii) hice que sobraran tres sillas ‘I arranged it so that three chairs were superfluous’ 13. Zubizarreta states that unaccusative Inf ’s are unacceptable in French when the Causee (i.e. M) is tacit (1985:€264); Ackerman and Moore (1999:€33) and Treviño (1994:€72–3) extend her claim to Spanish. 14. Since the two events of an AcI are understood not to share the same p.i.f., the tacit Ÿ of a dynamic AcI is understood as distinct from S: in (8.9b) the 3rd ps p.i.f. of hizo did not kill the prisoners himself, but acted through another, i.e. (Ÿ), whose identity is irrelevant. 15. Note that a Dr is involved at Vx and Inf in different Peripheral capacities: at Vx his role is rather Di-like, while he participates at Inf as a Dataff or Datobj.



Chapter 8.╇ The syntactic structure of AcI’s  16. Static interpretation of Inf is even less likely when no Experiencer is referred to at Vx, cf. vi pesar el bulto a. OK ‘I saw the bundle weighed (by someone, tacit Ÿ)’ b. ???’I saw the bundle (M) prove heavy’ 17. In pre-verbal position the lexical reference to M is generally clitic-duplicated at Vx. 18. Whether the interposition of M between Vx and Inf is acceptable depends primarily on the specific finite verb; there is considerable dialectal variation with hacer ‘to have, let, make’. Thus, (i) ? hice a Pedro comer la sopa Vx M Inf ‘I had Pedro eat the soup’ contrasts with the universal acceptability of (ii) vi a Pedro comer la sopa Vx M Inf ‘I saw Pedro eat the soup’ This is understandable, for (iii) vi a Pedro ‘I saw Pedro’ is acceptable on its own, unlike (iv) *hice a Pedro ‘I made Pedro’ The unequal acceptability of (i) vs. (ii), in correlation with that of (iv) vs. (iii), suggests that AcI’s are essentially jury-rigged blends. 19. One way out of the dilemma is to introvert the static Inf by promoting the human Dr participant to the status of double-mentioned p.i.f. of Inf, i.e. have him assume the M role, while denying participant status to the too salient original M (see Sect. 4.1.2), cf. (i) ¿María no te interesa? Ya verás: ‘Mary (p.i.f) does not interest you (Dat)? You’ll see: a. Yo **te haré interesar (a) María ‘I’ll make Mary (M) interest you (te = Dr)’ b. OK Te haré interesarte por María M =M ‘I’ll make you (M) be interested / interest yourself in Mary’ The AcI in (ib) can more felicitously be glossed with a V + Cl structure, cf. (ii) Haré que te intereses por María ‘I’ll bring it about that you take an interest in Mary’ 20. The converse cluster at Vx of M with a human 3*rd ps Oa is accepted as grammatical by Pizzini (1982), but rejected by Contreras (1979:€ 181 fn. 11), Radford (1979:€ 159), Luján (1980:€ 476), Fernández Soriano (1999:€ 1263) and Hernanz (1999:€ 2244). Goodall merely remarks that “For unknown reasons, sentences like Maria se lo hizo comer are only possible in Spanish when lo is inanimate.” (1987:€183 fn. 32) 21. The same impossibility is observed in French and other Romance languages. Seuren (1973:€320), Radford (1979:€168–9), Contreras (1979:€181 fn. 11) and Hernanz 1999:€2244) register the fact, but fail to deal with the restriction in any motivated way. Franco and Landa

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs (1995:€110–11) invoke a morphological clitic Filter [*DAT DAT], but this argument does not avail with “perception” verbs, whose Causee is Accusative. 22. As in Part I, we will predominantly rely on acceptability judgments, for clitic clustering is quite infrequent in AcI’s; our own qualitative judgments of individual structures have been systematically checked with one or more native speakers. García (2003c) presents some relevant quantitative data; the texts on which that analysis is based are listed in the Corpus bibliography.

chapter 9

Clitic syntax in AcI’s If we are to show that in an Accusative cum Infinitive (AcI) structure, just as in singleevent VP’s, the acceptability of a clitic cluster depends on the congruency of the role/ referent allotment referred to, and on the ease with which that allotment is inferrable from the expressive means resorted to, we must first establish how Focus and Case categorization apply to the various AcI-roles discussed in Sects. 8.4,5.

9.1 Case-categorization in AcI’s Focus allotment is transparent: as the p.i.f. of Vx, the AcI’s “Super-subject” (S) is in focus in the AcI as a whole; all other participants, including the AcI’s “Middleman” (M) are out of focus in one or the other VC. The case-categorization of Inf ’s Objects is equally unproblematic, and follows the principles that hold in a simplex VC (cf. Sects. 3.2.2, 5.1); the Dr role is Peripheral by definition (cf. Sect. 8.4). Whether M is cast as a Dative or an Accusative depends, primarily, on his relative activeness (cf. Sect. 3.3.2) as Inf ’s p.i.f. (cf. Alonso Vega 1998:€100–103). Though M is unquestionably the O of Vx, the AcI pivots on his role at Inf: event-levels mesh in a sort of inferential Moebius loop in a syntactically indeterminate AcI. The M of a static Inf, being passive by definition (cf. Sect. 8.4), can be categorized only as an Acc, while the agentiveness of a dynamic M gains in salience when it contrasts at Inf with Oa. Since such an M stands, as it were, half-way between S and Oa he is cast as Acc or Dat depending on which of the two syntagmatic contrasts – with S, or with Oa – is more relevant: that is why the “Accusative” of a dynamic AcI can be cast as a Dative. M can be referred to with an Acc clitic unproblematically in (9.1) lo hiciste comerla M Oa ‘You had him (M, Acc) eat it (Oa, Acc)’ where Vx and Inf are kept apart by the strictly iconic cliticization of each O to its respective event. But when clitic reference to both M and Oa is made at Vx, M is automatically cast as a Dat, Oa’s claim to Acc case being unquestionably stronger,1 cf.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(9.2) a. OK se la hiciste comer b. *** lo la hiciste comer2 ‘You had him (M, Dat) eat it (Oa, Acc)’ When M’s agentiveness is salient and relevant, he may be cast as a Dat even when Oa is tacit or is referred to by means other than a clitic at Vx (Bolinger 1967:€54 et pass.; García 1975:€295; Goodall 1987:€126–7; Davies 1994:€46 et pass.; Hernanz 1999:€2245; López 2001:€225–26), cf. (9.3) a. b.

lo hice comer ‘I made him (M, Acc) eat’ le/lo hice comer la sopa ‘I made him (M, Dat/Acc) eat the soup (Oa)’

(9.4) Pago 93 [Background: an opposition politician who has fought for the elimination of graft in the town administration is allowed to win a municipal election, and is then co-opted by the establishment by being given a chance to participate in the corruption] se le ofrecía un negocito, una coima, o se le hacía “mojar” en algún abuso. ‘“one” offered him a little affair, a bribe, or “one” made him (M, Dat) “dip” in some irregularity’ Reference to a 3*rd ps M with Dat le is most likely with verbs like hacer, and to a lesser degree dejar, which highlight M’s control of Inf.3 The possibility of casting M as a Peripheral participant explains why a Dat clitic at Vx admits only an M reading, cf. (9.5) le hice matar a. ‘I had him (M) kill’ b. *’I had him (Oa) killed (by Ÿ)’ while an Acc clitic can be interpreted as either M or Oa (cf. Sect. 8.5): (9.6) lo hice matar a. ‘I had him (M) kill’ b. ‘I had him (Oa) killed (by Ÿ)’ The variability of M’s case, rooted in the indeterminacy inherent to AcI’s and in the wide gamut of Inf ’s admitted by the AcI structure, precludes any one-to-one relation between grammatical case and AcI-role. A Dat-Acc cluster at Vx can consequently refer to very different AcI-role combinations, cf.



Chapter 9.╇ Clitic syntax in AcI’s 

(9.7) Haceme la comer! Dat Acc Di M ‘Make her (M) eat please, for my sake (Di)’ (homogeneous cluster: both participants out of focus at Vx) (9.8) Haceme la mandar! Dat Acc Od Oa Ÿ ‘Have it sent to me (by someone)’ (homogeneous cluster: both participants out of focus at Inf) (9.9)

me la hizo subir 1st ps Dat 3*rd ps Acc Vx Inf me it made go up a. ‘He made me (M) take it (la, Oa, the suitcase) upstairs’ (heterogeneous cluster: dynamic Inf; Dat = M vs. Acc = Oa) b. ‘He made it (la, M, my blood pressure) rise “on” me (Dr)’ (heterogenous cluster: static Inf; Acc = M vs. Dat = Dr) The grammatical case of the AcI-roles determines the order in which lexical references to M and O appear after Inf: as in single-event utterances (Sect. 4.2.2), a Central AcIrole precedes a Peripheral AcI-role (cf. Demonte 1995:€18 fn. 12; Treviño 1992:€310; López 2001:€ 221). In dynamic AcI’s Oa consequently precedes M, because only the former is a de jure Acc, whereas M precedes Dr in static AcI’s, because only the latter is a de jure Dative, cf. (9.10) (Le) hice barrer la casa a María (M’) Oa (Acc) M (Dat) ‘I made Mary sweep the house (dynamic AcI)’ (9.11) (Le) hice llegar la carta a Pedro (Dr’) M (Acc) Dr (Dat) ‘I had the letter reach Pedro (static AcI)’

9.1.1 Context-sensitiveness of M’s case-variability We have argued that M’s claim to Dat case in dynamic AcI’s is highly dependent on that participant’s relation to Oa: the weaker and less relevant the syntagmatic contrast between those two Inf participants, the more likely M is to be cast as an Acc. Lexical reference to M between Vx and Inf not only dissociates the two VC’s,4 but also highlights that participant’s direct subordination to S and so favours his categorization as the Acc DO of Vx. That explains why in our corpus, and pace Davies (1994:€46), interposed lexical references to M were invariably duplicated at Vx with the Acc lo, not le (cf. García 2003c, Table 9), cf.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(9.12) lo dejé al nene abrir el paquete M’ Vx M Inf Oa ‘I let (him Acc, M’) the child (M) open the package (Oa)’ Conversely, a Dat duplicating clitic was preferred when the lexical reference to M followed Inf, as in (9.13) le dejé abrir el paquete al nene M’ Vx Inf Oa M ‘I let him (M’ Dat) the child (M) open the package (Oa)’ for here the direct adjacency of Inf to Vx allows cognitive integration of the two events, and thus foregrounds the contrast between Oa and M. That the case of M is negotiated in terms of the roles the particular participants play in the individual AcI, and of how they are referred to, is shown by the following instance of the three-role combination Di + clitic-duplicated lexical reference to M + lexical Oa, i.e. (9.14) Cuentos 81 Y hasta se encaprichó en hacermela bailar una polca a la dueña de casa Di M’ Oa M ‘And (good heavens! me = Di) he even insisted on having the hostess (M) dance a polka (Oa)’ In the absence of the Di, Dat reference to M, as in (9.13), would yield (9.15) le hizo bailar una polca a la dueña de casa M’ Oa M ‘He had the hostess (Dat) dance a polka’ What is interesting about (9.14) is that while clitic reference is made to M at Vx with the Acc la, the lexical reference to that participant follows the Oa una polca: the Acc case of the duplicating clitic thus contradicts the placement of the a-phrase, which is appropriate to a Dat participant (cf. egg. 9.10, 11).5 This morpho-syntactic incoherence is probably due to the presence of the Di me: casting M as a Dat results in a two-Dat cluster at Vx, cf. (9.16) me le hizo bailar una polca a la dueña de casa ‘Shame! (me, Di) he had her (M’, Dat) dance a polka (Oa)’ M’s grammatical case is pulled towards the Dative by the presence of an Oa after Inf, but towards the Accusative by the need to case-differentiate M from its immediate Di neighbour, a very relevant factor given the essentially syntagmatic nature of Case (cf. Sect. 3.2.2).



Chapter 9.╇ Clitic syntax in AcI’s 

9.2 Concatenation vs. conflation of AcI’s Since there is no morphologically reliable way of distinguishing M from O, the first requirement in a viable AcI is that who or what is in focus at Inf should be easily identifiable.

9.2.1 Iconic concatenation S’s agentive control of a dynamic Inf ’s eventual O is exercised through M; his identity is iconically revealed in concatenated AcI’s such as egg. (8.7, 8.16c), (9.12) and (9.17) Dejamos a María terminarlo ‘We let Mary finish it (lo)’ A lexical reference to Inf ’s O may not intervene between Vx and Inf, for that placement would associate Oa with Vx rather than with Inf, enforcing an incongruous exchange of roles, cf. (9.18) Vi las rosas regar a María a. ***’I saw Mary water the roses’ b. OK ‘??? I saw the roses water Mary’ Nor can lexical reference to the passive M intervene between Vx and a static Inf, because that would erroneously suggest that M actually plays an active role in the latter event, cf. (9.19) a. * vi los ojos brillarle a Pedro M Dr ‘I saw his eyes shine ‘on’ Pedro’ b. OK le vi brillar los ojos a Pedro Dr’ M Dr ‘I saw Pedro’s eyes shine’ In (9.19a) the eyes are presented as actively responsible for their own shining, while they are merely the means, rather than the agent of Pedro’s radiance. Nor can a lexical reference to Dr appear between Vx and Inf, for a Peripheral participant placed in so central a position is likely to be taken for a dynamic M, which will again lead to an incorrect role allotment, cf. (9.20) ???/* Vi a Pedro brillar los ojos ‘I saw Pedro (M) shine/polish the eyes (Oa)’ In static Inf ’s, then, lexical references to M and Dr both follow Inf, their order being determined by their grammatical case (cf. eg. 9.19b).

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

9.2.2 Pragmatic conflation The integration of Vx with Inf is greatest when Inf directly adjoins Vx, and both M and O are referred to with clitics at Vx itself: we refer to such a fusion as the “conflation” of the AcI.6 In conflation, the privilege of cliticization at Vx is extended to an inherently non-salient participant at Inf who plays a low-ranking AcI-role: Oa in a dynamic Inf, and M in a static one.7 The degree to which Vx and Inf add up to a larger whole follows iconically from the com-position of the AcI: 1. clitic reference at Vx to M + Oa, or to Dr + M, suggests a single conflated hyperevent;8 2. lexical reference to M between Vx and Inf presents one event as leading to another; 3. other arrangements: the degree to which Vx and Inf are integrated remains indeterminate, and is inferrable from diverse contextual clues. In a homogeneous cluster, all the case-roles pertain to the same event: either Vx, as in eg. (9.7), or Inf, as in (9.8); heterogeneous clustering, conversely, conflates the two syntagmatically linked events into a single complex VC, with M and O referred to in anticipation of the Inf which suggests the actually relevant case-role(s). That makes conflated AcI’s harder to interpret than iconically concatenated ones.9 In non-conflated AcI’s, M is automatically identified by the fact that at Vx there is only one clitic relevant to Inf, cf. (9.21) a. b.

te hizo dármela M Od Oa ‘She made you give it to me’ me hizo dártela M Od Oa ‘She made me give it to you’

But the two different situations described by (9.21a) as against (9.21b) are rendered, under conflation, by the same three-clitic cluster at Vx: (9.22) a. ? b. ??/*

te me la hizo dar M Od Oa ‘She made you give it to me’ (cf. 9.21a) Od M Oa ‘She made me give it to you’ (cf. 9.21b)

The (9.22a) reading is more acceptable, for the fixed order of the clitics places te before me la, thus recalling the sequencing of AcI-roles in the non-conflated (9.21a) rather than (9.21b).10



Chapter 9.╇ Clitic syntax in AcI’s 

9.2.3 Non-equivalence of different AcI formulations A variety of facts show that conflation and non-conflation differ both cognitively and pragmatically. 9.2.3.1 A barrier to climbing It has been repeatedly observed that Oa cannot cliticize to Vx when a lexical reference to M intervenes between Vx and Inf: (9.23) a. vi al niño comer la sopa Vx M Inf Oa ‘I saw the child eat the soup’ b. vi al niño comerla Vx M Inf Oa ‘I saw the child eat it’ c. ** (se)la vi al niño comer M’ Oa Vx M Inf d. OK se la vi comer al niño M’ Oa Vx Inf M ‘I saw the child eat it’ The concatenated (9.23a,b) presents the two events in the AcI as disjoint, with M as the shared participant literally linking the two: they are equally acceptable, as is also the conflated (9.23d), where both M and Oa participate in the hyper-event headed by Vx. In the unacceptable (9.23c), however, lexical reference to M dissociates Vx from Inf, confining Oa to the latter event, thus clashing with the clitic reference to Oa at Vx. The conflicting claims as to the relation between the two events result in an inferential impasse, and make (9.23c) unacceptably hard to process.11 9.2.3.2 Semanto-pragmatic distinctness of conflated and non-conflated variants Franco and Landa claim that “[conflated and non-conflated AcI’s are] synonymous. Not even the slightest difference in meaning between [the two versions of an AcI] can be teased out” (1995:€113). It makes a difference to the scope of a quantifier, however, whether the two events are presented as a single hyper-event, or as a sequence of related happenings, cf. (9.24) a. Se la hizo pintar tres veces b. Tres veces se la hizo pintar ‘She made him paint it three times over; on three occasions did she make him paint it’ (9.25) a. lo hizo pintarla tres veces ‘She made him paint it three times over’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

b. Tres veces lo hizo pintarla ‘On three occasions did she make him paint it’ Regardless of where it stands, the quantifier tres veces ‘three times, thrice’ can bear on either Vx or Inf in the conflated (9.24) for the two events are fused by the fronting of Oa. In the non-conflated (9.25), where the events are comparatively dissociated, the placement of tres veces does matter: the quantifier is preferentially – and iconically – associated with the event to which it stands closer. The placement of a Dat clitic similarly makes a considerable difference in the interpretation of an AcI. Thus, if the horse I am riding is made to bolt, the incident is best described in (9.26) me lo hizo huir ‘he made it (M) run away “on” me (Dr)’ for the 1st person, who is actually riding the uncontrollable horse, cannot fail to be affected by S’s action: that Dr role requires reference to me at Vx. In (9.27) lo hizo huirme ‘he made it run away from me (Od)’ the horse is understood to be running away from the 1st person, who functions as point of departure (Od) for the event huir ‘flee’; that participant consequently cannot be riding the animal, and is not affected by the horse’s flight. A similar difference distinguishes (9.28) a. b.

lo hiciste acercárseme ‘You had him approach me (Od)’ me lo hiciste acercar(se) ‘You had him approach (you? us?) “on” me (Di/Dr)’

When, as in (9.28a), me stands at Inf, thus signalling that the 1st person is involved in M’s approach, the 3*rd ps M is understood to approach only the 1st person; conversely, the goal of M’s movement is not limited to the 1st person in the conflated (9.28b), for me’s cliticization to Vx involves him, qua Dr, in the AcI as a whole: the 2nd ps S thus becomes the most likely target of the motion.12 The same difference distinguishes (9.29) a. Me lleva el prisionero al Sgto. López y que en media hora me lo haga hablar ‘You take the prisoner to Sgt. López and in half an hour he must make him sing (lit. speak, talk)’ (me = Dr/Di) b. No te hagas el inocente: estás bien al tanto de los problemas de Pepe, porque lo oíste hablarme del asunto ‘Don’t pretend ignorance: you are well aware of Joe’s problems, because you heard him talk to me about the affair’ (me = Od)



Chapter 9.╇ Clitic syntax in AcI’s 

The interpretation of an AcI is also affected by the placement of an Oa at Inf vs. Vx. When Oa is cliticized to Vx, it is automatically understood to participate in that event (cf. Sect. 9.2.2, note 6): this makes it more acceptable to refer to the Oa of (9.30) lo vi perder las llaves ‘I saw him lose the keys (Oa)’ with a clitic at Inf, than at Vx, cf. (9.31) a. OK lo vi perderlas b. ??/* se las vi perder ‘I saw him lose them’ for things are hardly observed in the process of being lost. Conversely, (9.32) se las vi encontrar ‘I saw him find them (Oa)’ is unproblematic, for one does see the thing being found. Different claims as to the degree to which a passive M is involved in Vx are similarly made by lexical vs. clitic reference to that participant in the following pairs of static Infs (9.33) a. Le sentí temblar las manos ‘I felt his hands (to) tremble; that his hands trembled’ (S need not touch the hands to feel that they are trembling) b. Se las sentí temblar ‘I felt them [i.e. his hands] tremble; I felt them trembling on him’ (S’s perception of the hand-trembling is direct; conflated AcI) (9.34) a. Le dejé caer encima un balde de agua ‘I let/had a bucket of water fall on him’ (favoured reading: indirect causation) b. Se lo dejé caer encima ‘I dropped/poured it [the bucket of water] on him’ (favoured reading: S actually drops the water himself; conflated AcI) It goes without saying that the semantic compatibility of Vx and Inf is a very important factor in AcI acceptability, cf. (9.35) a. *le hice interesar el asunto ‘I had the affair interest him’ b. OK le vi interesar el asunto ‘I saw the affair interest him/I saw him to be interested in the affair’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

The acceptability of (9.35b), however, does not extend to its conflated version: (9.36) *se lo vi interesar Dr M ‘I saw it interest him’ The affair playing the role of “interesting” M can unambiguously be cast as Vx’s DO only if it is actually caught sight of in the process of interesting the Dr: that is the implication of (9.36), cf. also (9.19a). Two things are thus clear: 1. conflated and non-conflated versions of an AcI are gramatically non-equivalent; 2. conflated AcI’s are harder to process than non-conflated ones, for the role/referent allotment relevant to Inf is compressed into a clitic cluster at Vx. We naturally expect conflation to prove even less acceptable when the role/referent allotment is incongruent, i.e. when referent ranking fails to match role ranking (cf. Sect. 5.1). That will be shown indeed to be the case in Ch. 10.

Notes to Ch. 9 1. Being out of focus at both Inf and Vx, Oa is the least active of all AcI participants: casting M as a Dative differentiates him from that role (Alfonso Vega 1998:€28). Case-differentiation of the two AcI-roles is inevitable when both appear jointly cliticized to Vx. 2. Recall that a single non-focus Central participant can be referred to in one and the same VC (cf. Sect. 3.2.2); reference to M as a Dat prevents the co-occurrence of two Acc’s (Folgar 1993:€179). 3. A further reason why AcI’s with hacer favour Dative reference to M is that, unlike dejar or perception verbs, that verb does not readily combine with human DO’s, unless these are qualified by an Object Complement (cf. Sect. 5.5.3.3). With hacer, M has varied between Dat and Acc from Old Spanish times, regardless of the presence or absence of Oa (Alfonso Vega 1998:€210– 215); Alfonso Vega’s superb minimal pairs show M’s case to be motivated within the local context (1998:€99, 101–102). 4. As will be seen in Sect. 9.2.3.1 below, this prevents an Oa/Od clitic from “climbing” to Vx. 5. The order of post-Inf lexical references in AcI’s is determined by the participants’ grammatical case, but, as will be seen, the AcI-roles condition the acceptability of clitic clusters, where the order of the pronominal references is fixed (cf. Sects. 2.1; 5.2). 6. Since the referent of a clitic by definition participates in the event named by the VC (cf. Sect. 3.1), cliticization to Vx of O entails its participation in Vx as well (Gómez Torrego 1999:€3333). 7. Recall that with static Inf ’s M can be seen as part of the event (cf. Sect. 8.4; Campos 1999:€1542–31).



Chapter 9.╇ Clitic syntax in AcI’s  8. An Inf that lacks any clitics of its own cannot claim the status of autonomous VC (cf. the comparable problem raised by determiner free lexical items, Sects. 4.2.1, 5.1.1): strict adjacency of Inf to Vx merely allows, but does not force “verb-incorporation”, pace Franco and Landa (1995:€111) 9. Martin observes that “when the nouns come before the verb, their assignment to thematic roles with respect to the verb is delayed in comparison to when the nouns appear after the verb” (2001:€ 367). Mutatis mutandis, an Inf-associated clitic should be harder to process when attached to Vx than when iconically standing at the Inf where it (logically) belongs; cf. also Pickering, Barton and Schillcock (1994:€205–6) on the processing of unbounded dependencies. 10. Miller and Monachesi’s Fr me la lui (2003:€113 fn. 54) probably owes its acceptability to the fact that its simplest parsing yields the intended M + [Oa + Od]. 11. A further reason for the unacceptability of (9.23c) is that Vx would – impossibly – have two participants equally entitled to the role of DO: the explicitly Acc Oa clitic, and the M syntactically positioned after Vx (cf. the discussion of eg. 5.1 in ch. 5). 12. Cf. Segundo 113 los dejé acercarse ‘I let them get close [‘to me’ implied]’ where the goal of the curious animals’ movement can only be the 1st ps observer, who is the AcI’s S.

chapter 10

Clitic placement in AcI’s In ch. 5 we showed that clitic clusters are more easily interpreted, and hence more acceptable, the closer the ranking of the different participants in terms of case-role matches their saliency ranking in terms of person. This is especially the case in conflated AcI’s, whose inherent complexity prevents grammatical case from correlating directly with AcI-role (cf. Sect. 9.1), and where distinguishing between M and O is critical to overall role/referent allotment: when it is hard to differentiate M from O, conflation cannot be indulged in. We consequently expect heterogeneous clusters of M + O, or Dr + M, to be acceptable to the extent that the participants’ person-ranking matches (1) their focus status at Inf, and (2) their ranking in terms of both grammatical case and AcI-roles.

10.1 AcI-role ranking Person- and grammatical case-ranking have been discussed, in considerable detail, in Sects. 3.2.2 and 5.2; the question now is how AcI-roles themselves rank. The first consideration is necessarily Focus: S is in focus at Vx, where M, Di, and Dr are out of focus. At Inf, M is in focus, while Oa, Od and Dr are out of focus. In consequence,1 S > Di, Dr, M (at Vx) M > Dr, Od, Oa (at Inf) Moreover, since the finite Vx allots focus and temporally precedes Inf, Vx-associated roles outrank Inf-related roles. Since S and Di participate only in Vx, while M and Dr are shared with the lower-ranked Inf, S > M Di > M, Dr It follows that S outranks Oa, Od twice: S >> Oa, Od. Qua grammatical case, a Dat automatically ranks above the Acc (cf. Sects. 3.2.2; 5.2): Di is de jure a Dat, but M must be an Acc in a static AcI and may be either a Dat or an Acc in a dynamic AcI (cf. Sect. 9.1.1, eg. 9.14). It follows that Di > M at Vx, Od > Oa at Inf

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

What remains indeterminate is the ranking of Dr vis à vis M in static AcI’s. Dr ranks above the Acc M in grammatical case, but M outranks Dr in terms of focus at Inf: this impasse between case- and focus-based rankings leaves the two roles uneasily ranked ex aequo, i.e. Dr = M. In dynamic AcI’s, Focus and relative agentiveness combine to yield the transitive ranking S > Di > M > Od > Oa But in static AcI’s the ranking is rather:2 Dr: Out of focus at Vx In focus at Vx: S > = M: In focus at Inf We now turn to the variable acceptability of heterogenous clusters in conflated AcI’s where the relevant roles are played by referentially distinct participants.3 Conflated AcI’s will be contrasted either with a non-conflated alternative, or with an AcI where the same cluster signals a different role/referent allotment. The various AcI-role combinations are discussed in order of increasing interpretational difficulty.

10.2 Role/referent allotment in dynamic transitive AcI’s: M + Oa clusters AcI-conflation is most acceptable, as well as most frequent, when Inf is dynamic: the most congruent role/referent allotment casts a human participant as M, with an inanimate as Oa. Since under conflation clitic reference is made at Vx to both M and Oa, the former participant is automatically cast as a Dat (cf. Sect. 9.1): that allows him to rank above Oa in both grammatical case (cf. Sect. 5.2) and AcI-role (Sect. 10.1), thus matching the – admittedly anthropocentric – superiority of humans over inanimates. Such an M + Oa cluster is totally acceptable, cf. (10.1) ¿me la dejas comer? ‘Will you let me eat it?’ (10.2) te lo haré decir ‘I’ll make you say it’ (10.3) se la oí cantar ‘I heard her sing it’



Chapter 10.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s 

But an M + Oa cluster becomes less acceptable when Oa is more salient, as in (10.4)

me la viste besar M Oa a. ‘You saw me kiss OK it’ b. ‘You saw me kiss? her’

Only a minority of our informants accepted the reading of (10.4b) (cf. ch. 8 n. 20); in fact, a human Oa is the less acceptably referred to at Vx, the more active and thus less subordinate he is to the Dat M, cf. (10.5) me la hiciste/viste matar/besar ‘You made/saw me kill/kiss her’ (10.6) ?me la hiciste/viste saludar4 ‘You made/saw me greet her’ (10.7) *me la hiciste/viste ayudar ‘You made/saw me help her’ (10.8) *me la hiciste/viste convencer ‘You made/saw me persuade her’ An cluster of case-neutral clitics referring to the 1st and 2nd persons in M and Oa roles is totally unacceptable: (10.9) te me hizo besar a. * ‘He made me kiss you’ b. * ‘He made you kiss me’ Out of context, there is no reason why the Oa role should fall to one rather than the other speech-participant, who practically rank ex aequo in terms of person (cf. Sect. 5.3.2).5 An M + Oa clitic cluster is a fortiori unacceptable if the referentially higher participant plays the lower Oa role, as in ( 10.10)

*** me la hiciste besar Person 1st > 3rd Case Dat > Acc AcI-role Oa < M ‘You made her kiss me’

In (10.10) the AcI-role ranking clashes with both person- and case-rankings (Sect. 10.1), not to mention the fact that the Acc la reference to M forces Dat case on me, which contradicts his Oa role.6 The nadir of unacceptability is reached in ( 10.11) *** se la viste horrorizar ‘You saw it (the accident) horrify her’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

where the Oa is human but M is inanimate. Iconic placement of the reference to a human Oa at or after Inf is thus the favoured choice under both clitic and lexical reference to M and Oa (cf. Sect. 9.2.1): ( 10.12) a. b.

Vi a Juan besar a María ‘I saw John kiss Mary’ Vi a María besar a Juan ‘I saw Mary kiss John’

( 10.13) a. b.

lo vi besarla ‘I saw him kiss her’ la vi besarlo ‘I saw her kiss him’

10.2.1 Oa at Vx with a tacit Ÿ When M is tacit, the placement of a clitic reference to Oa depends only on that participant’s salience; human Oa’s are thus regularly referred to at Vx, cf. ( 10.14) la viste horrorizar Oa Ÿ ‘You saw her horrified’ Counterparts to (10.7,8) likewise become fully acceptable, cf. ( 10.15) la hiciste/viste ayudar Oa Ÿ ‘You made/saw her helped’ ( 10.16) la hiciste/viste convencer Oa Ÿ ‘You made/saw her be persuaded’

10.2.2 Uniconic backgrounding of M Contreras (1979:€176) postulates a “Saturation Constraint” to account for the unacceptability of ( 10.17) *la vió examinar al especialista Oa M ‘He saw the specialist examine her’ ( 10.18) *lo he oído criticar a sus enemigos Oa M ‘I have heard his enemies criticize him’ where a definite and individualized M is referred to in an unduplicated a-phrase.



Chapter 10.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s 

The formal configuration as such is both acceptable and attested when Oa is more topical or salient than an indefinite human M, appropriately referred to in an post-Inf a-phrase (Sect. 8.6, egg. 8.26, 27), so what dooms egg. (10.17, 18) is that the equally definite participants of Inf are referred to in anti-iconic fashion: the first reading that comes to mind in both cases is that the Acc clitic at Vx refers to M, and the a-phrase refers to Oa. Unless it is immediately clear – already at Vx – which participant is likely to be in focus at Inf, the AcI structure is unviable. That is why ( 10.19) ??/* he oído criticarlo a sus enemigos ‘I have heard his enemies criticize him’ is not much better than (10.18): while the referent of lo is sure to play the Oa role, his enemies are not sure to be cast as p.i.f. of Inf, for they are not referred to as saliently as is their due, i.e. with a duplicating clitic at Vx. An AcI must be formulated so that M’s eventual non-topicality does not jeopardize his claim to focus: M must thus either be referred to in his proper place, as in the concatenated ( 10.20) Cuentos 77 Loi oyeron al padrei reprenderla ‘They heard the fatheri (=him) rebuke her’ be ignored altogether, as not important enough to outshine Oa, as in (10.14–16), or be presented to as a non-participant, cf. ( 10.21) a. b.

lo he oído  criticar Oa Ÿ ‘I have heard him criticized’ lo he oído criticar [por sus enemigos] Oa ‘I have heard him criticize(d) by his enemies (PP, non-participant, but de facto agent)’

In short: clitic reference to Oa at Vx becomes less acceptable the stronger M’s claim to that place(ment) is. Such fronting is consequently possible for 1. all Oa’s, when Ÿ is tacit, 2. inanimate Oa’s and some passive human Oa’s, when M is referred to with a clitic at Vx, 3. topical inanimate Oa’s, when a non-specific M is referred to with an a-phrase after Inf, 4. no Oa, when M is lexically referred to between Vx and Inf (cf. Sect. 9.2.3.1).

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

10.3 Conflation in static AcI’s Static Inf ’s are characterized by a passive, non-specific, typically inanimate p.i.f. which may even be seen as part of the static event (cf. Sect. 8.4). The fact that a static M is inherently less salient than a dynamic one enhances the salience of the Dr, whose overall relevance ensures him a place at Vx,7 regardless of where M is referred to (cf. Sects. 8.4, 6). The indirect contrast between Dr, directly relevant to Vx, and a static M semantically bound to Inf, is less transparent than the straightforwardly agentive contrast of M to Oa. Conflation of static AcI’s is consequently less likely to be acceptable, just as it is also less frequent, than that of dynamic AcI’s. Since a static M and Dr rank ex-aequo (cf. Sect. 10.1), conflated static AcI’s are particularly dependent for their interpretation – and acceptability – on the participants’ nature and, when both are human, on their person (cf. Sect. 8.6, eg. 8.23) Clustering of a human Dr with an inanimate M is thus fully acceptable, cf. ( 10.22) a. b.

me hiciste llegar la noticia ‘You made me get the news / made the news get to me (Dr)’ me la hiciste llegar ‘You made it (M) get to me (Dr)’

( 10.23) me la hizo venir ‘He made me (Dr) have it (la = Acc, the idea M)’ (lit: it come to me)’ ( 10.24) se la hiciste sangrar de nuevo ‘You made it (la = Acc, e.g. his wound, M) bleed ‘on’ him (Dr) again’ But when M is human, and thus referentially on a par with Dr, his lower grammatical case, i.e. Acc, is more obviously at odds with his higher focus status at Inf: the acceptable (10.22b) thus contrasts with ( 10.25) a.* me la hiciste llegar8 ‘You made her reach me’ b.* la hiciste llegarme ‘You made her reach me’ c. OK la hiciste llegar (junto) a mí ‘You made her come/get (close) to me’ Just as conflation of a dynamic AcI becomes less acceptable the less dependent Oa is on M (cf. egg. 10.5–8), a Dr + M cluster at Vx becomes increasingly unacceptable the more the ex aequo ranking of M and Dr is threatened by a salient and potentially active M (cf. Sect. 8.6, eg. 8.23). This explains the different acceptability of the static gustar ‘to please’ with an inanimate vs. human M: ( 10.26) a. Explicándosela bien, OK le hice gustar la gramática ‘By explaining it well to him, I made him like grammar’ (lit: I made grammar pleasing to him)



Chapter 10.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s 

b. Explicándole bien la gramática,?? se la hice gustar ‘By explaining grammar well to him, I made him (Dr) like it (M)’ (lit: ‘I made it pleasing to him’) ( 10.27) a. b.

Elogiándosela mucho, *le hice gustar (?)a María ‘By praising her a lot to him, I made him (Dr) like Mary (M)’ Elogiándole mucho a María, **se la hice gustar ‘By praising Mary to him a lot, I made him like her’ (lit: ‘I made her pleasing to him’)

In (10.27), Mary is presented as a food or a pill to be swallowed. As soon as M does something, or is even capable of acting on its own, Inf will be interpreted as dynamic rather than static, and the Dat participant is likely to be seen as Od, partially controlled by M, rather than as a Dr: he is then appropriately referred to at Inf (cf. Sects. 8.6, 9.2.3.2), as in ( 10.28) a. lo dejaste servirle como prestanombre M Od ‘You let him act for her as front-man’ (lit.: him (M) serve her (Od) as name-lender) (dynamic event) b. *** se lo dejaste servir como prestanombre Dr M ‘You let him (M) be useful to her (Dr) as front-man’ (static event) Conflation is nonetheless tolerable, even if the static M is human, when the nature of the Dative’s involvement is lexically specified after Inf, for that elucidates how the Dr functions as general point of reference in the AcI: ( 10.29) me la hiciste caer encima Dr M ‘You had it/her (M) fall on top of me (Dr)’ ( 10.30) te lo hice sentar al lado Dr M ‘I had him (M) sit next to you (Dr)’ ( 10.31) Se lo viste caer a los pies Dr M ‘You saw him fall at her feet (Dr)’

10.4 me le revisited Conflation of a static AcI becomes unacceptable if the AcI-role allotment clashes with the participants’ person-ranking, as when the 1st person plays the passive M role and

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

the Dr is a 3*rd person: in fact, such a role/referent allotment would yield the notorious me (Acc) le (Dat) cluster, cf. ( 10.32) a. OK me hiciste caerle a los pies. M Od ‘You made me fall at her feet’ b. ?/* me le hiciste caer a los pies Person 1st > 3*rd Case (Acc) < Dat Inf. focus + > – AcI-role M = Dr ‘You made me fall «her» to the feet’ But while unacceptable, (10.32b) is better than its simplex gloss ( 10.33) *me le arrojaste a los pies 1st > 3*rd Acc < Dat ‘You threw me at her feet’ for here person- and case-rankings are in overt conflict (cf. Sect. 5.3.1), while in (10.32b) the clash is mitigated by the ex aequo ranking of M and Dr, and by the fact that the higher-ranking 1st person is implicitly in focus at Inf. However, the cluster me le becomes as unacceptable as it is in (10.33) if the AcI-roles at issue are Oa and Od, both out of focus at Inf, cf. ( 10.34) ** me le hiciste arrojar a los pies Oa Od Ÿ ‘You had me (Oa) thrown at her (Od) feet (by Ÿ)’ The homogeneous cluster in (10.34) is as unacceptable as the one in (10.33) because in both instances case- and person- rankings relate to a single event. As in simplex VP’s (cf. Sects. 2.1; 5.3.1.3), the me le cluster becomes immediately acceptable as soon as the roles at issue are Di and M, or Di and Dr, as in ( 10.35) OK me le hiciste comer la sopa 1st>3*rd Di > M Oa ‘Hurrah! You got him (M) to eat the soup’ ( 10.36) ¡No me le hagas doler! Di > Dr ‘Be sure (Di) not to have (it) hurt him (Dr)!’ Here the participants’ ranking in terms of person matches the ranking of their respective AcI-roles, i.e. Di > M; Di > Dr (cf. Sect. 10.1).



Chapter 10.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s 

The same cluster – me le – thus becomes increasingly tolerable as one moves from (10.34) through (10.32b) to (10.35, 36): the increase in acceptability is due to the progressively greater congruence between person, grammatical case, and AcI-role rankings, cf.

me le 1st > 3*rd

( 10.34) *

Acc < Dat Oa < Od

( 10.32b) Acc < Dat ?? M = Dr ( 10.35, 36) Dat = Dat OK Di > M, Dr As in simplex VC’s, what makes a clitic cluster acceptable or not at the Vx of an AcI is not its actual form, but whether the role-allotment is congruent, and thus more easily computable.

10.5 Reference at Vx to the Od of dynamic Inf ’s Clustering at Vx of M with a Datobj Od is totally unacceptable, cf. Sect. 8.6 (eg. 8.29), and ( 10.37) a. la oíste mentirle a Pedro M Od’ Od b. ** se la oíste mentir a Pedro Od M ‘You heard her (M) lie to (him) Peter (Od)’ ( 10.38) a. me hiciste devolverle el autito M Od Oa b. ??/* me le hiciste devolver el autito M Od Oa ‘You made me (M) give him (Od) back the toy car (Oa)’ Od’s resemble the M’s of dynamic AcI’s in the participants’ humanness: this makes the heterogeneous cluster harder to process than M + Oa or static M + Dr combinations where the participants differ in animacy and/or inherent salience (cf. Sects. 10.2,3). Moreover, M’s grammatical case automatically becomes a problem when M + Od cluster at Vx. A dynamic M’s grammatical case should ideally be higher than Od’s, iconically matching the difference in focus between the two participants, but if M is categorized as an Acc, his grammatical case ranks lower than that of the non-focus Od, who is a Dat de jure, so that the participants’ grammatical case-ranking clashes with their AcI-role ranking (cf. Sect. 10.1). On the other hand, casting M as a Dat yields a

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

practically uninterpretable two-Dat cluster, without a clue as to which of the two equally human participants must be taken as Inf ’s p.i.f.9 The only solution is to eschew conflation altogether, and to highlight Od’s local involvement at Inf by cliticizing him to that non-finite form. We will consider two cases of potentially frontable Od’s: the IO of a transitive Inf with a DO (Oa) of its own, and the Datobj of intransitive verbs of communication.

10.5.1 * M + Od (=IO) with a further DO (Oa) Iconic placement of Od at Inf is preferred by far to heterogenous clustering of M and Inf ’s Od (=IO) at Vx: ( 10.39) a. ??/*me le hiciste dar el regalo Case ?? Dat DO (= Acc) AcI-role M Od Oa ‘You made me (M) give him (le) the present (Oa)’ b. ***me le hiciste darlo10 M Od Oa ‘You made me (M) give him (le) it (Oa, = lo)’ c. ??/*se me lo hiciste dar Od M Oa ‘You made me (M) give him (se) it (Oa, = lo)’ d. OK me hiciste darle el regalo M Od Oa ‘You made me give him the present (Oa)’ e. OK me hiciste dárselo ‘You made me give it him’ Conflation is even less acceptable if the lower Od role is played by the referentially higher 1st person, regardless of the case of the 3*rd ps M: ( 10.40) a. ** me lo hiciste dar el regalo Person 1st > 3*rd AcI-role Od < M Oa ‘You had him (M) give me (Od) the present’ b. ???/* se me lo hiciste dar M Od Oa ‘You had him (M) give it (Oa) to me (Od)’ c. OK lo hiciste darme el regalo M Od Oa ‘You had him (M) give me (Od) the present’



Chapter 10.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s 

d. OK lo hiciste dármelo M Od Oa ‘You had him (M) give me (Od) it (Oa)’ Nor is the conflict between person- and AcI-role rankings removed by referring to the 3*rd ps M with a Dat clitic, for this merely compounds the confusion, in blurring the 3*rd person’s role in the conflated AcI (cf. n. 6). Even greater difficulties arise in clusters where both M and Od are 3*rd persons: ( 10.41) a. *** se le hiciste dar el regalo ‘You had him (M/Od) give her (Od/M) the present’ (cf. Sect. 7.2.1) b. *** le lo vi llenar la copa de vino ‘I saw him (M) fill her (Od) glass with wine’ (cf. Sect. 6.4.1.2) c. ** se lo vi llenar la copa de vino Case Dat > Acc DO AcI-role Od < M Oa ‘I saw him (M) fill her (Od) glass with wine’ If me lo or se lo are resorted to, as in (10.40a) and (10.41c), lo is prevented by its case from referring to Od, and must refer to M: but then M’s grammatical case ranks below that of his own Od, conflicting with their respective focus status at Inf. Note, finally, that in dynamic AcI’s a Dat-Acc cluster at Vx congruently maps onto the AcI-role combination M + Oa (Sect. 9.1), with M’s linear precedence over Oa iconically matching the difference in focus between the two AcI-roles: but that familiar order is uniconically reversed in the conflated (10.40a) and (10.41c).11 Comparable difficulties arise in case-neutral te + me clusters at Vx, cf. ( 10.42)

te me hizo contar un cuento Person 2nd 1st a. OK M Di Oa b. ** M Od Oa c. ** Od M Oa

a. b. ** c. **

‘He had you tell a story “on” me’ ‘He had you tell me a story’ ‘He had me tell you a story’

( 10.43) OK te hizo contarme un cuento M Od Oa ‘He made you tell me a story’ ( 10.44) OK me hizo contarte un cuento M Od Oa ‘He made me tell you a story’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

When the Oa of Inf is tacit (cf. Sect. 4.2.3), and the Od is as it were left on its own, an Od role is easier to recognize if the Dat clitic iconically stands at Inf rather than at Vx, for here it may be taken as referring to M or to a potential Di, depending on the participant’s person, cf. ( 10.45) me le hiciste cocinar a. (i) ** M Od ‘You had me (M) cook for him (Od)’ (ii) OK Di M ‘Great!! You had him (M) cook!’12 b. OK me hiciste cocinarle M Od ‘You had me cook for him’ (10.45ai) is also worse than the unacceptable (10.39a), repeated here for the reader’s convenience: ( 10.39) a. ??/* me le hiciste dar el regalo Case ?? Dat DO (= Acc) AcI-role M Od Oa ‘You made me (M) give him (le) the present (Oa)’ In (10.39), the presence of an explicit Oa makes it likely that an Od role is involved, and this prevents me from being interpreted as Di. It goes without saying that the incongruous role/referent allotment of ( 10.46) *** me le hiciste cocinar 1 > 3 ?? Dat Od< M ‘You had him (M) cook for me (Od)’ is even less acceptable. The increasing unacceptability of ( 10.39) a. ??/* me le hiciste dar el regalo M Od Oa ‘You made me (M) give him (le) the present (Oa)’ ( 10.40) a. ** me le/lo hiciste dar el regalo Od M Oa ‘You had him (M) give me (Od) the present’ ( 10.45) ai. ** me le hiciste cocinar M Od ‘You had me cook for him’



Chapter 10.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s 

( 10.46) *** me le hiciste cocinar Od M ‘You had him cook for me’ reflects the progressive incongruency of the role/referent allotments and the increasing complexity of the processing. In (10.39a) an Od directly associated with Inf non-iconically stands at Vx, but explicit reference to an Oa at least makes it clear that an Od role is at issue. When the precise nature of the role becomes harder to recognize, as in (10.45ai), the M + Od cluster becomes totally unacceptable; in (10.40a) the presence of Oa makes it clear that there is an Od, but the AcI-roles are incongruously allotted; the combination of both factors renders the cluster in (10.46) maximally unacceptable.

10.5.2 * M + Od with verbs of communication When Inf is a dynamic verb of communication, effortless role/referent allotment to the active M and an equally human Datobj Od requires iconic cliticization of Od to Inf, cf. ( 10.47) a. (i) * me le hiciste mentir M Od (ii) OK me hiciste mentirle M Od ‘You made me lie to him’ b. (i) * se lo has hecho mentir Od M (ii) OK lo has hecho mentirle M Od ‘You made him lie to her’ Note that the ordering of M and Od is reversed between (10.47ai) and (10.47bi), depending on the person of M, and that in both cases M ranks below its own Od in terms of grammatical case. The unacceptability is even greater when the role/referent allotment is incongruous, cf. ( 10.48)

me lo has hecho mentir 1st > 3*rd Dat > Acc Od < M ‘You made him lie to me’

Finally, an M + Od cluster at Vx is totally unacceptable if M is referred to by a Dat clitic; if both participants are 3*rd persons, the impossible two-Dative se le cluster results (cf. Sect. 7.2.1):

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

( 10.49) a. * se le hiciste mentir ?? Od M ?? M Od ?? ’You made him/her lie to her/him) b. * me le hiciste mentir 1st > 3*rd Dat = Dat Od < M ‘You had him lie to me’ The same problems arise with case-neutral clitic clusters: ( 10.50) te me hizo mentir a. * M Od ‘He had you lie to me’ (Datobj) b. * Od M ‘He had me lie to you’ (Datobj) It goes without saying that grammatical case- and AcI-role rankings do not clash if the context favours a Dataff rather than Datobj interpretation of the Dat clitic, because then Inf is less dynamic, and the Dat AcI-role borders on a Dr, cf. ( 10.51) a. OK se/me lo has hecho mentir ‘You made him lie “on” her/me (Dataff )’ b. OK te me hizo mentir (i) ‘He had you lie “on” me’ (Dataff )’ (ii) ‘He had me lie “on” you (Dataff )’ Similarly, if the intended role-referent allotment is foreshadowed in the preceding context, an M plus bona-fide Od cluster may prove marginally acceptable, cf. (10.52) Sabés que siempre me ha gustado ser sincera con todos, y si ahora tengo fama de falsa es sólo por tu culpa. Has hecho que engañase a mis padres, me has obligado a fingir con mis amigos, y hasta? me (M) le (Od’) has hecho mentir a mi marido (Od). ‘You know that I have always liked to be open and sincere with everybody, and if I now have a reputation for duplicity it is all your fault. You have made me deceive my parents, you have forced me to feign with my friends, and you have even made me lie to him (my husband)’ The conflated role combination is less acceptable, of course, if the M and Od roles are both played by 3*rd persons, cf.



Chapter 10.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s 

(10.53) Si María ahora tiene fama de falsa es sólo por tu culpa: has hecho que engañase a sus padres, la has obligado a fingir con sus amigos, y hasta??/* se la has hecho mentir a su marido. ‘If Mary now has a reputation for duplicity it is all your fault: you made her deceive her parents, you forced her to feign with her friends, and you even made her lie to him (her husband)’ Since the difference in salience between the participants is greater in (10.52), the role allotment is more congruent, which renders the cluster more acceptable. Moreover, in (10.52) M precedes Od, as in the familiar me lo (= M + Oa) order typical of dynamic AcI’s, while the Od + M role order in (10.53) – inevitable when both participants are 3*rd persons – rather recalls a static AcI. On both counts, the cluster in (10.53) is harder to match with the intended role/referent allotment than the one in (10.52), and is correspondingly less acceptable.

10.5.3 Od at Vx with a tacit Ÿ A human Oa can freely cliticize to Vx in the absence of any reference to M (cf. Section 10.2.1); this holds as well for the IO’s of dynamic transitive Inf ’s, cf. ( 10.54) le hice dar el regalo Od Ÿ Oa ‘I had him receive the present, (lit: I had the present (be) given to him (by X)’ Such fronting of Od is far less acceptable if the dynamic Inf is intransitive: ( 10.55) ??/* me hiciste mentir Od Ÿ ‘You had me lied to’ ( 10.56) ?? no me/le hagas pegar Od Ÿ ‘Do not let me/him be hit’ In (10.54), the lexical reference to Oa allows the le clitic at Vx to be interpreted as Inf ’s Od, rather than its M. An intransitive dynamic Inf, however, suggests only two roles: a p.i.f., i.e. M, and a non-focus Od; a Dat participant referred to at Vx is thus likely to be taken to play the M rather than the Od role (cf. Sect. 9.1).13 Fronting of Od is consequently more acceptable when that role is played by a 3*rd person: first, because the explicit morphology helps to distinguish the AcI-roles,14 and second, because a 3*rd ps participant has less inherent claim to the higher M role, so that ( 10.57) ? le hiciste mentir Od Ÿ ‘You had him lied to’ is better than (10.55).

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

10.6 Summary: clitic clustering in centrifugal AcI’s Table 10.1 summarizes the variable acceptability of heterogeneous me lo and me le clusters at Vx with dynamic vs. static Inf ’s, for different allotments of M and O roles. S is understood throughout as being the 2nd person. Below each cluster we show the person-ranking of the participants, given within the Vx VC. Below that comes the participants’ ranking in terms of grammatical case, which is formally explicit with 3*rd ps referents, and then come the diverse combinations of AcI-roles, ordered by their progressive incongruence. The ranking of the AcI-roles was motivated in Sect. 10.1; > or < signs identify the higher vs. lower ranking person, case, or AcI-role; the ex-aequo ranking of M and Dr is rendered by the = sign, while a double >> or << signals a large disproportion between AcI roles. When all rankings match, all the > or < signs point in the same direction: conflicting directions reflect a clash between AcI-role ranking and person- or/and case-ranking. The acceptability of the cluster for each AcI-role combination is given, as usual, by OK, ?, * etc. An exclamation point signals a conflict between grammatical case and AcI-role. Table 10.1╇ Variable acceptability of diverse role-referent allotments for heterogeneous me l- clusters at the Vx of an AcI Dynamic AcI’s Person Case

me 1 Dat

> >

lo 3* Acc

AcI-roles OK ** !***

M Od Oa

>> < <<

Oa M (+ Oa) M

Person Case

me 1 Dat

> >

lo 3* Acc

AcI-roles OK

Dr

=

M

me 1 ??

>

le 3* Dat

> < <<

Od M (+ Oa) M

me 1 ??

>

le 3* Dat

M Dr

= =

Dr M

??/* M ** Od *** Oa

Static AcI’s

?? * !***

M

=

Dr



Chapter 10.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s 

It is clear at a glance that the acceptability of each clitic cluster decreases in proportion to the mismatch between AcI-role ranking and person- and case-rankings: what counts is not the cluster’s form, but the congruence of the particular role/referent allotment, and how transparently it is conveyed.

10.7 Clitic placement in AcI’s with copulative events Predicative Inf ’s are not easy to integrate into an AcI because “being X” is hardly something that can be forced, allowed or perceived. In a conflated copulative AcI, clitic reference to M clusters at Vx with a predicate lo that refers to M’s Subject Complement, presupposed by the centripetal Inf; the Acc case of the SC (cf. Sects. 3.2.3, 5.5) automatically forces M to be categorized as a Dative. This, however, is hardly appropriate, for unlike transitive Inf ’s, a copulative event does not per se suggest an active p.i.f. (cf. Sect. 9.1). In consequence, ( 10.58) ?? se lo dejaste ser ‘You let him (Dat = M) be it (Acc = SC)’ is far less acceptable than ( 10.59) OK se lo dejaste comer ‘You let him (Dat = M) eat it (Acc = Oa)’ Our informants found a M + SC cluster at least marginally acceptable in a supporting context, cf. (10.60) Cuando jugamos al descubrimiento de América, siempre hacés vos de Isabel la Católica: esta vez dejámelo ser a mí. ‘When we play at the discovery of America you always do Queen Isabel; this time let me (M) be it (SC)’ (10.61) Pocos me consideran muy prudente, pero me lo viste ser cuando estaba en juego la vida de mi hijo. ‘Few people regard me as very prudent, but you saw me be it when my son’s life was at risk’ Conflation was actually preferred by our informants AECh and SC in the following cases: (10.62) Hace media hora que están jugando al caballito, y siempre hacés vos de jinete, y Tomasito tiene que hacer de caballo. Estoy segura que de tanto en tanto también a él le gustaría ser el jinete: a. ??/* dejalo serlo la próxima vez. b. OK/? dejáselo ser la próxima vez. ‘You’ve been playing horse-riding for the last half-hour, and you are always the rider, and Tommy has to be the horse. I’m sure that from time to time he too would like to be the rider: let him (M) be it (SC) the next time’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

( 10.63) – ¿La dejaste ser defensora de ese delincuente? a. – ??/* Sí, la dejé serlo b. – OK Sí, se lo dejé ser. ‘ – You allowed her to be the defender of that rascal? – Yes, I let her (Acc/Dat = M) be it (Acc = SC)’ The near acceptability of the heterogenous cluster in (10.62b, 63b) contrasts sharply with its unacceptability when it occurs in a simplex VC with the interpretation DO + OC (cf. Sect. 5.5.2) as in ( 10.64) ** se lo nombré DO OC ‘I named/appointed him it (the title, position)’ The greater acceptability of the cluster in an AcI (eg. 10.63) over the simplex VP (10.64) parallels the relative acceptability of the AcI me le hiciste caer a los pies ‘You made me fall at her feet’ (eg. 10.32b) as against the intolerable single-event me le arrojaste a los pies ‘You threw me at his feet’ (eg.10.33). In both cases the increased acceptability correlates with a greater difference between the clustered participant-roles; and indeed, in (10.63) M and SC differ in focus status at Inf, while DO and OC are both out of focus in the simplex VC of (10.64).

10.7.1 Parecer ‘to seem’ as Inf Bordelois (1988:€87–88) argues that verb-raising cannot take place in an AcI, and that parecer consequently cannot appear as the Inf of an AcI: her claim is contradicted by ( 10.65) Cuentos 27 Su gatiao overo [...] hacía parecer más inservibles todavía los pobres sotretas que montábamos. ‘His striped bay [...] made the poor hacks (M) we rode seem even more useless (SC)’15 AcI’s with parecer as Inf were effortlessly accepted by our informants when M’s SC was expressed lexically, but conflation is strongly disfavoured if that SC is referred to with predicate lo, unlike what appears to be the case with ser as in eg. (10.62b), cf. ( 10.66) Sabemos que Luisa es todo menos elegante, pero al menos para esta fiesta a. OK hagámosla parecerlo M SC b. ??/* hagámoselo parecer M SC ‘We all know that Louise is anything but elegant, but at least for this party let us make her seem it (= elegant)’



Chapter 10.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s 

( 10.67) No creo ser muy elegante, pero al menos a. OK déjenme parecerlo b. ??/* déjenmelo parecer ‘I don’t consider myself very elegant, but at least let me seem it’ The reason for the rejection of (10.66b, 67b) may be that, unlike ser ‘to be’, parecer presupposes a Peripheral Experiencer in whose eyes the resemblance holds. What is not clear, however, is the level at which that participant is involved: as a sort of Dr at Vx, or only as an Od at Inf? When the AcI is strung out, and SC, M and the Exp are all referred to lexically, the best arrangement is for the Exp to precede Vx, as in ( 10.68) a. OK b. ??

A Pedro le hice parecer bonita a María Dr(Exp) Dr’ SC M ‘I had Pedro (Exp) find Mary pretty; Mary seem pretty to Pedro’ (le) hice parecer bonita María a Pedro Dr’ SC M Dr (Exp) ‘I had Mary seem pretty to Pedro’

Partial conflation is possible when only M and the Exp are referred to with clitics, while the SC is referred to lexically, cf. ( 10.69) se la hice parecer bonita Dr M SC ‘I had him find her pretty / I made her seem pretty to him’ but it is rendered less acceptable by clitic reference to the SC: ( 10.70) a. ?? se la hice parecerlo Dr(Exp) M SC ‘I had him find her it / I made her seem it to him’ b. OK/? la hice parecérse lo M Od(Exp) SC ‘I made her seem it to him’ c. *** se lo hice parecerle M SC Od ‘I made her seem it to him’ (10.70b) is most acceptable, probably because the Exp role is actually presupposed by parecer, and thus “belongs” at that event with SC: it thus cannot “climb” on its own in eg. (10.70a), cf. Sect. 7.6.3. For the same reason, it is unacceptable to refer at Inf only to the Exp, as in (10.70c), for if the Acc SC climbs, so must its syntagmatic partner Od. It goes without saying that the possibility of full conflation, i.e. an M + Dr + SC cluster, depends on the participants’ being sufficiently distinct in person: a triple 3*rd ps clitic cluster is in any case morphologically impossible (cf. ch. 5 n. 38). But even if

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

one of the participants is the 1st or 2nd person, a three-clitic cluster is hard to interpret whatever the role/referent allotment, cf. ( 10.71)

a. * b. * c. * d. *

se me lo hiciste parecer ‘You made her (M) seem it (SC) to me (Exp), i.e. you made me find her it’ se te lo hice parecer ‘I made you (M) seem it (SC) to him (Exp), i.e. I had him find you it’ te me lo hizo parecer ‘He made you (M) seem it (SC) to me (Exp), i.e. he made me find you it’ te me lo hizo parecer ‘He made me (M) seem it (SC) to you (Exp), i.e. he made you find me it’

The unavoidable absence of any morphological clue as to which of the two Dat participants plays the Exp role at parecer makes these clusters practically uninterpretable and thus unacceptable. We are far indeed from having exhausted clitic clustering at the Vx of an AcI; still, the data we have presented must suffice to show that the inferential routines discussed in Part I enter directly into the processing of heterogenous clusters, whose acceptability decreases as their interpretation becomes cognitively more costly.

Notes to Ch. 10 1.

As usual we indicate higher vs. lower rank with > vs. < signs.

2. In static Inf ’s role-ranking does not apply transitively across the AcI, cf. Sect. 9.2.1. 3. We will be concerned only in passing with homogeneous clustering at Vx (cf. egg. 9.7,8), for the interpretational difficulties that may arise when both participants are out of focus in the same event are not peculiar to AcI’s. Double mention of M or S is discussed in Chapter 11. 4. Bordelois (1974:€79, fn. 19) finds (10.6) ungrammatical, and characterizes its unacceptability as “mysterious”. 5. The cluster is uninterpretable when me is understood to play the Dat M role; it becomes fully acceptable if me refers to a Di relevant to the AcI as a whole, for then neither participant claims focus at Inf, cf. te me hizo besar Oa Di Ÿ ‘He had you kissed “on” me (by X)’ The reading ‘He had me kissed “on” you’ is of course also possible in an appropriately supportive context.



Chapter 10.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s  6. The conflict between person- and AcI-role rankings is not removed by referring to M with a Dat clitic, as in ** me le hiciste besar 1st > 3*rd ? Dat Oa < M ‘You made him kiss me’ Since the VC contains no explicit Acc, it provides no clue as to which of the two humans plays the de jure Acc Oa role. 7. A shared Peripheral participant can be appropriately referred to at Inf if his involvement in that event is contextually more relevant than his possible role at Vx (cf. Sect. 9.2.3.2); as will be seen in Sect. 11.1.2, this is particularly the case when M is double-mentioned. 8. Casting the saliently human, but inactive M as a Dative only complicates matters, for it yields a two-Dat cluster; cf. n. 6 above, and n. 26 in ch. 3. 9. A two-Dat homogenous cluster at Vx is far more acceptable, for then both participants play non-focus roles in the same event (cf. Sect. 10.4, egg. 10.35, 36). 10. (10.39b) is totally unacceptable because, of the two non-focus participants involved at Inf, only Od has been fronted to Vx, while Oa remains cliticized to Inf (cf. Sect. 7.6.3). (10.39b) and its equally unacceptable alternative (i) *** me lo hiciste darle M Oa Od ‘You made me (M) give it (Oa) him (Od)’ contrast with the perfectly acceptable (ii) OK me le hiciste darlo Di M Oa ‘You made him (M) give it (Oa) “on” me (Di)’ (iii) OK me lo hiciste pegarle Di M Od ‘You made him (M) hit her (Od) “on” me (DI)’ where the 1st ps Di and the 3*rd ps M are homogeneously out of focus at Vx. 11. Cf. Sect. 9.2.2 on the unequal acceptability of the te me la cluster depending on which – 1st or 2nd – person plays the M role. 12. Under this role-allotment, M is more appropriately cast as an Acc, i.e. me lo hiciste cocinar ‘Great!! You had him cook!’ 13. For the same reason, a tacit Ÿ is easier to infer when it is Oa that is fronted than when Od “climbs” to Vx, cf. (i) me hizo maquillar Oa Ÿ ‘He had me (Oa) made up (by X)’ (ii) ?? me hizo hablar Od Ÿ ‘He had me (Od) talked to (by X)’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs 14. A M reading is enforced by the explicit Acc in lo oíste mentir ‘You heard him (Acc = M) lie’ 15. The lexical references to M and SC follow, as they should, in the order SC – M, with the necessarily Acc SC preceding M, whose grammatical case is inherently uncertain (cf. Sect. 9.1, especially 9.1.1).

chapter 11

Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s Distinct participants enforce sharp differentiation of their roles, while double mention of the p.i.f may role-level an event (cf. Sect. 4.1 and Glossary). In ch. 10 we examined the variable acceptability of conflated AcI’s where all roles fall to distinct participants; we now turn to the implications for an AcI of double mentioning S or M, who claim focus at Vx and Inf respectively. The S may assume a non-focus role either at Vx, as M or Dr, or at Inf qua O, but the double-mention of M affects only Inf.

11.1 Double-mention of M By foregrounding M’s self-sufficiency in Inf, his double mention sets off Inf as a distinct VC, cf. (11.1) Cuentos 741 Vayase usté...y déjeme a mí dormirme tranquilo una siesta M’ M =M (Od) Oa ‘You go away... and let me (M, clitic-duplicated at dejar) take me (me: double mention of M at dormir) a nap in peace’ The clitic double mentioning M can appear only at Inf, the only event where M enjoys focus, cf. (11.2) a. Fuegos 58 Una jaqueca que no la dejaba moverse de la cama M =M b. **** una jaqueca que no se la dejaba mover de la cama =M M ‘A migraine that did not allow her to move (herself) from the bed’ (11.3) a. vi romperse el vaso =M M b.** se vi romper el vaso =M M ‘I saw the glass break’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Double mention presupposes an identifiable p.i.f.: a tacit M, whose identity is irrelevant, is de jure incapable of playing a distinct non-focus role in Inf and cannot be doublementioned, just as a second se cannot double-mention an imp. se (cf. Sect. 7.3), cf. ( 11.4) * Vi  bañarse ‘I saw (Ÿ) bathing himself/themselves’ (11.5) a. OK b. **

vi secarse las lágrimas =M M ‘I saw the tears (M) dry up (se = double mention of M) Ÿ =Ÿ Oa ‘I saw “X” dry up “X’s” tears’

Two points merit discussion: (a) the relative acceptability of explicitly double mentioning M, and (b) M’s double-mention as a bar to clitic fronting.

11.1.1 Variable double mention of M Double-mention of M enlarges his control of Inf (cf. Sect. 4.1) and implicitly decreases his subordination to S: this explains why explicit double mention of M is seldom observed in AcI’s with hacer (Hernanz 1999:€2254, 2262), the verb which gives S greatest control over M.2 This is even the case when Inf is an “inherently reflexive” verb, such as engreirse ‘to become conceited’, cf. (11.6) a. Pago 181 Emerenciana [...] la tomó en sus brazos, consolándola y haciéndola acostar de nuevo ‘Emerenciana took her in her arms, comforting her, and making her (M) lie down again’ (acostar ‘lay something next to something, of a ship, to moor’; introverted acostarse ‘to lie down’) b. Segundo 136 Tampoco – respondí – me gustan a mí las mujeres que andan haciendo engreir a la pobre gente.3 ‘Neither – I answered – do I like women who go around making poor folks (M) get conceited/delude themselves.’ It follows that in AcI’s with hacer, an Acc clitic at Vx or a bare NP after Inf can refer a. to an implicitly double-mentioned M, with a role-levelled reading of Inf, or b. to Oa, Ÿ being tacit, under a role-polarized reading of Inf, cf. (11.7) a. me hiciste divertir M (omitted dm me) ‘You made me have fun (lit. amuse myself, role-levelled Inf)’



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

b. me hiciste divertir Oa Ÿ ‘You had me amused (someone amuse me, tacit Ÿ, polarized Inf)’ (11.8) a. le hiciste asustar el caballo Dr (omitted dm se) M ‘You made his horse shy (lit.: made his horse (M) get scared at him (Dr)’ (role-levelled Inf) b. le hiciste asustar el caballo Od Ÿ Oa ‘You had (someone) scare his horse (Oa) “on” him (Od)’ The two readings of Inf are distinguished by the larger context, which either highlights M’s self-sufficiency in Inf, or conversely suggests that Oa is acted on by a distinct but tacit M. If the context is neutral, the role-ambiguity neutralizes into imprecision (cf. the indeterminacy of double-mention and focus-defeasing, discussed in Sects. 6.4.3; 7.4). When explicit double mention of a 3rd ps M is in order, he is normally referred to before Inf, for an a- phrase that follows Inf would put the horse behind the cart: (11.9) a. lo vi bañarse ‘I saw him bathe (himself)’ b. (i) OK vi a Pedro bañarse (ii) ?? vi bañarse a Pedro ‘I saw Pedro bathe (himself)’ Delayed reference to a double-mentioned M is particularly unfelicitous when the double-mentioning clitic clusters with Oa, for the participation of that Acc polarizes Inf and defines M’s role as an agent, consequently favouring early reference to him, cf. (11.10) En la escuela habían enseñado a los chicos que las manos deben estar limpias, y por eso me alegré cuando vi a. OK a mi hijo lavárselas b. ?? lavárselas a mi hijo ‘At school they had taught the kids that one’s hands ought to be clean, and that is why I was happy when I saw my son (M) wash them (Oa) for himself (=MOd)’ A double-mentioned M can be referred to with an a-phrase postposed to Inf either under contrastive reference or, when M is not inherently salient, if there is strong contextual support for the role allotment at Inf, cf. ( 11.11) a. Esta mañana, en ese mar agitado, vi bañarse a Pedro, no a Luis ‘This morning, in that rough sea, I saw Pedro bathe (himself), not Luis’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

b. me lavé las manos con jabón y piedra pómez, como había visto lavárselas a otros. ‘I washed my hands with soap and pumice stone, as I had seen others (M) wash their (se: =MOd) own (las: Oa)’

11.1.2 M’s double mention and clitic fronting In examples (11.10b, 11b) the clitic which refers to Oa clusters at Inf with the double mention of M, who consequently plays an Od role. Since Od (=M) and Oa are equally associated with Inf, cliticization to Vx of the reference to Oa would automatically require the fronting of its co-participant Od se: “if one clitic climbs, all clitics climb” (cf. Sect. 7.6.3). Se, however, which double mentions M, must stand at Inf for that is the event where M enjoys focus: it consequently cannot appear at Vx, cf. the unacceptable egg. (11.2b, 3b) and ( 11.12) a. * a mi hijo se las vi lavar b. * se las vi lavar a mi hijo ‘I saw my son (M) wash them (Oa) for himself (=MOd)’4 Double mention of M thus resembles the interposition of M between Vx and Inf (cf. Sect. 9.2.2) in that both set Inf off as a distinct VC, thereby preventing any fronting of clitic reference to Inf ’s O; not surprisingly, double mention of M favours interposition of M, cf. egg. (11.1, 9bi). In static AcI’s double mention of M foregrounds his involvement in Inf and correspondingly highlights the Od involvement of the shared Peripheral participant (Sect. 8.4). While Dr naturally cliticizes to Vx when the passive M is single mentioned (cf. Sects. 8.4, 5, 6), double mention of M forces the two clitics to cluster at Inf, cf. ( 11.13) a. le vi salir un diente ‘I saw a tooth (M) come out “on” him (static event, single mention of M, le = Dr) b. (i) OK vi salírsele un diente (ii) ** le vi salirse un diente ‘I saw one of his teeth fall out’ (introverted event, se: =M, double mention of M, le = Od) ( 11.14) a. OK vi rompérsele una pierna b. ???/* le vi romperse una pierna ‘I saw his (Od) leg (M) get broken (se: =M)’ A Di, however, is not shared by Vx and Inf for it is relevant to the AcI globally: it is consequently not forced to cluster with the double mention of M at Inf, cf.



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

( 11.15) a. Newspaper editor to journalist ¡No me digas! ¿Por fin se cayó la Piedra Movediza de Tandil? ¿Vos mismo me la viste caerse? Ahora mismo me escribís un artículo contando todo lo que viste. ‘Who would have thought it! The Moving Tandil Rock finally fell down? You yourself did indeed (me, Di) see it (la, M) fall down (se: =M, dm of M)? Go now and write me an article telling everything you saw’ b. ¿De qué te reís? ¿Te divierte el florero roto, y que (i) me lo viste caer de las manos? (ii) lo viste caérseme de las manos? ‘What are you laughing at? Are you amused at the broken vase, and that (i) You saw it (M) fall out (sm of M) of my (Dr) hands?’ (ii) You saw it (M) fall down (=M, introverted event) from my (Od) hands?’ Me can appear at Vx in (11.15a) because the 1st person who plays a Di role, i.e. the newspaper’s editor, is not directly involved in the fall of the Tandil Rock, though the fact does interest him as a news item. In (11.15b), where the 1st person is indubitably involved in the fall of the vase, he can be seen as Dr only if, as in (11.15bi), M is singlementioned: the double-mention of M in (11.15bii) sets off Inf from Vx, and defines the 1st person’s role as an Od, with cliticization of me to Inf. As expected, all our informants absolutely rejected the fronted clusters in ( 11.16) ** se le vi romper una pierna =M Dr M ‘I saw him break a leg/his leg break (lit.: a leg break ‘on’ him)’ ( 11.17) ** se me hizo caer el diente =M Dr ‘He made my tooth fall out’ ( 11.18) ** se le vi abrir una herida al costado =M Dr ‘I saw a wound open up on his side’ ( 11.19) ** se te hizo caer el vaso de las manos5 =M Dr ‘He made the glass fall from your hands’

11.2 S in a non-focus AcI-role If S plays the non-focus role of M at Vx, that is the only place where the double-mentioning clitic can appear; we abbreviate such a situation as =SM, i.e. double mention of S in M role, cf.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

( 11.20) a. b.

En el cielo oscuro se veían brillar las estrellas ‘The stars (S) were seen (se: =SM) to shine in the dark sky’ Se le veían brillar los ojos ‘His eyes (S) could be seen (se: =SM) to shine’

( 11.21) a. Cuatro 207 Cirineo se sentía desfallecer b.*** Cirineo sentía desfallecerse ‘Cirineo felt himself (=SM) grow faint’ When Inf is static, and S plays the shared Dr role (=SDr), the double-mentioning clitic again appears at Vx, where the Dr role is referred to by rights,6 cf. ( 11.22) Pago 138 Ya me (=SDr) debía haber hecho saltar la tapa de los sesos (M) ‘I should have blown my brains out long ago [lit. Already I to me (=SDr) should have made spring the lid of the brains (M)]’ Matters are less simple when S plays an O role in a dynamic Inf: how and where S is referred to in such a capacity depends on the extent to which Inf constitutes a distinct VC. When an explicit M claims focus in Inf, the non-focus O role played by S contrasts syntagmatically with M: clitic reference to the O=S participant is consequently properly made at Inf, cf. ( 11.23) me dejói besarlai ‘Shei let me (M) kiss heri (Oa=S)’ But when M is tacit, the Vx-Inf sequence becomes a complex VC role-levelled by S’s double-mention in an O capacity, so that nothing prevents S from being double-mentioned at Vx as =SO, cf. ( 11.24) Estos gatitos sei dejani acariciar7 ‘These kittens allow petting, let themselves (=SOa) be petted’ Double mention of S at Vx in the M role, and iterated double mention of that M (=S) at a dynamic Inf, is almost impossible to disentangle: it has not been observed, and is rejected by informants.8 When S is a 3rd person, different clitics come into play in reference to his O role, depending on where the reference is made: if at Vx, se is resorted to, because S is doublementioned at the event where he actually enjoys focus; if at Inf, an l- clitic is in order, because S (qua O) contrasts with the explicit M who enjoys focus at Inf, cf. ( 11.25) Tres 118 ...el oratorio donde se haría decir misa por el obispo de Heraclea ‘the oratory where she (S) would have mass (Oa) read for her (se: =SOd) by the bishop of Heraclea’



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

( 11.26) Tres 135 ...anonadada de vergüenza oyó al obispo de Heraclea decirle “.....” ‘humbled to the ground, she (S) heard the bishop of Heraclea (M) say to her (Od=S) “.....”(Oa)’ The same parvenue is the S in both (11.25) and (11.26), and in both cases the bishop performs actions which involve her as an Od, but his control of Inf is clearly not the same in the two events. In (11.25) the bishop is clearly at S’s beck and call and does not even enjoy participant status, being referred to in a PP, beyond the complex VC; in (11.26) he plays an M role strongly displeasing to S, whose control of Inf is very small. S’s Datben role is thus properly referred to with se at Vx in (11.25), for here S is allpowerful, and the only AcI-participant besides herself is the inanimate Oa – hence the abbreviation =SOd, which foregrounds the double-mention of S, in the Od role. In (11.26), where the bishop is cast as M and iconically precedes Inf, the relative independence of Inf from Vx allows the Datobj role played by the humiliated S to be referred to with the 3*rd ps Dat le, cliticized to the bishop-controlled Inf: it is accordingly symbolized by Od=S. Reference to S’s O role at Vx itself is hindered by greater dominance of M at Inf, and by that event’s relative detachment from Vx; it should conversely prove more acceptable when 1. M is tacit rather than explicit, for M’s absence allows the entire AcI to be processed as a single VC; 2. Inf is static rather than dynamic: S is more properly referred to at Vx when playing the Dr role against a passive M, than when subordinate to an active M in an Od/ Oa role; 3. M is single-mentioned at Inf: double mention of M de facto sets off Inf as a separate VC and prevents any fronting of an O clitic, cf. Sect. 11.1.2. We now examine the different role-configurations that become possible when S plays a non-focus AcI-role, going from simpler to more complex cases.

11.2.1 S = O, tacit Ÿ A tacit, and thus totally backgrounded M, automatically foregrounds S’s O role and favours its cliticization to Vx, cf. eg. (11.24, 25) and ( 11.27) Segundo 159 se dejó ensillar sin muchas cosquillas ‘He let himself (=SOa) be saddled (by Ÿ) without much ado’ ( 11.28) Fuegos 31 Por primera vez el frío se hacía sentir en pleno día ‘It was the first time the cold (=SOa) made itself felt (by Ÿ) in the day-time’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

( 11.29) Héroes 224 Alejandra lo sacudió, como golpeándolo, él se dejaba hacer, como un cuerpo fláccido e inerte. ‘Alexandra shook him, as if beating him, he let himself (=SOd; Dataff ) be handled (lit.: done to) (Ÿ), like a flaccid and inert body’ ( 11.30) Fuegos 194 me haría perdonar tanta ingratitud ‘I would get myself (=SOd) be forgiven (by Ÿ) (for) so much ingratitude (Oa)’ It follows that with Inf ’s that admit either a dynamic or a static interpretation, double mention of S is interpretable as respectively =SOa with a tacit Ÿ, or as =SM, cf. ( 11.31) María se sintió subir a la superficie a. ‘Mary felt herself (SOa) raised to the surface (by someone) (dynamic event)’ b. María se sintió subir a la superficie ‘Mary felt herself (=SM) rise to the surface (static event)’ Correspondingly, an inanimate participant lexically referred to after Inf will be understood as M or Oa, depending on the static or dynamic interpretation of Inf, with the double-mentioning clitic at Vx taken as respectively =SDr or =SOd, cf. ( 11.32) María se sintió apretar la venda a. ‘Mary felt the bandage (M) tight(en) on her (=SDr) (static AcI) b. ‘Mary felt the bandage (Oa) [be] tightened on her (=SOd) (by Ÿ) (dynamic AcI)9 Since a tacit M allows the dynamic Inf to become part of a complex VC, there is some leeway as to the placement of the case-neutral reference to S’s Oa or Od role: though cliticization of =SOa at Vx is often regarded as obligatory (cf. Treviño 1994:€171 et pass.; Hernanz 1999:€2251), the double-mentioning clitic can appear at Inf if S’s role is that of Od (Treviño 1994:€55–6; 168; 172), particularly in the presence of an Oa, cf. ( 11.33) a. * Hizoi afeitarsei b. Sei hizoi afeitar ‘He had himself (=SOa) shaved (by someone)’ ( 11.34) a. Hizoi afeitarsei la barba b. Sei hizoi afeitar la barba ‘He had his beard shaved (by someone) (lit. hei had [X] shave himi (=SOd) the beard (Oa)’ Reference to S’s Od role at Inf is possible because of the natural inclination “to express close together in time that which is conceived together in the mind” (Behaghel 1932:€4), and the Od’s immediate syntagmatic contrast with Oa. The same principle allows clitic



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

reference to =SOa at Inf if the locus of the event is mentioned after Inf and happens to be a body part of S, cf. ( 11.35) a. Se dejó besar en la mejilla b. Dejó besarse en la mejilla ‘She allowed herself to be kissed on the cheek’ The two placements of the clitic iconically distinguish the actual object of the kiss: in (11.35a) it is herself that S allows to be kissed, on the cheek, while in (11.35b) she tolerates cheek-kissing. With intransitive dynamic Inf ’s, =SOd regularly cliticizes to Vx, for there is nothing to attract the clitic to Inf, cf. ( 11.36) a. se dejó mentir sobre esta cuestión b. * dejó mentirse sobre esta cuestión ‘He let himself (=SOd) be lied to about that matter’ Homogeneous clustering at Vx of =SOa/Od with a clitic reference to another O is unproblematic, since both roles are played at Inf; the acceptability of the cluster follows from the principles discussed for single-event VC’s in ch. 5. Thus, a =SOd + Oa cluster, where S plays the higher ranking Od, is always acceptable at Vx, cf. ( 11.37) me la haría perdonar ‘I would get myself (=SOd) forgiven [for] it (Oa)’ (cf. eg. 11.30) But when S plays the lower-ranking Oa role, it critically matters whether the role/referent allotment is congruous or not; cf. ( 11.38)

se me hizo presentar 3rd < 1st =SOa < Od Ÿ ‘He had himself (=SOa) introduced to me (Od) (by Ÿ)’

( 11.39) ?? se le oyó prometer como esposa 3rd > 3*rd =SOa < Od Ÿ ‘She heard herself (=SOa) be promised to him (Od) as wife’ ( 11.40) ??/* me le hice presentar10 1st > 3*rd =SOa < Od Ÿ ‘I had myself be introduced to him’ (by someone) (11.40) instantiates the mismatch of person- and case-rankings discussed at length in Sect. 5.3.1; the only way to avoid the conflict is to eschew clitic reference to Od at Vx, and to refer to the participant – after Inf – by means of an a-phrase, cf.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

( 11.41) OK/? me hice presentar a él ‘I had myself introduced to him’ Still, the clash between grammatical case and person ranking is somewhat attenuated by the fact that the Oa role is actually played by the very salient S: (11.40) is thus less bad than an AcI where Oa is referentially distinct from S, cf. ( 11.42) * me le hiciste presentar Oa Od S Ÿ ‘You had me (Oa) introduced to him (Od)’ which exhibits all the disadvantages discussed in Sect. 5.3.1. Our line of argumentation, and the specific inferential routes invoked, are supported by the fact that (11.40), where the Oa role is played by S and M is tacit, is actually less acceptable than a simplex VC with double mention of the 1st ps p.i.f. (cf. Sect. 5.3.1.4): ( 11.43) OK me le presenté ‘I introduced myself to him’ The reason is simply that, by its very nature, an AcI presupposes the mediation of a distinct M. Even when tacit, as in (11.40), this participant detracts from S’s control of the AcI as a whole: but in the simplex (11.43) the double mentioned p.i.f. indisputably rules the roost. The “introduction” is thus more effectively role-levelled, and the role/ referent allotment less incongruous, in the simplex (11.43) than in the less acceptable AcI of (11.40).11

11.2.2 Heterogenous clusters with S in a non-focus AcI-role S can play two non-focus roles relevant to Vx, i.e. M or Dr, while he can be involved at Inf only as an O. Can the double mention of S in one capacity cluster at Vx with clitic reference to a distinct participant in some other role? How acceptable is it for =SO heterogeneously to cluster with an explicit M, or for =SM to cluster with a distinct O, especially an Acc Oa? No problem should arise with a =SDr + M cluster, where the double-mentioned S ranks above M in grammatical case, but the two are on the same level in terms of AcIrole (cf. Sect. 10.1); the cluster should also be more acceptable than one combining Dr + =SM, for here the double-mentioned S ranks in case below the distinct participant. When Inf is dynamic a cluster of =SO + M is very likely to prove incongruous: S outranks M at Vx, but S’s O role subordinates him to M at Inf (cf. Sect. 10.1).12 The converse cluster, i.e. =SM + O, where S claims focus at both Vx and M and, as Dat, ranks in case over the fronted Oa, at first blush appears to be fully congruent and might in principle prove acceptable.13 The different role combinations will now be discussed in order of predicted increasing unacceptability.



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

11.2.2.1 Static AcI: =SDr + M Not only can S unproblematically be referred to at Vx qua Dr, but a conflated =SDr + M clitic cluster is highly congruent, for the more salient participant, i.e. S, claims the role with the higher grammatical case, cf. ( 11.44) Héroes 53 a. me dejaba caer la cera ardiendo de los cirios sobre las manos ‘I let the boiling wax of the tapers (M) fall on my (=SDr) hands’ b. me la dejaba caer sobre las manos ‘I let it (the wax, Acc) fall on my (Dat) hands’ ( 11.45) a. b.

me siento zumbar los oídos ‘I can feel my (Dat) ears humming (lit: to me I feel hum the ears)’ me los siento zumbar ‘I can feel them (Acc) humming’

The role combination is inferrable even with a case-neutral cluster, cf. ( 11.46) ?? te me hice caer encima ‘I made you (M) fall on top of me (=SDr) 11.2.2.2 Static AcI: =SM + Dr Double mention of S in the role of M combines with clitic reference to a distinct Dr in ( 11.47) Segundo 57 Tiré mis pilchas al suelo, y me les dejé caer encima, como cae un pedazo de barro de una rueda de carreta. ‘I threw (the different parts of) my gear on the ground and I let myself (=SM) fall on them (Dr), as a piece of mud falls from the wheel of a waggon’ ( 11.48) se me dejó caer en los brazos ‘She let herself (=SM) fall into my (Dr) arms’ ( 11.49) se le dejó ir encima ‘She let herself (=SM) go against him (Dr)’ The notorious me le cluster is fully acceptable in (11.47) for the same reasons that make it acceptable in a simplex VP when the p.i.f. is double mentioned (cf. Sect. 5.3.1.4); recall also its marginal acceptability in a static AcI where both M and Dr are distinct from S (cf. Sect. 10.4, eg. 10.32b) The role-combination is possible even when the clitics in the cluster are case-neutral: ( 11.50) te me dejaste caer encima ‘You let yourself (=SM) fall on top of me (Dr)’ ( 11.51) se me sintió caer encima ‘He felt himself (=SM) fall on me (Dr)’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

11.2.2.3 Dynamic AcI: =SM + O When Inf is dynamic, double mention of S qua M is more acceptable with a perception Vx than with hacer or dejar, cf. ( 11.52) Me???hice/?*dejé comer la sopa14 ‘I made/let myself (=SM) eat the soup’ (11.53) En sueños, OK me vi comer un helado gigantesco, sin sentir el menor remordimiento ‘While dreaming, I saw myself eat an enormous ice-cream, without feeling any conscience pangs about it’ probably because self-perception is easier to envisage than self-causation. Though Vx is role-levelled by the double mention of S in the M role, reference to the Oa of Inf is possible as long the participant is referred with a clitic at Inf, or after that verbal form by lexical means: the cliticization of Oa to Vx is, however, absolutely unacceptable, cf. ( 11.54) a. En la oscuridad me sentí rozar una persona que me pareció Pedro ‘In the darkness I felt myself (=SM) brush (against) a person (Oa) who seemed to be Peter’ b. ??/* me lo sentí rozar ‘I felt myself brush him (Oa)’ (11.55) a. Cuando me dijeron que había ganado el premio, me sentí tocar el cielo con las manos. ‘When they told me I had won the prize, I felt myself in heaven’ (literally: I felt myself (=SM) touch heaven (Oa) with my hands) b. ??/* me lo sentí tocar ‘I felt myself touch it (Oa)’ (11.56) a. Juan respondió al insulto con lo primero que le vino a la boca, pero se espantó al oírse pronunciar palabras que no creía conocer. ‘John reacted to the insult with the first thing that came to mind and was horrified to hear himself utter words (Oa) he did not think he knew’ b. ??/* se las oyó pronunciar ‘He heard himself pronounce them (Oa)’ As pointed out earlier, the clusters in egg. (11.54b-56b) are not inherently incongruous, because =SM ranks above Inf ’s Oa both in grammatical case, and qua AcI-role. They are nonetheless impossible, and the reason is that the proper role/referent allotment requires excessively complex processing, in that the clitics at issue de facto concern distinct VC’s. The double-mention of S as M concerns only Vx, and thus automatically rolelevels that event: but this is incompatible with Vx’s role-polarization through the fronted Oa, a role primarily played at Inf.15 A =SM + Oa cluster thus requires Vx to be



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

processed simultaneously in different ways: the role-levelling must be confined to M, but Vx’s polarization must be related to Inf and thus to the AcI as whole. Two routines which relate to different syntactic levels and/or units must thus apply at the same morphologically finite VC: it is the sheer difficulty of retrieving the role/referent allotment, not any inherent incongruity of the latter, that is responsible for the unacceptability of an =SM + Oa cluster. This explains why, when S is double mentioned as M, a lexical reference to Oa must be clitic-duplicated at Inf, even though the lexical reference precedes Vx, cf. ( 11.57)

Esas palabras jamás a. *** me las oiré decir b. OK/? me oiré decirlas (Oa) ‘I will never hear myself (M) say them (those words)’

(11.57) reverses the pattern of acceptability observed when M and S are distinct, cf. ( 11.58)

Esas palabras jamás a. OK me las oirás decir b. ?? me oirás decirlas ‘You will never hear me (M) say them (those words) (Oa)’

A cluster combining =SM + Od, with eventual non-clitic reference to Oa, does not of itself lead to an impasse in processing, for a distinct Dat is not incompatible with event-introversion along the Central dimension (cf. Sect. 4.1). But fronting a distinct Od results in the same difficulties that render it unacceptable when S and M are distinct (cf. Sect. 10.5), as shown by ( 11.59) Luis es muy antipático, y jamás??/* me le dejo sonreir cuando lo encuentro ‘Luis is quite disagreeable, and I never let myself smile at him (Od) whenever I run across him’ (11.60) María es muy amiga tuya, y por eso??/* me le dejé ofrecer un puesto en nuestro palco ‘Mary is a good friend of yours, and that is why I let myself offer her (Od) a seat in our box’ It goes without saying that a three-clitic cluster of S double-mentioned qua M, plus double clitic reference to distinct Oa and Od is even more unacceptable than the conflated AcI’s already discussed, cf. ( 11.61) a. Pedro es un canalla, y ** se me lo oí decir en un arrebato ‘Pedro is a scoundrel, and I heard myself (me: =SM) tell him (se: Od) so (lo: Oa) in a fit of anger’ b. No tenías razón, y algún día *te me lo oirás confesar ‘You were in the wrong, and some day you will hear yourself (te:=SM) confess it (Oa) to me (Od)’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

c. *se te me oyó presentar ‘He heard himself introduce you to me/me to you’ In the examples of (11.61) two Dat roles, i.e. M and Od, are relevant at different event levels, but must be distinguished without any help of case morphology; the iconic order of the roles in (11.61b,c) makes the cluster slightly less impossible than the totally un-iconic (11.61a). 11.2.2.4 Dynamic transitive AcI: =SO + M An =SO + M cluster is the mirror-image of an =SM + O cluster, and hence shares the latter’s basic flaw, i.e. the need to process the clitic sequence at two syntactic levels simultaneously. The difficulty is extreme when S plays the Oa role, for double mention of S at Vx in an Oa capacity implicitly role-levels the AcI as a whole (cf. Sect. 11.2.1); that, however, clashes with the fact that Inf is polarized by the distinctness of its own M and Oa participants, and that Vx is polarized because M is distinct from S: two necessarily polarized sub-VC’s must add up to a role-levelled AcI. An AcI where all participants are distinct, with polarization at all levels, is thus processually congruent, unproblematic, and fully acceptable, cf. ( 11.62) OK mej lak dejastei besar ‘Youi let mej kiss herk’ but the unacceptable ( 11.63) ** sei mej dejói besar =SOa M S ‘Shei let mej kiss heri’ requires a cognitive cross-over from the individual polarization of both Inf and Vx to the overall role-levelling of the AcI. Our account of the unacceptability of (11.63) is independently supported by the fact that fronting of =SOa is also incompatible with post-Inf a-phrase reference to M (Hernanz 1999:€2252):16 that participant would have to be retroactively integrated into the processing of the already role-levelled Vx + Inf sequence, cf. ( 11.64) *** sei dejói besar a su novioj ‘Shei (S) let her sweetheartj (M) kiss heri (se: =SOa)’ ( 11.65) *** Así te hacés despreciar a gente ignorante ‘That way you make ignorant people (M) despise you (=SOa)’ Neither can M be referred to with a Dat clitic at Vx, for Inf is still polarized by the syntagmatic contrast between M and Oa=S. But when M is not cast as a participant, =SOa can cluster at Vx with a participant involved in some Dataff/Dr capacity in the AcI as a whole (cf. Sect. 4.1.1 for simplex events), cf.



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

( 11.66) a. no se le dejó besar por nadie OK ‘She did not let herself (=SOa) be kissed “on” him (le, Dataff ) by anybody (M?)’ b. no se le dejó besar * ‘She did not let him (M) kiss herself (=SOa)’ ( 11.67) no me le dejé tocar a. OK ‘I did not let myself be touched for his sake (le Dataff )’ b. * ‘I did not let him (M) touch me’17 Finally, double mention of S qua Oa (=SOa) is particularly intolerable when the distinct M is referred to with an Acc clitic, for that forces Dat case on the double-mention of S, in conflict with the intended Oa role, cf. ( 11.68) *** no sei lo dejói tocar Dat Acc ‘She did not let him (M, Acc) touch herself (=SOa, Dat)’ ( 11.69) *** no me lo dejé besar ‘I did not allow him (M, Acc) to kiss me (=SOa, Dat)’ If an S involved as Oa is to receive his due, justice cannot be done to the salience of M, who is its most obvious rival at Inf: the actual agent of Inf is consequently best alluded to indirectly in a PP, without any claim to participant status, cf. eg. (11.25). At the beginning of Sect. 11.2.2 we made certain predictions concerning the unequal acceptability of conflation in a dynamic vs. a static AcI, depending on which role – Dr, M, or O – is played by S. Our predictions are clearly confirmed by the decreasing acceptability of ( 11.70) me lo sentí caer encima =SDr M ‘I felt him fall on top of me (static AcI)’ ( 11.71) me le dejé caer encima =SM Dr ‘I let myself fall on top of him (static AcI)’ ( 11.72) me lo sentí tocar en la oscuridad a. * =SM Oa ‘I felt myself touch him in the darkness (dynamic AcI)’ b. *** =SOa M ‘I felt him touch me in the darkness (dynamic AcI)’ Just as in the case of =SM + O clusters (cf. Sect. 11.2.2.3), fronting of =SOd does not lead to a direct clash of role-levelling with event-polarization, but it is nonetheless unacceptable, for the same reasons fronting of Od was seen to be unacceptable when S, M

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

and Od are all distinct (cf. Sect. 10.5): having the Od role assumed by S only exacerbates the competition as to relative salience between S and M, cf. ( 11.73) a. Es necesario que hables con tu hija y??/* te la hagas decir la verdad. ‘You must really talk with your daughter and have her (M, Acc) tell you (=SOd, Dat) the truth’ b. Después de horas de conversación con el hijo, Perico??/* se lo hizo decir la verdad. ‘After hours of conversation with his son, Pete made him (M) tell him (=SOd) the truth’

11.2.3 S = O, double mentioned M Double mention of M sets apart Inf as a distinct VC: whoever else is out of focus at Inf will consequently cluster there with M’s double mention, for the reasons discussed in Sect. 11.1.2, which also hold for an S involved in Inf in some non-focus capacity. 11.2.3.1 Static AcI’s: S = Dr Though =SDr is regularly cliticized to Vx when M is single mentioned (cf. Sect. 11.2.2.1), such fronting was emphatically rejected by our informants PR and ACh under double mention of M. Since the double-mentioned M and the S involved in some Od capacity are jointly involved at Inf, it is unacceptable to refer to them in disjoint fashion at distinct events (cf. Sect. 7.6.3),18 cf. ( 11.74) a. * me sentí quebrarse un hueso ‘I felt a bone break (dm) ‘on’ me (=SDr)’ b. ** se sintió doblarse las rodillas ‘He felt his (=SDr) knees bend (dm)’ c. ** se sentía llenarse los ojos de lágrimas ‘He felt his (=SDr) eyes fill (dm) with tears’ Clustering at Inf of the clitic double-mentioning M, plus a reference to S in a local Od role is illustrated by ( 11.75) Cuentos 44a el hombre sintió encogérsele el corazón =M Od=S M ‘The man felt his heart (M) shrink in him (Od)’ ( 11.76) Cuatro 18 Julio sintió acalorársele las mejillas =M Od=S M ‘Julius felt his (Od) cheeks (M) grow warm ‘



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

With Inf set apart by M’s double mention, (11.75, 76) de facto resemble a V + Clause structure with a double-mentioned p.i.f., cf. ( 11.77) Cuatro 199 Cireneoi sintió que la cabeza se lei bamboleaba ‘Cireneoi felt that his head was shaking ‘on’ himi (lit: the head itself him was shaking )’ ( 11.78) Pago 78 (don Luis) sintió que se le aflojaban las piernas ‘Don Luis felt that his legs were giving way (lit: themselves on him weakened the legs)’ 11.2.3.2 Dynamic AcI’s: S = O In Section 11.2.2.4 we saw that when M is explicit, S’s involvement as an O must be referred to at Inf; that is a fortiori the case when M gains in salience by being doublementioned and thus monopolizing Inf, cf. ( 11.79) Juan me dejó apretárme- lo al pecho M S =MOd Oa=S ‘Johni let me (M) press himi (Oa) to my (=M) breast The more capable M is of acting on its own and thus of controlling Inf, the less acceptable it is to dispense with double mention, and to refer to S’s O role at Vx, cf. ( 11.80) a. Juan vio aparecérsele un fantasma (dm of M; Od=S at Inf) b. Juan se vió aparecer un fantasma (sm of M; =SDr at Vx) ‘Johni saw a ghost appear to himi’ ( 11.81) a. Juan vio aproximársele un tigre (dm of M; Od=S at Inf) b.?? Juan se vio aproximar un tigre (sm of M; =SDr at Vx) ‘Johni saw a tiger approach/come near himi’ (11.82) a. Juan vio acercarse(le) un vigilante (dm of M; Od=S at Inf) b.**Juan se vió acercar un vigilante (sm of M; =SDr at Vx) ‘John saw a policeman approach him’ ( 11.83) a. (i) Juan la vio entregárse le sin una queja M =M(Oa) Od=S (ii) ** Juani sei laj vio entregar sin una queja =SOd M sm ‘Johni saw herj (M) give herselfj to himi (Od) without complaining’ b. OK Juan sei laj vioi  entregar sin una queja =SOd Oa Ÿ ‘Johni saw it/herj (Oa) given to himi (by someone) without (anyone) complaining’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

The acceptability of O=S + =M clusters at Inf depends, of course, on the congruence of the role/referent allotment referred to (cf. Sects. 5.3.1.6,7); this explains the unequal acceptability of the different combinations in ( 11.84) a. OK b. ??/*

la dejé entregárse me M =MOa Od=S ‘I let her (M) give herself (3rd ps Oa=M) to myself (1st ps Od=S) me dejó entregárme le M =MOa Od=S ‘Hei let me (M) give myself (1st ps =MOa) to himi (3*rd ps Od=S)

( 11.85) a. OK b. **

Juan me dejó apretárme lo al pecho M S =MOd Oa=S ‘Johni let me (M) press himi (Oa) to my (=MOd) breast lo dejé apretárse me al pecho M =MOd Oa=S ‘I let himi (M) press me (Oa=S) to hisi (=MOd) breast’

11.2.3.3 Indeterminate double mention of M As seen in Sect. 11.2.3.1, double mentioning M foregrounds it at the expense of Dr, even when that role is played by S. It follows that when S’s Dr involvement is too salient to ignore, double mention of a static M must be dispensed with, just as the foregrounding of =SO in a dynamic AcI precludes explicit reference to M (Sect. 11.2.2.4), cf. ( 11.86)

Cuando me enteré de la muerte de Carlos, a. me sentí venir el mundo encima19 b. sentí venírseme el mundo encima ‘When I learnt of Charles’ death, I felt the world (M) come down on me (a. me = Dr; b. me = Od)’

So far, we have run across only two instances of double mention of S in an Od/Dr role with a tacit, single-mentioned M in a potentially static AcI, though a static M cannot be tacit (cf. Sect. 8.4), i.e. ( 11.87) Segundo 111 poco que hacer y diversión encontrábamos en galopar atrás del vacaje cimarrón que no se dejaba  arrimar ‘we found little to do and [less] fun in riding behind the wild cattle that did not allow itself/themselves (= SOd/Dr) to be approached (Ÿ) (lit: to itself did not allow Ÿ to approach)’



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

( 11.88) Pago 73 ya a pocas cuadras del pueblo comenzó el tiroteo; – ¡pim, pam; pim pam! – y el caer de patos era una maravilla. Mansos, mansitos los animales se dejaban  acercar bien a tiro, casi sin moverse ‘just a few blocks from the village the shooting began; bim, bam; bim bam! Tamely, quite tamely, the animals (S) let (Ÿ = one) come near to them (se: =SOd/Dr ) very close indeed’ The event referred to by Inf in (11.87, 88) is essentially the same as in ( 11.89) Segundo 113 Los dejé acercarse ‘I let them (los, M) approach (introverted event, se: =M)’ In (11.89) the se at Inf double-mentions the explicit M, referred to with los at Vx, and the potentially dynamic acercar “move (something) close” is thereby introverted into “approach, come close”. In (11.87, 88) the se at Vx double-mentions S, i.e. the animals, who are approached by a tacit Ÿ. What role is played by S in (11.87, 88)? And must acercar, arrimar be seen as essentially dynamic, thus tolerating a tacit Ÿ, or de facto “stativized” by the implicit double mention of M (cf. Sect. 11.1.1)? Whatever the reading of the Inf, S’s role is both Peripheral and highlighted at the expense of the more Central M; to what extent the tacit M is to be understood as implicitly double mentioned (cf. Sect. 11.1.1) remains as indeterminate as the actual nature – dynamic or static – of Inf. Yet, as in other instances of syntactic indeterminacy (cf. Sects. 5.1, 8.3), the choice of expressive means resorted to, i.e. a tacit Ÿ and reference at Vx to S’s Peripheral role, is adequate to the communicative need it serves in the context where it appears.

11.3 AcI’s and “clitic climbing” It is generally assumed that AcI’s resemble auxiliary periphrases (cf. Glossary) in that their O clitics can “climb” from Inf to Vx (cf. Luján 1980:€386, 389; Fernández Soriano 1999:€1262–64; Hernanz 1999:€2249). However, in ( 11.90) a. OK Maríai me dejói besarlai b. * María sei me dejói besar c. *** María me dejói besarsei ‘Maryi let me kiss heri’ it is (11.90a), rather than (11.90c), that conflates as (11.90b), though literal “climbing” of the Oa=S la in (11.90a) would yield

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

( 11.91) María me la dejó besar a. * ‘Maryi let me kiss heri’ b. OK ‘Maryi let me kiss it/herj’ where only a non-coreferential interpretation of la is acceptable, cf. (11.91b).20 It is natural to wonder which of the two unacceptable conflations, i.e. (11.90b) or (11.91a) is worse, and why. Our exploration of the question with PR (Madrid) and ACh (Huancayo), shows that S’s role at Inf, ie. Oa or Od, is of paramount importance but that it also matters whether M is a 3rd person, like S, or a speech-participant, and whether Vx is dejar, which favours se, as against hacer or a verb of perception, which more easily appear to tolerate l- reference to S = O at Vx. Se me, as in (11.90b), is as bad as the me l- of (11.91a) when S plays the Oa role, cf. ( 11.92) a. ??* mi novia sei me dejói besar b. * mi novia me lai dejói besar ‘My sweethearti let me kiss heri (=SOa)’ ( 11.93) a. ** mi vecina sei me oyói criticar b. * mi vecina me lai oyói criticar ‘My neighbouri heard me criticize heri (=SOa)’ ( 11.94) a. ** Juana sei me viói seguir con los ojos b. * Juana me lai viói seguir con los ojos ‘Joani saw me follow heri (=SOa) with my eyes’ But le is marginally admissible when S is to be understood as an Od, cf. ( 11.95) El nene no quería dormir, y a. ??* sei me hizoi cantar la nina nana b. ??? me lei hizoi cantar la nina nana ‘Babyi wouldn’t fall asleep, and made me (M) sing himi (=SOd) a lullaby (Oa)’ It goes without saying that reference to a 3rd ps S in an O role by means of an l- clitic is least acceptable when both S and M are 3rd persons, cf. ( 11.96) Está claro que Luisa cuenta con la ayuda del coronel; con decirte que a. ** sei loj hizoi recomendar para ese puesto =SOa M b. ** sej lai hizoi recomendar para ese puesto M =SOa ‘Luisa can obviously count on the Colonel’s protection: just think, shei made himj recommend her(self)i for that position’ Both conflations are impossible: in (11.96a) se (=SOa) is cast as a Dat by the Acc case of M, while in (11.96b) se uniconically refers to a 3*rd ps M who is distinct from S, while la refers to S in her Oa role.



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

Our informants found AcI’s where S (=O) and M are both 3rd persons extremely hard to interpret, and complained of being confused as to who “se” was; in fact, they regularly tried to impose an “impersonal” reading on the clitic, to avoid having to recognize a specific clitic in reference to Oa. The unacceptability of l-clitic reference at Vx to S=O comes as no surprise, but what does deserve attention is the clear difference in acceptability for l- clitic reference to =S, depending on whether the role is Oa or Od, cf. ( 11.92) b. * mi novia me lai dejói besar ‘My sweethearti let me kiss heri (Oa=S)’ (11.95) El nene no quería dormir, y b. ??? me lei hizoi cantar la nina nana ‘Babyi wouldn’t fall asleep, and made me (M) sing himi a lullaby’ It will be recalled that in a simplex VC, an l- clitic never refers to the p.i.f. (cf. Sect. 3.1). But this is how le can be understood in an AcI, as shown by eg. (11.95b); the probable reasons are that (1) the following Inf evokes an Od role, and (2) le’s explicit Dat case not only confirms that Od role, but suggests that it is played by a 3rd person other than the immediate p.i.f., i.e. the 1st ps M. With the overall context ruling out any candidate for that Peripheral role other than S, le cannot but refer to S. De facto, then, le “replaces” se in (11.95b) just as se “spuriously” stands for le in ( 11.97) se lo dije ‘I told him it’ Furthermore, an explicitly Acc lo/la cannot replace se in the AcI of eg. (11.92b), just as in a simplex VC se cannot “spuriously” replace an Acc clitic, cf. ( 11.98) se le dí ** ‘I gave it to him’ (cf. Sects. 6.1, 6.4.1.3). Le thus enjoys greater referential latitude than lo, and is also more tolerant of replacement by se than is lo: alternation between s- and l- forms is unequally acceptable for Peripheral vs. Central participants. To what extent that alternation is admissible depends on the participant status/role of the referent: the less relevant he/it is to the event, the less strictly the difference in meaning between s- and l- needs to be taken. While tonic sí and él alternate easily in reference to non-participants (cf. Sect. 4.3.4 n. 30; García 1996:€11–12), the clitics se and le alternate only in reference to a strictly Peripheral participant. The alternation is least acceptable when a Central non-focus participant is involved, because here the very nature of the event is at issue: (non-) identity with the Central p.i.f. (Sect. 3.2.2) is crucial to role-polarization vs. role-levelling (cf. Sects. 4.1, 5.1.1, 5.2). The unequal acceptability of se me, se lo, me lo and me le in different role/referent allotments should prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that computation of a clitic cluster is not only necessary, but that it proceeds along the inferential routes sketched

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

out in earlier chapters. The variable acceptability of conflated AcI’s, in particular, shows that it is inherently difficult to do justice to two syntactic levels when all references are concentrated in a single morphological unit, i.e. the same VC.

11.4 AcI’s and recursiveness In chapters 8 and 9 we argued that AcI’s are loosely strung together, and that the communicative effectiveness of the arrangement directly depends on its processability: non-conflated AcI’s are more acceptable because, like se....se sequences in auxiliary periphrases (cf. Sect. 7.7), they provide more time for processing. Now while the inferential strategies operative in simplex VC’s allow the syntactic blending instantiated by AcI’s, they inexorably restrict conflation of the structure. An issue apparently ignored by formal analysts is the potentially recursive “climbing” by O clitics when AcI-formation is iterated,21 with successive Inf ’s doubling as the Vx’s of the following Inf, up to the last one,22 as in ( 11.99) a. b.

la hice dejarme besarla M1 Inf1 M2 Inf2 Oa ‘I made her (M1) let me (M2) kiss her (Oa)’ te dejó verme hacerlo oirla cantarlo M1 Inf1 M2 Inf2 M3 Inf3 M4 Inf4 Oa ‘She let you see me make him hear her sing it’

So long as M’s are referred to in syntagmatically iconic fashion, it is possible, at least in theory, to go on forever. AcI-recursion is easiest under strict concatenation, with each M lexically referred to after the relevant V(x): (11.100) Te hice ver al rey dejar a la reina ver a la institutriz dejar a la princesa oir al juglar cantar la balada ‘I made you see the king let the queen see the governess let the princess hear the minstrel sing the ballad.’ But, as with center-embedding, cumulation of AcI’s rapidly becomes unacceptable when only clitic reference is resorted to: ( 11.101) te hice (dejarme hacerte)n visitarla ‘I made you (let me make you)n visit her’ One fares no better if a variety of M’s is sought in the referential infinity of third persons, cf. ( 11.102) te hice (dejarl- verl- oírl- hacerl-)n salir ‘I made you (let 3*rd see 3*rd hear 3*rd make 3*rd)n go out’



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

The n x 4 different referents presupposed by the recursion are hardly to be kept apart by the two cases, two numbers and two genders distinguished by the l- clitics. The potentially infinite recursion of AcI syntax cannot possibly be compressed within the bounds of the morphologically finite VC at Vx, which allows each clitic to appear but once. Recursive concatenation of AcI’s superficially resembles recursive center-embedding, both being subject to lapses in attention and finite memory. AcI conflation, however, is a very different matter, for role/referent allotment exponentially increases in difficulty under recursion: the clitic references to the diverse M’s and O’s, which appear in a fixed order at the first Vx, must be processed so as to allot the clitic’s referent to the proper role in the proper event. Conflation of some AcI-recursion is possible if the final event is a static Inf whose Peripheral participant can be eventually ignored, for this allows a two-level AcI to involve only successive M’s, as in (11.103) Anatomy professor recounts his experience with a student who is unaware of her own heart: Después de explicar a todos qué es el corazón y cómo late, le dije a la Srta. Pérez que se pusiese la mano sobre el pecho, hacia la izquierda, y a. la hice sentirlo latir M1 Inf1 M2 Inf2 b. se lo hice sentir latir M1/Dr2 M2/Oa1 Inf1 Inf2 ‘After explaining to everybody what the heart is and how it beats, I told Miss Pérez to put her hand on her breast, towards the left, and I made her (M1/Dr2) feel (Inf1) it (Oa1/M2) beat (Inf2)’ The first Inf, which must serve as second Vx, is necessarily dynamic, while the second and last Inf is static: the participant who plays the role of M1, i.e. the student, is thus naturally cast as a Dat. Her heart, the Oa of Inf1, can plausibly assume the M2 role in the static Inf2, with the (Dat) M1 doubling as implicit Dr of Inf2 in (11.103b). The different roles at the two Inf ’s not only overlap smoothly as to grammatical case, but also match the referential ranking of the two 3*rd ps participants in terms of animacy. This allows the successive AcI-roles to be effortlessly allotted to participants congruently shared across the successive sub-AcI’s, making the clitic cluster in (11.103b) quite acceptable. But a bewildering variety of plausible role allotments is possible in: ( 11.104) En cuanto a María, la esclava, me la dejaste hacer lavar ‘As to Mary, the slave, me her (Acc) you let make wash’ me la dejaste hacer lavar23 Inf1 Inf2 a. M1 M2 ‘You let me make her wash (something)’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

b. ?? M2 M1 ‘You let her make me wash (something)’ c. M1 Ÿ2 Oa2 ‘You let me have (someone) wash her (Oa)’ d. Ÿ1 M2 Oa2 ‘You allowed (someone) to make me wash her (Oa)’ e. ** Oa2 M1 Ÿ2 ‘You allowed her to have (someone) wash me (Oa)’ f. ** Oa2 Ÿ1 M2 ‘You allowed (someone) to make her wash me (Oa)’ Too many possible role/referent allotments must be considered: the only certainty is that the highest non-focus participant, i.e. the 1st ps me, cannot end up being washed as the Oa of the last Inf, for the Acc case of la ‘her’ forces Dat case on me, and thus prevents this clitic from referring to the 1st person in the Oa role. Recursive conflation is particularly difficult when the final Inf is static and involves a Dr who is distinct from all other participants: since this prevents him from overlapping referentially with a higher M, he must either be ignored totally, or be cliticized separately to some higher Vx. The strung out ( 11.105) ? me dejaste hacerlo llegarle M1 Inf1 M2 Inf2 Od/Dr2 ‘You let me (M1) make it (i.e. the book) (M2) reach him (Od2) (lit. arrive to him)’ has the following (partially) conflated alternatives: (11.106) a. OK b. ??/* c. ** d. *

me dejaste hacér- se- lo llegar me him it M1 Inf1 Dr2 M2 Inf2 me lo dejaste hacer llegarle me it him *M1 M2 Inf1 Inf2 Dr2 me le dejaste hacerlo llegar me him it M1 Dr2 Inf1 M2 Inf2 se me lo dejaste hacer llegar him me it Dr2 M1 M2 Inf1 Inf2

(11.106b) is questionable because the inanimate M2 enjoys a more topical position at Vx than the human Dr relegated to cliticization at Inf2; (11.106c) unacceptably combines Dr with M1 at the first Vx, despite the fact that M2 intervenes between the second V (hacer) and the final Inf llegar, to which the Dr2 clitic is relevant, and in (11.106d),



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s 

finally, the two M’s cluster with the Dr. Here, again, a three- clitic cluster is more acceptable if fixed clitic order is violated, yielding me se lo (cf. the discussion in Sect. 7.1.2), because this allows the reference to M1 to precede the se lo cluster associated with the second AcI. Three-clitic clusters, even those where se is not involved, are difficult enough to process in a single-Inf AcI (cf.Sect. 9.2.2); they become totally unacceptable under recursion, cf. ( 11.107) OK te hizo dejarme comerlo M1 Inf1 M2 Inf2 Oa ‘He made you let me eat it’ ( 11.108) OK/? te hizo dejármelo comer ‘He made you let me eat it’, ( 11.109) *

te me lo hizo dejar comer ‘He made? let? eat? ‘

(11.109) is uniformly rejected by informants, who complain that “it’s too complicated, one cannot keep track of what’s going on”. The acme of cognitive distress is reached when the participants involved are all 3rd persons. A strung out sequence of AcI’s that involves three distinct 3*rd ps participants is possible, and partial conflation is marginally acceptable, cf. ( 11.110) a. la hice dejarlo comerlas M1 M2 Oa2 ‘I made her let him eat them’ b. ? se lo hice dejar comerlas M1 M2 Oa2 ‘I made her (M1) let him (M2) eat them (Oa2)’ c. ? la hice dejár-selas comer M1 M2 Oa2 ‘I made her (M1) let him (M2) eat them (Oa2)’ but three 3*rd ps clitics cannot possibly cluster at Vx, for the simple reason that Spanish morphology allows only s- and l- clitic reference, and the grammaticalized ordering of clitics permits at most one of each person.24 It follows that (110a) has no fully conflated counterpart, for that requires either a *se se or a *l- l- cluster, and both are ruled out for the reasons given in Sects. 7.3 and 6.4.1.2, 6.4.1.3 respectively. Recursion of AcI’s is feasible within the realm of open-ended con-struction, with syntactic iconicity strictly maintained through loose concatenation, every M responsible for its own Inf. But when it comes to conflation, AcI recursion soon ceases to resemble center-embedding. The cognitive compression forced by conflation puts the AcI into a terrain where morphology calls the shots and – very soon! – calls it quits. Morphological conflation under “infinite” syntactic iteration of the AcI structure is

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

prevented not merely by the usual and very valid “performance” considerations but, more essentially, by the necessary finiteness of morphological signs (cf. Sect. 1.2.2, 1.3). With cognitive resources heavily drawn on by the complex processing of a twolevel jury-rigged structure, the only viable role/referent/event allotments are those that are easy to process – given the meanings of the morphological units at issue.

Notes to Ch. 11 1. In spelling out AcI-roles, double mention of S and M is indicated under the corresponding clitic as respectively =S and =M; M’ marks a duplicating clitic. When useful, the specific role played by the double-mentioned p.i.f. is indicated as a subscript, e.g. =MOd signals “M is doublementioned in an Od role”. 2. Tacit double-mention of M is observed in AcI’s with hacer from Old Spanish times (Alfonso Vega 1998:€ 77); explicit double mention of M becomes particularly acceptable when a distinct Oa polarizes Inf, with the agentive M playing an Od role at Inf, cf. (i) Vi/dejé/hice a Juana ponerse rouge en las mejillas ‘I saw/let/made Juana (M) put rouge (Oa) on her (=MOd) cheeks’ (ii) ?? La hice poner rouge en las mejillas ‘I made her put rouge on the cheeks’ Transitive use of engreir would obviate recourse to the AcI structure, yielding mujeres que andan engriendo a la pobre gente ‘women who go around deluding poor folks’ Here the coquette is guilty of active and direct deceit, while in (11.6b) she is reproached only for stimulating her victims’ propensity for self-deceit. 3.

4. The fronted se could only be read as referring to M, rather than double-mentioning him in a Dat role, cf. En la escuela habían enseñado que las manos deben estar limpias, y por eso me alegré cuando sei las vi lavar a mi hijoi M’ Oa M ‘At school they had taught that one’s hands ought to be clean, and that is why I was happy when I saw my son (M: se + a mi hijo) wash them (Oa)’ 5. Nonetheless, AECh and ACh, both very reliable informants, agreed with us in finding a fronted [=M + Dr] cluster marginally tolerable in (i) ???/* se le vi llenar los ojos de lágrimas ?? Dr M ‘I saw his eyes fill up with tears’ The relative acceptability of (i) may be due to its combining the highly frequent set phrase llenarÂ� se los ojos de lágrimas ‘(for) eyes to fill with tears’, as in (ii) vi llenársele los ojos de lágrimas ‘I saw his eyes fill up with tears’



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s  with the equally very frequent simplex (iii) se le llenaron los ojos de lágrimas ‘His eyes filled with tears’ The fronting becomes unacceptable under a change of S, Dr, or Vx, cf. (iv) * se me viste / vió llenar los ojos de lágrimas ‘You/ He saw my eyes fill with tears’ (v) * se le hice llenar los ojos de lágrimas ‘I made his eyes fill up with tears’ 6. Double mention of S in a Di capacity is always unproblematic: that Peripheral role being by definition relevant to [Vx + Inf] as a whole, the double-mentioning clitic always appears at Vx: (i) ¿No me lo veo al finao darse güelta de pronto...? ‘Don’t I [surprise,=SDi] see the deceased suddenly turn round...?’ (ii) Me lo hice matar como un perro ‘I had him killed (by Ÿ) like a dog – ha, ha (=SDi)!’ 7. In simplex VC’s the double-mention of S in an M or Oa capacity allows a less active, less salient participant to enjoy focus (cf. Sect. 4.1); the same thing is true in AcI’s. Thus, in (11.20a), the shining stars enjoy focus, at the expense of the actual seers, cf. the static, single-mention AcI (i) los novios veían brillar las estrellas ‘the sweethearts (S) saw the stars (M) shine’ Similarly, in (11.24) the petted kittens, who play the Oa role at Inf, are foregrounded at the expense of the agent responsible for the petting, i.e. the tacit M. The foregrounded “patients” are precisely the Acc participants whose fronting to Vx conflates the AcI’s (cf. Sect. 9.2.2). The foregrounding takes place at the expense of the immediate, more salient syntagmatic rival: in a static AcI, focussing on the M role backgrounds the “real” S; in a dynamic AcI, focussing on the Oa role backgrounds the “true” M. Double-mention of S in a static M role, like double mention in a simplex VC, results in overall introversion: that is why both are incompatible with the addition of an agentive PP (cf. García 1975:€15, 212–4 on the incompatibility of a “pasiva refleja” with a por PP), as in (ii) ** se veían brillar las estrellas por los novios ‘The stars were seen to shine by the sweethearts’ (iii) ** se vendieron los libros por el librero ‘The books were sold by the book-seller’ But since a dynamic AcI admits two Acc’s (M, and Oa) at different levels, it is possible to specify the identity of the ignored Ÿ by means of a PP, cf. (iv) estos gatitos se dejan acariciar por cualquiera ‘These kittens let themselves be petted by anyone’ Note, however, that though the “real” M is de facto referred to lexically beyond the AcI in (iv), he is not presented as a participant: (iv) consequently involves a tacit Ÿ. 8. The arrangement is least intolerable when a referentially distinct Oa forces an agentive role on M, who must thus play an Od role at Inf, cf. (i) ??/* De golpe me sentí clavarme las uñas en las manos ‘Suddenly I (S) felt myself (=SM) sink my (=MOd) nails (Oa) into my hands’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs Awareness of what one is doing would normally be conveyed by resorting to a V + Clause combination, which dissociates the two events, cf. (ii) De golpe sentí que me estaba clavando las uñas en las manos ‘Suddenly I became aware that I was sinking my nails into my hands’ Iterated double mention of S is particularly intolerable when, with a static “psych” Inf, the M role is played by an Experiencer focussed on thanks to double mention (cf. Sect. 4.1.2): (iii) ** De golpe me sentí asustarme de él/interesarme por él/ afligirme por él. ‘Suddenly I felt myself taking fright at him/taking interest in him/ feeling sorry for him (me: =M, introverted event)’ Here the only alternative is to resort to a V + Cl structure: (iv) De golpe sentí que me asustaba de él/ me interesaba por él/ me afligía por él ‘I suddenly felt that I was scared of him/ interested in him/ sorry for him’ In Sect. 11.2.3 we discuss the simultaneous double mention of S and of a distinct M. 9. The ambiguity does not arise when the 3rd ps S’s Dat role is referred to at Inf, for then M claims focus in the event and the Od-role playing S counts as a 3*rd person. The Od=S participant is consequently referred to with le when M is explicitly referred to by the NP, but with se when he is tacit, cf. (i) María sintió apretarle la venda Od=S M ‘Mary felt the bandage be tight on her (static AcI)’ (ii) María sintió apretarse la venda Ÿ Od=S Oa ‘Mary felt the bandage tightened on her (by someone) (dynamic AcI)’ Both (i) and (ii) contrast with double-mention of M, as in (iii) María sintió apretarse la venda S =M M ‘Mary felt the bandage tighten up’ Note that in (ii) and (iii) se refers to the 3rd person most salient within the respectively relevant VC: that is S in the AcI as a whole in (ii), vs. M at Inf in (iii), as predicted by our analysis of that clitic in Sects. 6.3, 6.4, 7.4. 10. As pointed out in Sect. 7.6.3, clitic references to non-focus participants in the same event are bound to be part of the same VC; disjoint reference to =SOa at Vx and to Od at Inf, or vice versa, is consequently not acceptable, cf. (i) * me hice presentarle (ii) * le hice presentarme ‘I had myself introduced to him’ 11. The greater acceptability of (11.43) over (11.40) is the mirror image of the contrast discussed in Sect. 10.4, where the cluster me (Acc) le (Dat), with the DO me distinct from the p.i.f., was found to be less tolerable in a simplex event than in an AcI with distinct S and M, cf. (i) * me le arrojaste a los pies ‘You threw me (Acc) at her feet (Dat)’ (ii) ? me le hiciste caer a los pies ‘You made me (Acc, M) fall at her feet (Dr)’



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s  12. Our informant AECh rated as just barely possible the heterogeneous three-clitic cluster referring to M, Oa, and =SOd in (i) El bibliotecario se dio cuenta que el préstamo del libro estaba vencido y???/*se me lo hizo devolver. ‘The librarian realized that the book was overdue, and made me (me, M) return it (lo, Oa) to him (se, =SOd)’ The same cluster, with the same role-combination, is far more acceptable when the Od role is played by a distinct participant: (ii) Mamá se dio cuenta que me había quedado con el libro de cuentos de mi prima, y? se me lo hizo devolver. ‘Mother realized I had kept my cousin’s book of fairy tales, and made me (me, M) return it (lo, Oa) to her (se, Od). Note that clitic reference to Od precedes M in both (i) and (ii). 13. The acceptability of =SM + O clusters appears to have been generally ignored, perhaps because double mention of S as M is ruled out as ungrammatical, cf. Treviño (1994:€75), and Hernanz (1999:€2248, 2248 fn. 60). We have come across no instance of such a role combination, though our corpus of BA Sp AcI’s shows at least 23 instances of =SM (cf. García 2003c:420), with hacer, dejar, and ver as Vx. The Inf ’s in most of those AcI’s are intransitive (estar ‘to be’, andar ‘to go’, vivir ‘to live’), but in one case Inf is potentially transitive and dynamic: Segundo 106 De lejos nos veíamos, entre nuestras tropillas, mudar de caballo. ‘From afar we saw each other (=SM), among our horse groups, change horse’ 14. A situation where one schizophrenically acts under one’s own compulsion or permission is certainly conceivable, but less readily so than one where the compulsion or permission is external.€“Causative” AcI’s are thus less appropriate than so-called “control” structures (see Glossary), where co-reference of the controller [C] with the p.i.f. of the controlling verb is not only possible, but fully acceptable (Hernanz 1999:€2248). All our informants preferred (i) me obligué a comer la sopa ‘I forced myself to eat the soup’ (ii) me permití comer el helado ‘I allowed myself to eat the ice-cream’ to (11.52, 53) by a considerable margin. As AD observed, hacer ‘to make, have’ is “too wide” (amplio ‘ample, roomy’), to suggest the intended auto-coercion or permission, an exceptional situation that demands a lexical item explicitly conveying compulsion or the removal of obstacles. When such explicitness is not required, it suffices to double-mention the p.i.f. in a Di capacity, cf. the simplex (iii) me comí la sopa ‘Ough! I ate the soup’ (iv) me comí el helado ‘Yummy!! I ate the ice-cream’ 15. Recall that cliticization of Oa to Vx guarantees its referent participant status at Vx (cf. Section 9.2.2, 9.2.3.2) and that presence of an Acc (in casu Oa) distinct from M precludes role-levelling (cf. Section 5.1.2, eg. 5.20, and ch. 6 n. 17).

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs 16. A fronted Oa clitic is certainly compatible with post-Inf a-phrase reference to M when the Oa is inanimate, cf. Sect. 8.6, in particular egg. (8.26, 27), and when S, M, and Oa are all distinct. The situation is very different when Oa referentially overlaps with the animate S; cf. also Sect. 10.2.2, on the uniconic fronting of an Oa clitic with an unduplicated NP as M. A could be used in an “ablative” sense in Old Spanish (Menéndez Pidal 1964:€343 #1530), when the atonic pronouns were as yet ungrammaticalized: this allowed such currently unacceptable combinations as (i) Cid line 347 a los judíos te dejaste prender ‘You let yourself (be) take(n) (by) the Jews’ (ii) CZ-M 181/20 e fizome a un escudero tomar ante sy en el cavallo ‘and he made a squire (M) take me (Oa) before himself on the horse’ (iii) CZ-P 54b7 e fizome a mi tomar a un escudero ante sy en el su cavallo ‘and he made a squire (M) take me (Oa) before himself on his horse’ 17. The readings of (11.66b, 11.67b) require inferences that are as hard to reconcile as those required by *se se clusters (cf. Sect. 7.3). The same thing holds a fortiori for clusters of caseneutral clitics, as in (i) Héroes 115 no me dejaste ni siquiera tocarte ‘You (S) didn’t even let me (M) touch you (Oa=S)’ (ii) no te me dejaste ni siquiera tocar a. * ‘You did not let me (M) even touch you (=SOa)’ b. OK ‘You did not let yourself be even touched “on” me’ 18. The impossibility of separating =M from Od=S is underlined by a single case in our corpus where S, in the role of Dr, is cliticized to Inf despite the single-mention of M: Cuentos 44b el hombre había sentido encogérsele el corazon y martillarle la sangre en las venas. ‘The man felt his heart shrink in him and his blood (M, s.m.) hammer in his veins’ The reason for the appearance of le at Inf is obviously the conjunction of the single-mention martillar la sangre to the preceding double-mention encogerse el corazón. 19. (11.86a) contrasts with the corresponding V + Clause structure, where the p.i.f. of the subordinate clause is perforce double mentioned, cf. Cuando me enteré de la muerte de Carlos, sentí que el mundo se me venía encima ‘When I learnt of Charles’ death, I felt that the world was coming down on me (lit: the world itself to me was coming on top)’ 20. As repeatedly seen, reference to a 3rd ps S in an O role is made with an l- or an s- clitic depending on where the clitic appears: the former alternative, at Inf, is inescapable when M is explicit (cf. Sect. 11.2.2.4); the latter, at Vx, is possible only when M is tacit (cf. Sect. 11.2.1). What “climbs”, then, is not a clitic as such, but rather a reference to S, understandable as referring to a non-focus role.



Chapter 11.╇ Complex role/referent allotment in AcI’s  In the totally unacceptable (11.90c) the distinct M sets off Inf as a VC on its own right, and thus stands in the way of introversion of the AcI as a whole (cf. Sect. 11.2.1): double-mention of the 3rd ps S at Inf by means of se is an aberration, S not being directly in focus at that event. 21. We have so far never run across any actual instance of the phenomenon. It is attested in Old Spanish, but the example cited in Alfonso Vega (1998:€57) shows no pronominal clitics. 22. In recursive AcI’s, we distinguish M’s, O’s and Inf ’s by subscript numbers. 23. We ignore combinations with me as Di. 24. The fact was observed, but not explained, by Radford (1979:€174).

chapter 12

Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes In AcI’s a clitic can appear either enclitic to Inf or proclitic to the finite Vx; as seen in Sect. 7.6.3, clitic fronting is also acceptable in auxiliary periphrases (aux-per’s),1 cf. (12.1) a. quiero estudiarlo b. lo quiero estudiar ‘I want to study it’ It is, however, hardly ever observed in “control” structures (Aissen and Perlmutter 1976:€5; Fernández Soriano 1999:€1263; Zagona 2002:€268 esp. fn. 13),2 cf. (12.2) a. te prohibí leerlo b. ??/* te lo prohibí leer ‘I forbade you to read it’ But while AcI’s do allow heterogenous clitic clustering (cf. Sect. 8.2 and Glossary), in an aux-per a clitic cannot “climb” from the non-finite to the finite verbal form if the latter contains a clitic of its own (Gómez Torrego 1999:€3332).3 In this chapter we will try to show that the unequal tolerance to clitic fronting is conditioned by the semantosyntactic relation between finite and non-finite VC’s, and the number of events referred to in each type of complex VP. We begin with the critical relation between finite and non-finite VC, and then consider clitic fronting in aux-per’s as against control structures, beginning each time with those where Inf directly adjoins the finite Vx, as it does in conflated AcI’s.4 We then discuss some verbs which bridge the gap between AcI’s and control structures, and conclude by placing AcI’s among complex VP’s.

12.1 The syntactic relation of Inf to Vx There is no reason why the Object of Inf should not also participate in the event named by the finite verb: the clearer that involvement, the more justified it is to refer to Inf ’s O already at Vx. That explains the unequal acceptability of (12.3) lo necesito comer ‘I need to eat it’ (hence I also need it) (12.4) ?lo necesito decir ‘I need to say it’ (? I need it)

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

(12.5) ?? lo necesito convencer ‘I need to convince him’ (?? I need him) (12.6) * lo necesito visitar ‘I need to, have to visit him’ (≠ I need him) When Inf and the finite Vx are semantically so compatible that they can be understood as referring to a single event, clitic fronting is most likely (Bolinger 1949:€255). Any such fronting is out of the question, however, when Inf itself is Vx’s p.i.f., for that role singles out Inf as a distinct event (Luján 1980:€390–91; Fernández Soriano 1999:€1263), cf. (12.7) a. (me) falta [lavar la ropa / lavarla]p.i.f. Dat Vx Inf Oa ‘I still have to wash the laundry / it’ (lit: to me is lacking [to wash the clothes’] = p.i.f. of “lack”) b. *** (me) la falta lavar ‘I still have to wash it’ (12.8) a. Es bueno [lavarse las manos]p.i.f. SC Inf Od Oa ‘It is good to wash one’s hands’ b. **** se es bueno lavar las manos ‘It’s good to wash one’s hands’ The same thing holds for the impersonal haber que (12.9) – Estas camisas están sucias: ¡hay que lavarlas! – ¿De veras *** las hay que lavar? ‘ – These shirts are dirty: it is necessary to wash them! – Is it really necessary to wash them?’ Nothing, not even a Di, can be cliticized to haber que or to tratarse de ‘to be about” (Fernández Soriano and Táboas Baylín 1999:€1773–4),5 cf. ( 12.10) ** me había que partir pronto ‘It was necessary to leave soon “on” me’ Integration of the finite and non-finite VC’s is considerably furthered when the two events share the same p.i.f. (Delbecque and Lamiroy 1999:€2028). That is what particularly distinguishes aux-per’s, where clitic fronting is most acceptable, from “control” structures, where the dependent Inf refers to a distinct event, is understood to have a distinct p.i.f., can be glossed with a subordinate clause and, like the latter, can be referred to with an Acc clitic, cf. ( 12.11) a. lei permito [que nadei] IO Vx DO ‘I allow that he should swim’



Chapter 12.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes 

b. c.

lei permito [nadari] IO Vx DO ‘I allow him to swim’ se lo permito ‘I allow it (to swim/that he should swim) to him’

( 12.12) a. b. c.

te prohibí [que bailaras con él] ‘I forbade you that you should dance with him’ te prohibí [bailar ese vals con él] ‘I forbade you to dance that waltz with him’ te lo prohibí ‘I forbade it you’ (to dance/that you should dance with him)’

( 12.13) a. b. c.

le recomiendo [que lea el Quijote] ‘I advise You (IInd) that you read the Quijote’ le recomiendo [leer el Quijote] ‘I advise You (IInd) to read the Quijote’ se lo recomiendo ‘I recommend it to You (IInd)’

While distinct p.i.f.’s evidently work against the integration of the two events, identical p.i.f.’s do not automatically fuse them. The nature of the two events also matters, for that determines how far Inf can plausibly be seen as the DO of the finite Vx, cf. ( 12.14) a. b. c.

pienso decirle la verdad ‘I intend (lit. think) to tell him the truth’ lo pienso ‘I think it (* intend it, e.g. to tell him the truth)’ se la pienso decir ‘I intend to tell it to him’

( 12.15) a. b. c.

le prometí [comprarle un osito] ‘I promised him to buy him a teddy-bear’ se lo prometí ‘I promised him it (i.e. to buy him a teddy-bear// a teddy-bear)’ * se lo prometí comprar ‘I promised him to buy it (the teddy bear)’

In (12.14a) the event referred to in the Infinitive VC cannot be viewed as the DO of the finite pensar ‘think’, for this verb’s interpretation as ‘plan, intend’ foregrounds the Infinitive, and thus allows its non-focus participants to be referred to with clitics at the finite Vx in (12.14c). In (12.15), conversely, Inf must be seen as the DO of Vx: this prevents the non-focus roles suggested by Inf to be assigned to any clitic at the Vx prometer ‘promise’. Since that finite VC may include a Dative participant of its own (cf. 12.15a), a cluster of the finite Verb’s Dat with the Inf ’s Acc, as in (12.15c), unacceptably

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

mixes distinct events. Equally unacceptable is the cumulation at Vx of Dat roles associated with the two different events, cf. ( 12.16)

No te preocupes por el nene: a. te prometo darle la mamadera cuando se despierte b. * te le prometo dar la mamadera cuando se despierte ‘Don’t worry about the baby: I promise you to give him his bottle when he wakes up’

On the other hand, the distinctness of Vx and Inf allows one and the same participant to play different Dative roles in the different events, and to be independently referred to at each verbal form, cf. eg. (12.15a), something totally impossible in a simplex VC (cf. Sect. 5.3.4).

12.2 Auxiliary periphrases Semantically imprecise verbs do not presuppose a specific type of DO, and can thus combine with a variety of bona fide NP’s, one of which may be an Infinitive.6 How closely an Inf is associated with the preceding finite verb will be affected by the frequency with which the two co-occur, for the syntagmatic contrast between verb and complement is reinforced by the paradigmatic variety of the latter (cf. Bybee and Scheibman 1999:€594; Bod, Hay and Jannedy 2003:€5). Should infinitives become the prototypical DO of a particular type of verb, the events they refer to are likely to gain in salience over the finite verb; since Inf ’s participants will rate clitic reference at the Vx, the latter can be reinterpreted as an auxiliary.7 In fact, the increasing frequency with which Inf constitutes the preferred complement of querer, deber, poder and soler correlates with increasing unacceptability of lo in reference to the following Inf,8 cf. ( 12.17) – ¿Querés ir a España? – Sí, lo quiero ‘Do you want to go to Spain? Yes, I do want it’ ( 12.18) – ¿Debés trabajar mucho? ?? – Sí, lo debo ‘Do you have to work a lot?’ Yes, I do (?? owe/have to it)’ ( 12.19) – ¿Podés venir un momento? a. * – No, no lo puedo9 b. OK – No, no puedo ‘Can you come for a moment? No, I can’t (?? V it)’



Chapter 12.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes 

( 12.20) – ¿Solés bailar con María? a. ** – Sí, lo suelo b. OK – Sí, suelo. ‘ – Do you usually dance with Mary?/Are you wont to dance with Mary? – Yes, I do / I am’ The non-finite Verb (henceforth V) of an aux-per thus depends on the finite auxiliary (abbr. Aux) for temporal and person inflection, but it represents the lexical centre of the complex VP, defining the – single – event and its case-roles, and thus constitutes the “true” Verb.10 As seen, V’s O can cliticize to Aux, as in eg. (12.1), only because the non-finite verbal form itself is not seen as the DO of the finite Aux. Clitic climbing is thus indirect – albeit circular – proof of the grammaticalization of a verb-sequence (Delbecque and Lamiroy 1999:€2030 fn. 100).11 Since aux-per’s by definition refer to a single event,12 the acceptability of clitic clusters at Aux is determined by the criteria relevant to simplex VP’s, and discussed in Part I. Disjunct cliticization, however, always remains morpho-tactically possible: not only for imp. se (cf. Sect. 7.6.3), but even, marginally, when one of two Datives is a Di, cf. ( 12.21) ?¿Me podrías lavarte las manos, por favor? ‘(ironically) Could you possibly (me, Di) wash your hands?’ ( 12.22) ?? ¿Me querés decirle la verdad, de una buena vez?13 ‘Will you kindly (me, Di) tell him the truth, once and for all?’ In an aux-per the non-finite V’s O stands in syntagmatic contrast only to that event’s p.i.f.: this explains why clitic reference at Aux to O is increasingly favoured, the more clearly O’s person outranks the p.i.f.’s (Myhill 1988:€357–59),14 and why early lexical reference to a non-focus participant is regularly clitic-duplicated at Aux, rather than at V (Colantoni 2002:€332), cf. ( 12.23) a. eso lo quiero averiguar cuanto antes b. ?? eso quiero averiguarlo cuanto antes ‘I want to find it (= that) out as soon as possible’ ( 12.24) a. A Pedro le vamos a contar esa historia b. ?? A Pedro vamos a contarle esa historia ‘We will tell him ( = Pedro) that story’ It is not surprising that animates, and in particular human O’s, are referred to with a clitic at Aux more frequently than are inanimate O’s (Davies 1995:€ 376–77; cf. also Aijón Oliva 2006); the same anthropocentric bias explains why clitic clusters are fronted more often than single clitics, a skewing noted by Bolinger (1949:€ 254), Davies (1995:€375–76) and Colantoni (2002:€331).15

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

12.2.1 Vx + [Z] + Inf auxiliary periphrases As pointed out earlier, clitic fronting is possible in aux-per’s where V is introduced by a preposition or by the conjunction que, cf. ( 12.25) lo empecé a leer ‘I began to read it’ ( 12.26) lo dejé de hacer ‘I stopped doing it’ ( 12.27) las tengo que lavar ‘I have to wash them’ ( 12.28) me voy a bañar ‘I’m gonna shower (lit. me I’m gonna bathe)’ Other frequent auxiliaries of this type are comenzar a ‘to begin’, concluir de ‘to end’, tratar de ‘to try’, haber de ‘be, have to’. Clitic climbing is however impossible when the p.i.f. is double mentioned at Aux (cf. Gómez Torrego 1999:€3332); this possibility arises only in aux-per’s where Inf is introduced by a preposition.16 In fact, the finite Aux in ( 12.29) a. se metió a coserla b. ** se la metió a coser ‘She set herself to sew it’ ( 12.30) a. se puso a hablarle b. ** se le puso a hablar ‘She began to talk to him’ patterns syntactically like the main verb in ( 12.31) a. me decidí [a comprarla] b. *** me la decidí a comprar ‘I decided to buy it’ ( 12.32) a. me acostumbré [a verlo pálido] b. *** me lo acostumbré a ver pálido ‘I got used to seeing him pale’ The same thing holds for clitic placement in the aux-per ir a ‘gonna’, as against the main verb irse a ‘to go away’ in combination with an Infinitive:17 clitic fronting is possible with the former, but not the latter, cf. ( 12.33) a. [voy a] comprármelo b. me lo [voy a] comprar ‘I’m gonna buy it for myself’ (aux-per ir a)



Chapter 12.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes 

( 12.34) a. [me voy] a comprarlo b. * me lo voy a comprar ‘I’m going (away) to buy it’ (main verb: irse + a + direction) The syntactic detachment of the double-mention Aux from the preposition-introduced V naturally allows further double mention of the p.i.f. at the latter Inf (cf. Sect. 7.7), cf. (12.35) Cuando era pequeña, María se comía las uñas, pero hace un año [se dejó] de comérselas. ‘When she was small, Mary used to bite her nails, but a year go she gave up biting them (lit.: left herself from eating them ‘on’ herself)’ ( 12.36) Como ya era tarde, [me puse] a arreglarme ‘As it was already late, I began ( lit.: put myself) to dress and make up myself’ What may however be cliticized to the double-mentioned Aux is a reference to a Peripheral participant relevant to the event as a whole; that same participant can then be further referred to, in a distinct Dat role, at the Inf V, cf. ( 12.37) A Pedro me le dejé de hablarle de María ‘I left off talking to Pedro (Dataff at Aux, Datobj at V) about Mary’ Such iteration of a clitic is outright impossible in a simplex VC (cf. Sects. 5.4.1, 7.3) or in comparable single-mention aux-per’s, even when Inf is introduced by a preposition or que,18 cf. ( 12.38) * le dejé de hablarle de María. ?? ‘I left off talking to Pedro about Mary’ A Dat clitic that appears at Aux can thus be associated with V in a single-mention, but not in a double mention aux-per, cf. ( 12.39) dejar de ‘cease’ (sm) a. dejé de sonreirle b. le dejé de sonreír ‘I ceased smiling at him (Od)’ ( 12.40) dejarse de ‘leave off ’ (dm) a. me dejé de sonreírle ‘I stopped smiling at him (Od)’ b. me le dejé de sonreír ‘I stopped smiling “on” him, for his sake (Dataff )’ ( 12.41) empezar a ‘begin to’ (sm) a. empecé a hablarle b. le empecé a hablar ‘I started talking to him (Od)’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

( 12.42) ponerse a ‘begin to’ (dm) a. me puse a hablarle ‘I got talking to him (Od)’ b. me le puse a hablar ‘I got talking “on” him (Dataff )’ There is, however, one double-mention aux-per that does admit clitic fronting, at least in Popular Mexican Spanish, i.e. quedarse + Ger ‘keep Verbing’,19 but here V is a Gerund rather than an Infinitive, and no preposition intervenes between quedarse and the gerundive V (Bolinger 1949:€259; Torres Cacoullos 2000:€126–7), cf. ( 12.43) Fuegos 54 (Std. BA Spanish) Se lo dijo a Rosa en la sala, antes de irse, y Rosa se quedó mirándola como si no pudiera creer lo que había oído. ‘She told Rosa about it in the living room, before leaving, and Rosa kept looking at her as if she could not believe what she had heard’ ( 12.44) *se la quedó mirando ‘she kept looking at her’ ( 12.45) Mex Pop 6-4 Nosotros veníamos bajando del camión, y él iba a tomar el camión. Y lo vi yo, y lo saludé, y se me quedó viendo. Pero no me conoció,... ‘We were getting off the bus, and he was about to take the bus. And I saw him, and I greeted him, and he kept looking at me. But he did not recognize me...’ The clitic fronting in (12.45) may be favoured by the semantic opacity of the doublemention in quedarse...-ando: while, as just seen, dejar de (sm Aux) + Inf clearly contrasts in sense with dejarse de (dm Aux) + Inf, (cf. egg. 12.39–42) no clear difference distinguishes quedar + Ger from quedarse + Ger. Even Bull (1950:€470) despaired of making grammatical sense of the expression quedarse mirando/viendo ‘to keep looking at’, which was characterized by Spaulding as a “set phrase” (cf. Torres Cacoullos 2000:€126). It thus remains unclear to what extent the two verbal forms quedarse + Gerund do actually fuse (Gómez Torrego 1988:€169).20

12.3 “Control” structures Control structures resemble AcI’s in that Inf and Vx are understood to have distinct p.i.f.’s: the role of Inf ’s p.i.f. falls to a Dat participant in Vx, the so-called “controller” (henceforth [C]), who is thus comparable to an AcI’s M (Hernanz 1999:€2217). The two structures differ, however, in that Inf is clearly analyzable as Vx’s DO in control structures (cf. egg. 12.11–13) but not at all in AcI’s (cf. Sect. 8.3). It follows that



Chapter 12.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes 

[C] is primarily a participant in Vx, rather than Inf ’s p.i.f. and is thus not truly shared by the two events. Since Vx and Inf are more tightly integrated in an AcI than in a control structure (Hernanz 1999:€2247), it is not surprising that in a control structure Inf ’s Oa cannot “climb” to Vx: by doing so it would usurp the DO role unmistakably claimed by the Infinitive VC. Similarly, if Inf ’s Od were to stand at Vx, a hard-to-interpret two-Dative [C] + Od cluster would result,21 cf. ( 12.46) a. b.

le ordené lavar la camisa ‘I ordered her to wash the shirt’ *se la ordené lavar ‘I ordered her [C] to wash it (Oa)’

( 12.47) a. OK le impedí leerte la carta b. * te le impedí leer la carta ‘I prevented him [C] from reading the letter to you (Od) (lit. I impeded him to read the letter)’ c. *se te la impedí leer ‘I prevented him from reading it to you’ ( 12.48) a. b.

le permití comer esas naranjas ‘I allowed him to eat those oranges’ *se las permití comer ‘I allowed him [C] to eat them (Oa)’

A fronted O appears to be nonetheless acceptable to some speakers with aconsejar ‘advise’, ordenar ‘order’ and permitir ‘permit, allow’ (Luján 1980:€407), but only when the clitic refers to an inanimate Oa (Luján 1980:€410), cf. the similar restriction in AcI’s (cf. Sect. 10.2). The same reasons that preclude diverse M + O clusters in AcI’s (cf. Table 10.1) thus account for the increasing unacceptability of ( 12.49) ??/* se lo permití comprar C Oa ‘I allowed him (to buy) it’ ( 12.50) *

te la permití besar C Oa ‘I allowed you to kiss her’

( 12.51) ** te le permití hablar C Od ‘I allowed you to talk to him’ ( 12.52) *** te le permití hablar Od C ‘I allowed him to talk to you’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

The fact that Inf is syntactically more independent of Vx in control structures than in AcI’s, explains why Inf ’s implicit p.i.f. can be double mentioned in a control structure, even when no [C] is specified, something impossible for the tacit Ÿ of an AcI (cf.Sect. 11.1), cf. ( 12.53) Ordeno [ levantarse de madrugada] ‘I order to get (oneself) up at dawn’ ( 12.54) Impido [ pintarse los labios] ‘I prevent (one) rouge one’s lips’ ( 12.55) Prohibo [ irse de aquí] ‘I forbid (anyone) to leave this place’ (12.56) Las nuevas leyes de registro ganadero permitieron [ apropiarse del ganado ajeno] ‘The new cattle-registration laws allowed (; ‘people’) to take possession of other people’s cattle’22 For the same reason, Vx’s p.i.f. can be double mentioned at Vx in the role of [C], and then be independently double-mentioned at Inf qua that event’s implicit p.i.f., while in an AcI it is impossible to double mention S first as M at Vx, and subsequently as O at Inf (see ch. 11, note 8) cf. ( 12.57) me prohibí fumarme un cigarro ‘I forbade myself [C] to smoke (me, Di) a cigar’ ( 12.58) me prometí bañarme todos los días ‘I promised myself [C] to bathe (introverted) every day’ ( 12.59) se permitió jactarse de sus triunfos amorosos ‘He allowed himself [C] to vaunt himself (“reflexive” tantum) of his amatory triumphs’

12.3.1 Vx + [Z] + Inf Control structures When Inf is the object of a Preposition, that syntactic barrier enhances the distinctness of Vx’s and Inf ’s p.i.f.’s, and makes it even more difficult for Inf ’s O to appear at Vx. In these structures the Vx’s DO serves as the Inf ’s [C]ontroller,23 cf. (12.60) La falta de todo tipo de víveres forzó la gente [a precipitarse sobre los supermercados]PP ‘The lack of all food compelled people (DO, [C]) to assault the supermarkets’ ( 12.61) a. lo obligué [a comer la sopa]PP DO [C] Vx Adjunct ‘I forced him to eat the soup’



Chapter 12.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes 

b. ** se la obligué a comer ‘I forced him to eat it’ ( 12.62) a. la constreñí [a coserlo] ‘I forced her to sew it’ b. ** se lo constreñí a coser ‘I forced her to sew it’ The fact that the DO role at Vx is unambiguously claimed by [C] prevents this Central participant from remaining tacit (Treviño 1994:€77; Hernanz 1999:€2243), cf. ( 12.63) * obligué [€] a comer la sopa ‘I forced (someone) to eat the soup’ (12.64) ???/* La falta de todo tipo de víveres forzó [€] a precipitarse sobre los supermercados. ‘The lack of all food compelled (X) to assault the supermarkets’ This distinguishes [C] from the chamaeleonic M of an AcI.

12.4 Between control structures and AcI’s There is no sharp dividing line between aux-per’s and combinations of Vx + Inf with the same p.i.f. (Bolinger 1949:€255); not surprisingly, comparable combinations where the p.i.f.’s. are distinct lie half-way between AcI’s and control structures.

12.4.1 observar ‘to observe’ This verb takes as its DO a Clause, an NP, or an a-phrase. Acc clitic reference to a human DO can be combined with an Inf, in which case the DO is understood as the Inf ’s p.i.f., or with a que clause, in a DO + Cl combination, cf. ( 12.65) a. b. c.

observé que comía la sopa ‘I observed that he ate the soup’ observé el espectáculo ‘I watched the show’ observé a Pedro ‘I watched Pedro’

( 12.66) ?lo observé que comía la sopa (V + DO + Cl) ‘I observed him (as) he ate the soup’ ( 12.67) lo observé comer la sopa (V + DO + Inf) ‘I observed him eat the soup’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

The structure in (12.67) resembles an AcI rather than a control structure like those discussed in Sect. 12.3, in that Vx has an Acc participant that is shared with Inf, as the latter’s implicit p.i.f.: unlike what is the case in AcI’s (cf. Sect. 9.1.1), that shared participant is categorically an Acc, nor can he remain tacit, cf. ( 12.68) a. * le observé comer la sopa ‘I watched/observed him (Dat) eat the soup’ b. * observé  comer la sopa ‘I observed the soup be(ing) eaten (by someone)’ (12.67) thus resembles a control structure with an Acc [C] (cf. Sect. 12.3.1, egg. 12.63, 64), with observar and Inf not integrating as fully as Vx and Inf do in AcI’s. That failure of the two events to fuse prevents heterogeneous clustering of a pronominal reference to the Inf ’s DO with the Acc [C] at Vx: ( 12.69) a. * se la observé comer b. ** lo la observé (€) comer ‘I observed him eat it’

12.4.2 mandar ‘to send, order’ This verb occurs in such diverse syntactic environments as ( 12.70) lo mandé (a Roma) ‘I sent it/him (Acc) (to Rome)’: V + NP (= DO) (+ PP = destination) ( 12.71) mandé que se abrieran las puertas ‘I ordered that the doors should be opened’: V + Clause (= DO) ( 12.72) mandé abrir las puertas ‘I ordered the doors to be opened’: Vb + Inf (= DO) Whatever the nature of the DO, it can be pronominalized with lo, herein resembling control structures (cf. egg. 12.11–13). The combinations in (12.70–2) admit the addition of a Dat participant: when the DO is a concrete entity, as in (12.70), such an addition merely results in a three-particiÂ� pant event, cf. ( 12.73) se lo mandé (a Roma) ‘I sent him to her (to Rome)’ But when, as in (12.72), the DO is an action to be performed, the Peripheral participant is taken for the implicit p.i.f. of the Inf, as in the control structures of Sect. 12.3,24 thus yielding ( 12.74) a. le mandé [abrir las puertas] ‘I ordered him (IO) [to open the doors] (DO)’



Chapter 12.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes 

b. se lo mandé ‘I ordered him it’ It is also possible, however, to envisage an expected action as the abstract destination to which the DO is sent, as in ( 12.75) lo mandé a trabajar ‘I sent him (Acc) to work’ A blend of (12.75) with (12.74a) yields the quasi-AcI ( 12.76) lo mandé trabajar25 ‘I ordered him (Acc) to work’ The mandar + [C] + Inf sequences in (12.74a, 12.76) thus resemble hacer AcI’s, with which they overlap semantically; furthermore, [C] alternates between Dat (in 12.74a) and Acc (in 12.76) as M does in AcI’s (Sect. 9.1, 9.1.1). Mandar further resembles hacer in that [C] can remain tacit, unlike what is normally the case with Acc controllers (Sect. 12.3.1; Hernanz 1999:€2243, 2264).26 Clitic reference to the Inf ’s Oa at the finite mandar is fully acceptable (Hernanz 1999:€2264; Bordelois 1974:€57) but only when the Inf ’s [C] is tacit:27 ( 12.77) Borges 32 El hombre le dice que el patrón lo manda (€) buscar ‘The man tells him that the boss (S) orders him called, looked for’ Fronting of Oa is less acceptable than in genuine AcI’s (Bolinger 1949:€257), particularly when [C] is explicitly referred to: our corpus did not yield a single case of a [C] + Oa cluster at mandar + Inf, and our informants strongly preferred placement of the Oa clitic at Inf, rejecting ( 12.78) ?? me lo mandó buscar ‘he ordered me to fetch it/look for it’ However, a [C] + Oa cluster does appear to be marginally acceptable when Inf refers to a displacement, cf. the unequal unacceptability of ( 12.79) a. ?/* me la mandó coser ‘He ordered me to sew it [the blouse]’ b. OK/? me la mandó llevar / entregar ‘He ordered me to take / deliver it’ The reason, we assume, is that the directional sense of mandar ‘to send’ makes it particularly compatible with motion Inf ’s: the easier it is to perceive Vx and Inf as a single event, the more acceptable joint cliticization of [C] and Oa to Vx will prove. In short: mandar is semantically too specific easily to accommodate two candidates to the DO role, as AcI’s do (cf. Sects. 8.1,2), and the fact that mandar’s Inf is

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

pronominalizable with lo (cf. e.g. 12.74b) shows that it, rather than its [C], is mandar’s true DO.28 Though consistent role-differentiation would require mandar’s [C] to be cast only and always as a Dat, the different uses of the verb are so close and so frequent as to facilitate blending, which puts mandar ‘to send/order’ half-way between AcI’s and clear control verbs like ordenar ‘order’ or permitir ‘permit’.29

12.4.3 mirar ‘to look at, watch’ Mirar ‘to look at’ differs in both meaning and syntactic distribution from its closest AcI equivalent, i.e. ver ‘to see’. Ver admits as its DO a que or como clause, but the normal DO of mirar is an active participant who is watched as he engages in some action: that is why que ‘that’ is less acceptable than como ‘how’ when introducing a clausal DO,30 cf. ( 12.80) a. Juan miraba * que trabajaba María b. Juan miraba OK como trabajaba María ‘John watched *that/ OK how Mary worked’ ( 12.81) Héroes 196 También observaban las hormigas, que trabajaban con esa acelerada y empeñosa seriedad que las caracteriza. – Miralas como producen – comentó Alejandra. – Segundo Plan Quinquenal. ‘They also watched the ants, who worked with rapid and earnest seriousness, so characteristic of them. – Look at them (las) how they produce – commented Alexandra. – Second five-year Plan.’ Unlike mandar ‘to order/send’, mirar focusses attention on the agent of some action: explicit reference to [C] is thus to be expected, and is indeed observed in the approximately ten cases with mirar + Inf yielded by our corpus, with several instances of [C] being double mentioned at Inf, cf. ( 12.82) Héroes 229 La mujer [...] lo miró alejarse ‘The woman [...] watched him go away (lit: move himself away)’ In none of those cases, however, does Inf feature a distinct Oa of its own, nor is the person watched ever referred to with a Dat clitic; herein mirar resembles observar, and differs from ver. These facts confirm that the focus of the attention with mirar is concentrated on the Acc [C], rather than on his activity, which distinguishes it from mandar, where conversely the ordered event is highlighted against its [C].31 Though clitic reference to an eventual Oa of Inf is not attested in our corpus, our informants found it acceptable in ( 12.83) lo miré comerla ‘I watched him eat it’



Chapter 12.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes 

But fronting of the Oa clitic to mirar proved totally unacceptable, for it either results in two concrete Acc referents vying for the role of mirar’s DO, or incongruously forces Dat case on one or the other participant: unlike the M of AcI’s, a [C] does not assume Dat case by clustering with Oa at Vx: ( 12.84) a. *** lo la miré comer b. ** se la miré comer ‘I watched him eat it (= the soup)’ This shows that mirar and its Inf remain syntactically distinct, with [C] as mirar’s true DO. Cliticization of Oa at mirar is thus particularly bad, even when [C] is tacit, which in itself is already unacceptable: ( 12.85) *? la miré € comer ‘I watched it be eaten’ (12.85) is doubly incongruous in that the one worthy of being watched, i.e. [C], remains tacit, while the one actually referred to, i.e. the necessarily passive Oa, is unworthy of being watched.

12.5 The place of AcI’s in the syn-tactic landscape The greater the integration of two events, the more uniform the cognitive representation of the overall situation will be, and the simpler and more straightforward its processing. Clitic fronting, i.e. the placement at the finite verb of a clitic reference to a participant in Inf, is the easier to cope with, and thus the more acceptable, the greater the integration of the two events, which simplifies the processing of the complex VP. The integration is total in aux-per’s, where the two VC’s share the same p.i.f. and the two verbal forms are directly juxtaposed. Clitics can thus hardly be said to “climb” in aux-per’s, since only one event-level is at issue: the lower cognitive cost of clitic fronting makes the manoeuvre more affordable, and consequently more frequent and acceptable, in aux-per’s as against control structures and AcI’s. Conversely, the existence of clearly distinct event-levels makes it hard to associate a clitic at Vx with a role played at Inf: that is why clitic fronting is more acceptable as well as more frequent in AcI’s, where Inf ’s relation to Vx is indeterminate, than in control structures or in aux-per’s with a double-mention Aux, where Inf clearly constitutes an independent VC. Last, and most important. Though two distinct Accusatives cannot be part of the same event (cf. Sect. 3.2.2), this is nonetheless – to some indeterminate degree – the case in an AcI: in colloquial speech, an Acc reference to a potential DO can be juxtaposed even to a subordinate Clause,32 cf.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

( 12.86) (A María) la oí que lloraba ‘I heard her (i.e. Mary) cry; I heard her as/that she cried’ ( 12.87) Segundo 78 siguió nuestro hombre pa’l río y en llegando la vido que andaba nadando cerquita e la orilla ‘our man [hero] continued towards the river and upon getting [there] he saw her swimming close to the bank (lit.: he saw her that/as she was swimming close to the bank)’ In such cases the Clause’s p.i.f. is never referred to explicitly, as if the finite verb’s DO de facto fulfilled that function, cf. ( 12.88) la oí que (***María) lloraba ‘I heard Mary cry; I heard her (= Mary) as she cried’ Since both the Acc participant and the subordinate Clause vie for the role of Vx’s DO, the syntactic hybrid illustrated in (12.86, 87) is generally viewed as only marginally grammatical (cf. Hernanz 1999:€2239–40). The combination is communicatively viable, however, because case-role assignment to the Clause is not enforced;33 the unit can consequently be variably interpreted: as an expression of purpose when its verb is in the Subjunctive, as a loose “relative” modifier of the (pronominal) DO with an Indicative verb, or as a manner adjunct, if introduced by como. There is even less profit in asking whether conflated and concatenated AcI’s are instances of the “same” construction, or syntactically distinct: the answer can only be “both”. “The” AcI structure is simply a congeries of diverse com-positional and/or inferential manoeuvres, which allow appropriate verbs loosely to combine with an Infinitive.34 What critically distinguishes AcI’s as a syntactic type from other complex VP’s, is the tolerated indeterminacy as to precisely what constitutes the finite verb’s DO. The interpretation of verbal forms in complex VP’s is indeed non-arbitrary, since it is clearly related to their syntactic exploitation in simplex arrangements; but it can never be totally reduced to the latter: as with lexical polysemy, creative inference lies at the base of different syntactic exploitations. “Recursion” is indeed the core trait of syntax: not, however, the mechanical and potentially infinite recursion of a well-defined finite set of rules, but rather the re-cycling and re-interpreting of multiply open and variable construal, i.e. the re-development of inferential routines. Structural mapping – and consequently, re-mapping – cannot help taking place constantly: this precludes precise, determinate and formalizable parsing and makes it impossible to ascertain the exact number of “emically distinct” syntactic constructions (cf. Newmeyer 1998:€135). It follows that syntax itself is constructed, rather than constituting a set of welldefined constructs: it is most truly dynamic energeia, rather than static ergon.



Chapter 12.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes 

Notes to Ch. 12 1. Davies’ analysis of clitic fronting in aux-per’s shows that while the phenomenon is more frequent in spoken than in written Spanish, it reflects no geographical differentiation (Davies 1995:€373, cf. also Torres Cacoullos 1999b:158–9). These observations suggest that Spanish clitic placement is fundamentally motivated by pragmatic considerations. 2. I am indebted to J. Roorijck (p.c.) for the definition of “control” structures as “constructions where the main verb takes an Infinitive besides other non-infinitival objects subject to its own selectional restrictions”; this distinguishes them from “raising” verbs. 3. The grammatically free OSp atonic pronouns could precede verb combinations where clitic fronting is now ruled out (Keniston 1937:€108 #10.732), cf. (i) a. OSp no me los cale soñar b. MoSp no me corresponde soñarlos ‘It is not up to me / it does not behoove me to dream them’ (ii) a. OSp El gallardo Moro.... se los paró a mirar b. MoSp El gallardo Moro se paró a mirarlos ‘The gallant Moor... stopped to look at them’ 4. An interposed quantifier stands in the way of clitic climbing (Luján 1980:€383, 388) cf. Parece que esa película es excelente: a. deseo mucho verla b. * la deseo mucho ver ‘It seems that the picture is excellent: I very much wish to see it’ 5. It is generally assumed that clitic fronting is impossible with parecer ‘to seem’, a so-called “raising” verb, which takes an Infinitive as its p.i.f. (Cf. Zagona 2002:€ 268; Luján 1993:€ 252; Treviño 1993:€289; Fernández Soriano 1999:€1263). Parecer can however be used as a copula (cf. Sect. 5.5), which is not the case with verbs such as faltar ‘to lack, be missing’, convenir ‘to behoove’, importar ‘to matter’, cf. (i) a. me conviene trabajar más ‘It is good for me/it behooves me to work more’ b. *** convengo trabajar más ??? 'I behoove to work more’ (ii) a. me parecer soñar ‘methinks to dream’ b. parezco soñar ‘I seem to dream’ In (iib) parecer resembles an auxiliary, which makes clitic fronting variably acceptable (Bolinger 1946, 1972), depending on the extent to which the clitic’s referent can be seen as participating in the “seeming”, cf. (iii) a. Pareces saberlo ya b. *lo pareces saber ya. ‘You already seem to know it’ (iv) a. estás cansada ‘You are tired’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs b. (i) Pareces cansada ‘You seem tired’ (ii) lo pareces ‘you seem it’ (v) a. Pareces estarlo b. OK/? lo pareces estar ‘You seem to be it’ The “predicate” lo cliticizes acceptably to the finite parecer in (vb) because it can plausibly be viewed as the Subject Complement (SC) of either parecer or estar, cf. (iv) 6. Quite a few lexical items are usable as an ordinary transitive verb, or as an auxiliary, cf. (i) debo dinero ‘I owe money’ (ii) a. quiero que trabajes más ‘I want you to work harder (lit: I want that you work more)’ b. quiero a Pedro ‘I love Pedro’ c. lo quiero ‘I want it / I love him’ d. lo quiero comer ‘I want to eat it’ e. lo quiero querer ‘I want to [Aux] love [V] him’ 7. Not surprisingly, almost all of the fifteen auxiliary verbs with which fronting is common, have aspectual or modal values (Davies 1995:€373–4). 8. The data in Davies’ computerized Corpus del Español (Davies, n.d.) show that poder, deber, querer, to which Moliner assigns auxiliary status, appear much more frequently with a dependent Inf than with an NP as DO; the converse is true for the five AcI-forming verbs hacer, dejar, oir, sentir, ver, which prototypically have a concrete object or experience as DO (cf. Moliner 1986 under the respective headings). Even a very superficial search showed that the percentage of Inf after the modal auxiliaries querer, deber and poder went from 79% through 94% to 100% of the sampled occurrences, while it ranged between 0% and 16% in the samples of AcI-forming dejar, oir, ver, hacer and sentir. 9. Colloquial Spanish admits lo puedo ‘I can (beat) him’, but it is unclear whether poder here is the main verb, or an auxiliary with a tacit – and cognate – Inf. 10. Like AcI’s, aux-per’s do not constitute a synchronically well-defined class (Orf 2000; Olbertz 1998). Not only is Aux divided from its Verb in some aux-per’s by a conjunction or a preposition, but the “auxiliariness” of the finite verb varies considerably (cf. Olbertz 1998:€549– 51 et pass.). In many aux-per’s which admit clitic fronting, a Gerund takes the place of Inf, e.g. (i) lo sigo pensando ‘I continue thinking it’ (ii) lo andás diciendo por todas partes ‘You go around saying it everywhere’ (iii) lo estoy comiendo ‘I am eating it’



Chapter 12.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes  The alternation of Inf with Gerund is also observed in structures which parallel AcI’s, cf. (iv) Fuegos 131 Se oía la campanilla llamando al público ‘One could hear the bell (DO) calling the public’ (v) Héroes 195 Martín corrió al bar y la encontró esperándolo ‘Martin ran to the bar and found her (DO) waiting for him’ (vi) Borges 110 porque ya lo cercaba [...] el rumor de las Odiseas e Ilíadas que (DO) era su destino cantar y dejar resonando cóncavamente en la memoria humana. ‘because he was already hedged in by [...] the rumour of the Odysseys and Iliads which it was his fate to sing and to leave hollowly resounding in human memory’ However, no clitic can “climb” from Gerund to Vx, cf. (vii) a. te dejé llamándola b. *te la dejé llamando ‘I left you calling her’ 11. The relative frequency of clitic climbing might be expected to correlate with the relative degree of grammaticalization of different auxiliaries (cf. Torres Cacoullos 1999a:45; 1999b:143 et pass.), but in fact poder ‘can’, a very early auxiliary, used far more frequently than ir a ‘gonna’, shows the lower proportion of clitic fronting (Davies 1995:€374). 12. Evidence that an aux-per refers to a single event is provided by the fact that imp. se can appear enclitic to the infinitive V (Sect. 7.6.3), something ruled out in AcI’s or control structures, where Inf may or must be seen as Vx’s DO, cf. (i) a. ¿Se puede saber quién llegó? b. ¿Puede saberse quién llegó? ‘Is it possible to know who arrived (lit: can «one» know...) (aux-per)’ (ii) a. Se vio llegar mucha gente b. ** Vio llegarse mucha gente ‘Many people were seen to arrive (lit. “one” saw...) (AcI)’ (iii) a. OK No se permite fumar b. *** No permite fumarse ‘It is not allowed to smoke (lit. one does not allow...) (control structure)’ 13. In an AcI a Di clitic can easily appear at Vx, disjoint from an Oa at Inf cf. (i) ¡Me lo hiciste comerla! Di M Oa ‘By golly (Di), you got him to eat it! In an aux-per such a disjunction becomes progressively less acceptable when an Acc participant is at issue cf. (ii) Pese a que le desaconsejé ese guiso, a la fuerza???/* me quiso comerlo: ahora se queja de que le duele la barriga. ‘Though I warned him against the stew, he would eat it “on” me; now he complains of stomach-ache’ 14. Colantoni (2002:€331) maintains that Myhill’s findings are not supported by her Spoken Corrientes Spanish data, but her 1st and 2nd ps clitic figures are too low to justify her claim. Her

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs 3rd ps data, in any case, match Myhill’s findings, inasmuch as a 3*rd ps O cliticizes to Aux more often when the p.i.f. is inanimate than when he is human. 15. The fronting of a single Acc O depends critically on the participant’s animacy; since Dat participants are overwhelming human and thus inherently more salient than inanimates, they can be expected to appear at Aux relatively more often than Accusatives. Clitic clusters perforce include clitic reference to a Dative participant, since there can be only one Acc per event (cf. Sect. 3.2.2; 5.1, 2 et pass.): but if the Dative clitic “climbs” to Aux, so also will the remaining clitic(s) in the cluster (cf. Sect. 7.6.3). Since clitic clusters guarantee at least one human (Dat) participant, they refer, on average, to more salient participants than do single clitics, and are consequently likely to be fronted more often. The clitics’ case was unfortunately disregarded as a relevant parameter in Davies’ quantitative analysis of clitic-fronting, performed on the eight most frequent auxiliary verbs, which accounted for about 83% of all tokens (1995:€376). 16. Such aux-per’s are structurally distinct from AcI’s with S double-mentioned in the M role. In the latter, fronting of Oa is much worse than that of Od (cf. Sect. 11.2.2.3), while a doublemention Aux impartially prevents the fronting of Acc and Dat clitics alike, cf. (i) *me lo dejé comer (AcI) =SM Oa ‘I allowed myself to eat it’ (ii) ?? me le dejé sonreir (AcI) =SM Od ‘I allowed myself to smile at him’ (iii) *me lo dejé de comer (aux-per) ‘I left off eating it’ (iv) *me le dejé de sonreir (aux-per) ‘I left off smiling at him’ It can hardly be a coincidence that with double-mention Aux’s the infinitival V is invariably introduced by a preposition. Event-introversion through double mention may have favoured an aspectual interpretation of the finite verb, and thus facilitated its grammaticalization as an auxiliary; the syntactic isolation of Inf resulting from the introductory preposition may have contributed to the development. 17. Recall that introversion of ir shifts the verb’s sense from ‘to go’ to ‘to leave’ (cf. Sects. 4.1.1; 7.7). Cf. also the contrast between the aux-per ir + Gerund ‘to go Verbing’ as against the main verb irse + Gerund ‘to leave while Verbing’ combination, as in (i) me la [fui mirando] ‘I took a good (me = Di) look at her; I looked her over’ (aux-per: ir + Ger) (ii) [me fui] mirándola ‘I left looking at her’ (main verb irse ‘to go away’, introverted under double mention = ‘to leave’) Dejar ‘let, allow, leave’ is consequently ambiguous when the only clitic at Aux double mentions the p.i.f., cf. (iii) me dejé de engañar a. ‘I stopped deceiving myself ’ (= me [dejé de engañar]) dejar de, sm aux-per, but role-levelling of V by dm of p.i.f., cliticized to Aux; alternates with dejé de engañarme.



Chapter 12.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes  b. ??’I gave up deceiving’ (= [me dejé] de engañar) dejarse de, dm aux-per, with role-levelling at Aux; sm V, with tacit DO. 18. Single-mention aux-per’s do of course admit disjoint reference to distinct participants in different Dat roles, cf. De una buena vez: me dejarás de hablarle de María. ‘Once and for all: you will do me the favour (me Di) to leave off talking to him (Datobj) of Mary’ The configuration is only marginally possible in aux-per’s where Inf immediately adjoins Vx, for here the two verbal forms are more closely bound, cf. egg. (12.21, 22). 19. Yllera unfortunately fails to discuss clitic climbing with quedarse + Gerund (cf. 1999:€3420, 3424). 20. Acceptable cliticization to quedarse of the Gerund’s O strongly depends on the sense of the main Verb, events of watching being particularly favoured. 21. Such a fronting proves unacceptable even under the more favourable circumstances of eg. (12.16) and of AcI’s, cf. Sects. 10.4,5. 22. Double mention at Inf of a tacit [C] did not prove fully acceptable to AECh, but was rated by her as in any case more acceptable than the comparable AcI * Dejaré pintarse los labios ‘I will allow painting one’s lips’ 23. A separate issue, requiring detailed analysis, is the extent to which clitic fronting is acceptable when transitive verbs are followed by a preposition-introduced Infinitive, with the IO of the former understood as the p.i.f. of the latter, as in (i) le ayudé a lavar la ropa ‘I helped her to wash the clothes’ (ii) a. OK le ayudé a lavarla b. ?? se la ayudé a lavar ‘I helped her to wash it’ 24. When the DO is a clause, as in (12.71), its p.i.f. usually coincides with mandar’s eventual IO (Delbecque and Lamiroy 1999:€2028), cf. (i) Fuegos 109 Siempre es así los primeros cuatro días, y además nadie te mandó que miraras [el termómetro] ‘It’s always like that the first four days, and besides nobody told you to look (lit.: ordered you (Dat/Acc) that you should look [at the thermometer]’ That identification is however not inevitable, given the syntactic independence of the subordinate clause, cf. (ii) te mandé que los obreros reparasen el techo de la casa ‘I ordered you that the workmen should repair the roof of the house’ 25. The converse blend of (12.72) and (12.75) yields the very frequent hybrid (i) mandé a poner la mesa ‘I ordered the table to be laid (lit: I sent [€]) to lay the table)’ Here the PP introduced by a refers to the order, and can implicitly be seen as the goal of mandar, thus explaining the absence of any explicit Acc [C].

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs The alternation of a with its absence in causative uses of mandar is very old (Alfonso Vega 1998:€230–1); though purists insist on the need to distinguish the two senses of the verb by congruently pairing the different types of complement with the appropriate case for [C], all four arrangements continue to flourish, particularly in LA Spanish (Kany 1951:€335). The hybrid in (i) is not acceptable in the Std. BA Spanish I learnt as a child. 26. In addition to (i) le mandé que te llevase el libro ‘I ordered him (Dat) that he should take you the book’ there also occurs (ii) lo mandé que te llevase el libro ‘I sent him (Acc) that he should take you the book with congruent and parallel shifts in a. the case of the [C], from Dat to Acc; b. the sense of mandar, from ‘order’ to ‘send’ c. the participant status of the subordinate clause, from DO in (i) to adverbial adjunct in (ii), cf. the discussion of cobrar ‘charge’, in Sect. 5.1.1. 27. To the best of our knowledge, when Inf is introduced by a, cliticization of Oa to mandar is totally unacceptable, at least in Std. BA Spanish, for the preposition prevents the fusion of mandar with Inf (cf Bolinger 1949:€258). 28. Explicit reference to the person “sent/ordered” was observed in not more than 20% of the score of mandar + Inf combinations in our corpus, while 79% of the AcI’s have a bona fide M (cf. García 2003c Table 3). The same sharp skewing is shown by samples drawn from Davies’ Corpus del Español (Davies, n.d.) for mandar (a) Inf as against hacer AcI’s. This suggests that mandar profiles the order given, rather than the person ordered/sent to act. 29. Mandar also enters into the frozen mandarse (a) mudar, cambiar ‘to beat it’ (lit.: order oneself to shift) illustrated in (i) Pago 190 Mandate cambiar, hijito... ‘Beat it, sonny... (lit: order/send yourself change)’ (ii) Segundo 14 A ver si te mandás mudar, muchacho y dejás tranquilos a los mayores. ‘Come on now, boy, take off and let the grown-ups in peace’ (lit: Let’s see if you order yourself change) (iii) Estoy hecha un trapo; mis primos estuvieron quince días de visita pero, gracias a Dios, el domingo se mandaron (a) mudar. ‘I’m dead beat: my cousins stayed with me for a fortnight but, thank God, they took off on Sunday’ Though the double-mentioning clitic at mandar is obviously co-referential with that verb’s p.i.f., the expressions mandarse mudar/cambiar are not interpretable as ‘order yourself to change’. They were so in former times, when the Imperative of mandar was understood, under double mention, as ‘order yourself, dispose yourself [to V]’. Frequent recourse to the expression resulted in semantic weakening of the command, with the lexical expression itself taking on the value of “please” (cf. Alfonso Vega 1998:€190 et pass.); a similar semantic shift is observed with servir ‘to serve’ cf.



Chapter 12.╇ Clitic placement in AcI’s and their look-alikes  (iv) sírvase tomar este refresco ‘Please (to) take this cooling drink (lit.: serve yourself to take)’ The recourse to mándese ‘command yourself, please’ appears to be characteristic of LA Spanish (cf. Kany 1951:€210–11); nothing is noted on the subject by Keniston (1937). That the bleaching must be fairly old is suggested by the fact that the expression alternates between a and its absence (Kany 1951:€ 335); the combination with a + Inf is not discussed by Alfonso Vega (1998:€145–153). 30. Mirar can take an interrogative clause as its DO, cf. (i) Estaba mirando qué grande se ha puesto este chico. ‘I was watching/looking how big this child has become’ (ii) ¡Mirá cuánta gente hay en la plaza! ‘Look how many people there are in the square!’ Since close observation presupposes careful attention, it is nonetheless possible – and natural – to say (iii) ¡Así que te vas de viaje a Escandinavia! Mirá que allá hace mucho frío; no te olvides los abrigos. ‘So you’re going on a trip to Scandinavia! Watch out that it is very cold there; do not forget your warm clothing.’ 31. Not surprisingly, abstract DO’s are more frequent with mandar, while concrete DO’s predominate with mirar (cf. Moliner 1986, under the respective entries). In comparable samples drawn from Davies (n.d.), there were 26% instances of control structures for mandé/mandó ‘I/ (s)he ordered/sent’, as against 0% with miré/miró ‘I/(s)he looked at’. 32. The mood of the verb in the subordinate clause is Subjunctive with the “causative” hacer and dejar, but Indicative with perception verbs (cf. Delbecque and Lamiroy 1999:€2026 et pass.), cf. (i) Mex Pop 105/10 La Preparatoria es adonde lu hice qu’entrara ‘The Preparatory (college) is where I made him get into (lit.: that he should enter)’ (ii) Rayuela 105 Al soldadito del parque tampoco lo podías dejar que llorara ‘the little soldier in the park, you could not let him either cry (lit.: leave him that he should cry)’ (iii) Fuegos 93 Justo cuando se estaban yendo la (M’) oí a mamá (M) que le decía a la Srta. Cora “....” ‘Just as they were leaving I heard mother say to Miss Cora “...” (lit: I heard her/mother that/as she said to Miss Cora “....”’ 33. The indeterminate case-status of NP’s and Clauses (cf. Sect. 4.2.1) allows juxtaposition of candidates unequally suited to the status of DO (cf. Sect. 5.1.1), as in (i) Cobra la visita $ 100 ‘He charges $ 100 per visit x he charges the visit at $100’ (ii) Lo vi que estaba estudiando ‘I saw him (to be) studying x I saw that he was studying’ (iii) La nombré mi secretaria ‘I appointed her (as) my secretary’

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs 34. Cf. Sect. 12.4 on the indeterminate status of Infinite complements of verbs such as mandar ‘send, order’ and mirar ‘look at, watch’,

chapter 13

Summary and conclusions If syntax is truly autonomous, at least some syntactic facts would have to be communicatively arbitrary, an arbitrariness most likely to arise at the border-line between syntax and morphology, where grammaticalization is most advanced: and indeed, the unacceptability of some Spanish clitic clusters has been attributed by Bonet to “weird morphological constraints” (1994:€51). We, on the contrary, note that sign-collocations must be processed in real time, which requires syntax to be iconic and communicatively motivated (cf. Sect. 1.3.2): and since the extreme temporal compression of clitic clusters precludes time-consuming computation, they will be acceptable only inasfar as their interpretation is both inherently congruent and immediately apparent.

13.1 Summary In Part I we argued that the processing of clitic clusters must take into account the specific meanings of the individual clitics, which support diverse inferential routines; both meanings and inferences have been delineated in as much detail as possible (cf. Chs. 3, 4, Sects. 5.1,2; 6.4; 7.4,5). Critical to VC processing is the fact that participants can be ranked in terms of both their person and their case-roles: the conflict between the two rankings prevents easy interpretation of the notorious *me (Acc) le (Dat) cluster (Sects. 2.1.3.1; 5.3.1). Lack of processing time also makes it difficult to reconcile contradictory or incompatible inferential manoeuvres, which explains the absolute non-occurrence of the *le lo and *se se clusters (Sects. 6.4.1 and 7.3) In Part II the analysis was extended to heterogenous clusters in AcI’s, where clitics conjoined at the finite VC must be allotted roles played at distinct sub-events. The unequal acceptability of the same cluster under different interpretations, as in (13.1) a. b.

me lo hiciste besar 1>3 Dat > Acc OK M > Oa ‘You made me kiss it’ ** Oa < M ‘You made him kiss me’ (Sect. 10.2)

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

is due to a conflict between person- and (AcI-)role rankings, just like the total unacceptability of the simplex (13.2) *me le presentaste 1 > 3 Acc < Dat ‘You introduced me to him’ (Sect. 5.3.1) Hard-to-reconcile inferences are responsible, on the other hand, for the non-acceptability of (13.3) a. b.

me lo dejé besar 1 > 3 Dat > Acc * =SM > Oa ‘I allowed myself to kiss it’ (Sect. 11.2.2.3) ** =SOa < M ‘I let him kiss me’ (Sect. 11.2.2.4)1

and of the simplex (13.4) a. ** se se lava ‘One washes oneself ’ (Sect. 7.3) b. ** me lo nombraste ‘You appointed me it’ (Sect. 5.5.2)2 Such Gordian clusters can only be undone by providing more inferential breathingspace, as when (13.3a) gives way to iconic cliticization of Oa to Inf, in the far more acceptable (13.5) OK/? me dejé besarlo ‘I allowed myself to kiss it’ (Sect. 11.2.2.3) Though the morpho-syntactic rigidity of clitic clusters clearly does not preclude interpretative calculus, that computation must remain simple, for the fixed order of clitics requires processing of a VC to be literally straightforward: the different members of a cluster cannot be processed simultaneously on distinct inferential levels. That is particularly the case for se, whose extremely sparse meaning makes it totally dependent on its context for its interpretation. If, as we have tried to show, cognitive considerations do motivate the (un)acceptability of Sp clitic clusters, seen by many as grammaticalized units (cf. Haspelmath 2004), the syntax of words and clauses is unlikely to be as autonomous as claimed by formalists (cf. Newmeyer 1998).3



Chapter 13.╇ Summary and conclusions 

13.2 General discussion Our findings challenge Hopper’s assertion that “what the adult has learned when she successfully uses a form is not an intrinsic meaning but a set of contexts in which the form is, or might be, appropriate.” (1998:€170), as well as Newmeyer’s claim that “we learn that English has the option of fronting an auxiliary and we learn the contexts in which it is correct to do so.” (1998:€49).4 Our position is simply that Spanish speakers have learned, and in that sense “know”, both the single meaning of the different clitics as well as their diverse context-conditioned exploitations (cf. Reid 2004:€121). If our analysis is admitted to be successful, diverse consequences follow. The first is that motivated, essentially iconic compositionality must be regarded as the analytic null hypothesis, to be assumed unless disproven.5 Second, syntactic competence is no more than practised calculus: language learners are bound to internalize different inferential routines through their own communicative use of language. Third, those routines cannot be identified if one ignores the specific content contributed by the units involved in the computation: the paradigmatic value of a symbol and its syntagmatic distribution necessarily support each other.6 Last, the linguist’s task is to explicitate those routines and specify the signifiés attributed to different signs: the communicative burden of utterances thus becomes the very basis of syntactic analysis, and this precludes any autonomous syntax.7

13.3 The nature of syntax and the nature of language In postulating for language the type of perfection attributed to “good design” (Chomsky 2001:€1), Chomsky apparently forgets that “simplicity of design” cannot be established independently of the communicative function served by human language. All signs require interpretation, and the interpretation of sign combinations presupposes inference, which is strongly context-dependent. The “context-isolated acceptability judgments” which according to Newmeyer define “grammatical utterances” (1998:€59) must consequently be viewed as mirages, because language is “designed” to function in a communicational, and thus also a social context (Tomasello 2003b). A priori description of “form” (cf. Newmeyer 1998:€36, 59) is not merely impossible, but essentially pointless. Furthermore, the grammars of natural languages are inherently ill-defined because there is no principled way of distinguishing future structure from current use. It is no accident that Chomsky, who has always viewed recursion as the main basis of syntax (cf. Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch 2002),8 also distinguishes between synchronic “rule-governed” and diachronic “rule-changing creativity” (1964:€59): it is the identity of the two that precludes any autosyn.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Newmeyer has recently reaffirmed his pro-autosyn stance (2005a:233), insisting that a discrete and algebraic system admits of functional explanation.9 Observing that “In every other domain that I am aware of, formal and functional accounts are taken as complementary, rather than contradictory” (2003:€687), Newmeyer compares language to both chess and the liver, an organ whose anatomy is claimed to be describable independently of its physiology. The man-made game of chess is unquestionably “algebraic and well-defined”, for its rules are totally independent of the actual games played (Hockett 1968:€49–50), but the analogy between language and a body organ does not hold up at all: the anatomy of a body part evolves thanks to its physiology, i.e. the function(ing) it actually serves.10 Though human languages differ radically from both natural objects and artifacts, they resemble a tool far more than a body organ. But there is an essential difference: while tool-makers adapt the shape of an artifact to its use by humans, language itself adapts to its users’ needs/ease in using it, a Zipfian cognitive economy keeping the tool in shape. Language is, fundamentally, a phenomenon of the “third type” (Keller 1990:€79– 81), i.e. an unintended human-social product, shaped in invisible-hand fashion through and in its actual performance (cf. Hurford 2003:€56). “Competence” and “performance” can thus hardly be kept apart, for they coexist in the same mind, and one’s own and others’ performance can always be (re)interpreted as evidence of what the “language” itself is like. This indeterminacy is truly fundamental, for syntactic versatility is inexorably required by the unpredictability of language users’ communicative needs, whose vagaries constantly require improvised – and hence iconic – syn-tactic expression.11 Communicative openness and versatility have a cost, ie the cognitive effort required by composition, in both production and interpretation. Cognitively economical solutions of communicative problems can be expected to enjoy a quantitative edge in use: that favours their rote-recall, and may eventually result in re-analysis of a con-struct as a structurally “arbitrary” unit.12 As often pointed out, grammatical change is a one-way street from iconic com-position, where calculus plays a dominant role, to the simple retrieval of an arbitrary symbol (Lüdtke 1980).13 The critical shift presumably takes place when the retrieval of an (unanalyzed complex) item proves cognitively more economic than actual calculus of the sequence (cf. Clark and Thornton 1997), but the cognitive cost of competing alternatives cannot be gauged without some idea of what synchronically motivates the choice of one as against another communicative alternative In short: if anything is innate about language, it is not a disembodied or genetically encoded UG, whose categories remain constant across different languages or, within a language, across formally different expressions (cf. Gentner 2006:€546, 549, 550 et pass.). The human “Language Faculty” must rather be sought in the primordial human urge to get across to one’s fellow beings (Tomasello 2000:€312–5), as so clearly seen by Whitney:



Chapter 13.╇ Summary and conclusions 

The desire of communication is a real living force, to the impelling action of which every human being, in every stage of culture, is accessible; and so far as we can see, it is the only force that was equal to initiating the process of language-making, and it is also the one that has kept up the process to the present time. It works both consciously and unconsciously, as regards the further consequences of the act. (1873:€315–16)

The actual existence of specifically linguistic “universals” which involve semantic content or grammatical form is thus highly unlikely: the only plausible universals are cognitive processual ones, which crucially involve the role of inference, itself rooted in the assurance that a congruent interpretation of discourse is intended and possible (cf. Bohannan 1975). That is why, as Reichling used to put it (S. Dik, p.c.) “the linguistic bridge never collapses”: linguistic analysis should help to explain the particular way in which the bridges fail to collapse.

13.4 Conclusion The acquisition of syntax unquestionably involves learning what signs are available and what their respective content is: both must be abducted from distributional asymmetries in discourse. A language learner must further become aware of the communicative non-equivalence of competing arrangements of forms, and thus acquire a variety of inferential routines with diverse pragmatic implications: this second type of expertise comes slowly and late; some speakers may never achieve it for some options.14 In our opinion, the “syntax” of a language can best be studied and described in strictly contrastive fashion, i.e. by seeking to account for the unlike degree to which a given communicative need is satisfied by different arrangements of signs in different semantic, phonological, pragmatic, lexical, etc. environments.15 Innovations and extrapolations (Barlow 2000), as well as what Pinker contemptuously dismisses as grammatically unlicensed – if not licentious – productivity (1989:€153, 160–2), give us valuable insight into syntax at its most “energetic”. Newmeyer is well aware that the explanation of wider, cross-linguistic generalizations is to be sought in the social functions served by human languages, in their users’ communicative needs, and in the physical and psychological abilities and limitations of language users (Comrie 2003:€196 et pass.). Though readily admitting a functional rationale in the case of phonology, he balks at a similar motivation of syntactic “form”: not because it is inherently implausible, but because “Nobody understands or, in the foreseeable future, is likely to understand the full set of external factors that might combine to account for the properties of syntactic structure” (Newmeyer 2002:€56). Consequently, linguists are advised to limit themselves to description, and “lower [their] sights, as far as external explanation is concerned” (1998:€153).

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

But to advocate a formal characterization of syntax because functional motivation is so difficult, is like “looking for a lost ball on the lawn simply because the thicket provides poor ground for a search” (Bazell 1966 [1954]:339). Facing up to the fact that syntax is not autonomous at least eliminates one excuse for keeping to the lawn, and may help hasten the day when linguists tackle the cognitive thicket where language lurks and has its being.

Notes to Ch. 13 1. Though person-, case-, and AcI-role rankings all match for the (13.3a) reading, doublemention of S in the role of M implies the immediate role-levelling of Vx: that clashes with the polarization of that event resulting from cliticization of the Acc Oa. Though role-levelling and event-polarization concern different event-levels, they must be processed simultaneously, within a single VC, when the AcI is conflated. The same difficulty, but in reverse, arises in (13.3b) which, like (13.1b), presents the added difficulty that Oa is cast as a Dative: the cumulation of inferential hurdles results in greater unacceptability. 2. Contradictory inferences are required if se in (13.4a) is to be interpreted as first defeasing focus, and then positively double-mentioning an irretrievable p.i.f. In (13.4b), a centrifugal reference to the Acc DO me must combine with a centripetal reference to his Object Complement, referred to by lo: two Accusative roles with distinct cognitive motivations cannot easily coexist in the same morpho-syntactic unit. 3. It can thus hardly be claimed that “functionalism cannot add much to the analysis of clitic clusters at a general level” (Wanner 1994:€24) (our translation), or that “Clitic clustering is [...] a matter of considerable irrelevance to pure formal syntax – it almost does not impinge on it.” (Wanner 1994:€51) (our translation) 4. Neither Hopper nor Newmeyer state on what basis the critical contexts are differentiated: arbitrary, conventionalized schemas are invoked only when the distribution of a form baffles the analyst (cf. Picoche 1994:€80, 88). 5. Calculus is ruled out when morpho-phonemic changes undermine perception of the constituent structure of a syntagm, and hinder the identification of the com-posed signs; the degree of semantic coalescence within a syntagm that is still formally analyzable is synchronically indeterminate (Leumann 1927). 6. Different languages, which embody different categorizations of reality (cf. Gentner and Goldin-Meadow 2003; Levinson 2003), can thus be expected to function according to different inferential routines (cf. García 2001). 7. The cognitive habits responsible for syntactic arrangements (cf. Slobin 1996:€76) cannot be identified, however, if the language-specific values of the forms are either ignored or taken as given. This requires that the analyst eschew the familiar UG categories on which main-stream syntax relies. As Everett remarks, “for every universal that can be explained by processing restrictions like efficiency and simplicity, there is one less argument for innate grammatical mechanisms or organs” (2006:€391).



Chapter 13.╇ Summary and conclusions  8. Pinker and Jackendoff take issue with this position (2005:€204, 217, 229–31), claiming that “recursive number cognition is parasitic on language rather than vice versa” (2005:€231). The point had been made earlier by Hockett (1968:€104–18), who quotes Bloomfield’s pithy “The use of numbers is characteristic of speech activity at its best. [...] Mathematics is merely the best that language can do” (1933:€512; emphasis in the original). 9. Many functionalists, from Hockett (1968) to Hopper (1998), have disputed that linguistic systems can properly be characterized as “discrete and algebraic”. 10. It is clear from a well-known Etruscan statue that augurs differed strongly from modern biologists in how they thought a sheep’s liver “is structured”. 11. As Paul clearly saw, speaking is only partially a reproduction of more or less familiar patterns (1920:€110): it is also, and most critically, the application of such patterns to new communicative needs. Different needs highlight different traits of a given pattern, no matter how conventional it may be, and thus open the way to linguistic change through re-interpretation, which presupposes computation. 12. Usage-based Grammar correctly highlights the diachronic importance of very frequent use (cf. also Lüdtke 1980, García 1985a for the same point), but curiously fails to ask whether a truly arbitrary and uniconic collocation would ever be used so frequently as to become conventional.€We assume that unprocessable syntagms are avoided as communicatively unviable, and that only processable ones may – unidirectionally – lose their analyzability if overused (cf. Keller 1995:€171 et pass.). 13. Language users’ predilection for least effort is not deployed in a social void: the communal aspect of communication exponentially empowers the individual choice of linguistic means, and allows it to grammaticalize into the “common” linguistic structure, in both senses of the word, i.e. shared by all, and thus the norm in use. 14. Language users differ considerably in their processing strategies (MacDonald et al.€1994:€699–700), as well as in their ability a. to perceive meaning nuances (Maiden 2004:€248), b. to make consistent use of grammatical categories (Bloomfield 1964:€396), and c. to comprehend infrequent syntactic structures (Chipere 2001:€108–112). Such differences may be related to the unequal size of their vocabularies (Wray 2002:€268), but they seem to reflect not so much differences in working memory, as unequal degrees of linguistic skill (Hopper 1998:€163; Chipere 2001:€112–13, 121–122); Chomsky in fact expects general intelligence to correlate with skilled performance in language use (1980:€175–6). Very few language users care to say exactly what they mean, or to say what they mean “exactly”; comparable differences hold for the recognition of (con)textual nuances. Syntactic variation and text-analysis alike suggest that not all speakers are capable of maintaining coherence over the same stretches of discourse: the production of consistently coherent discourse – and/or its appreciation – requires time and effort, and is perhaps truly possible only in the written language (cf. Hopper 1998:€171–2). As Sapir remarked, “[the use of language] is somewhat as though a dynamo capable of generating enough power to run an elevator were operated almost exclusively to feed an electric doorbell” (1921:€14). 15. The unequal frequency with which different expressive alternatives are resorted to is thus the synchronic analyst’s explanandum, but the diachronic explanans of synchronic structure.

Abbreviations

A(cc) AcI Aux aux-per BA Sp [C] Cl D(at) Dataff Datben Datobj Datposs Di dm DO Dr Exp fem. foc. def. Fr Ger imp. se IO Inf It L LA Sp M =M M’ Ÿ masc.

Accusative Accusative cum Infinitive Auxiliary (verb) auxiliary periphrasis Buenos Aires Spanish controller Clause Dative “affected” Dative “benefactive” Dative “objective” Dative Dative of possession Dative of interest, ethical Dative double mention (of the p.i.f.) Direct Object Dative of reference Experiencer Feminine focus defeasing French Gerund “impersonal” se Indirect Object Infinitive Italian Latin Latin American Spanish Middleman participant in an AcI double mention of M clitic that duplicates a lexical reference to M Tacit M masculine

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

MoSp n. NP O Oa Od O=S OC OSp p.i.f. pl. ps PP refl. se S =Sx SC Sect. sg. sm Sp spur. se UG V VC VP Vx:

Modern Spanish note Noun Phrase Object Accusative Object of a dependent Infinitive Dative Object of a dependent Infinitive O role at the Infinitive of an AcI played by S Object Complement Old Spanish participant in focus plural person Prepositional Phrase “reflexive” se Super Subject in an AcI double mention of S in ‘x’ AcI-role Subject Complement section singular single mention (of the p.i.f.) Spanish “spurious” se Universal Grammar (main) Verb Verbal Complex Verb Phrase finite Verb, inflected for the person of the p.i.f. Eg. V2 = 2nd ps finite verb; V3sg = 3rd ps sg. Verb.

Glossary Technical terms are followed by their abbreviation, if any; the number refers to the section(s) where the concept is defined and/or first discussed. Accusative (Acc): see Central Case



Abbreviations 

Accusative cum Infinitive (AcI; ch 8 pass.): Complex Verb Phrase consisting of a causative or perception verb plus a Direct Object in combination with an Infinitive, the former being understood as subject of the latter. Eg.: (i) (ii)

lo hice comer la sopa ‘I made him eat the soup’ le vi llorar los ojos ‘I saw his eyes shed tears (lit. I saw the eyes weep “on” him)’

a-phrase (Sect. 4.2.2): a-introduced Noun Phrase interpretable as a reference to a non-focus participant. auxiliary periphrasis (aux-per; Sects. 7.6.3; 12.2): Complex Verb Phrase consisting of a finite modal or aspectual Auxiliary and an Infinitive or Gerund as main Verb: the participant referred to by the ending of the finite Auxiliary is understood as being also in focus at the non-finite Verb, so that the Auxiliary + Verb sequence refers to a single event. Eg: (i) (ii)

no quiero comer la sopa ‘I don’t want to eat the soup’ ya empezó a comer la sopa ‘He’s already begun to eat the soup’

bare Noun Phrase (NP; Sect. 4.2.1): Noun Phrase not introduced by a preposition, implicitly in opposition to an a-phrase, which see. Case (Sect. 3.2.2): Categorization of a non-focus participant in terms of his syntagmatic contrast with 1. the event’s “subject”, i.e. its participant in focus (which see) and eventually 2. a further non-focus participant in the same event. Causee: see Middleman Central case (Accusative; Sects. 3.2.2; 3.3): Non-focus participant distinguished by the direct and full involvement at a low(er) degree of activeness open to at most one participant in the event. Centrifugal vs. centripetal (Sect. 3.2.3): Characterization of an event depending on whether the participant in focus is seen as the centre from which the event develops, as in actions and states, vs. the entity targeted by a characterization, as in copulative predications; see also Subject and Object Complement. Clitic climbing: see clitic fronting

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Clitic duplication (Sect. 4.3): Reference to a non-focus participant by means of a clitic as well as with a bare Noun Phrase or an a-phrase, e.g. (i) (ii)

la besé a María ‘I kissed her-Mary’ le dí un beso a María ‘I gave her-Mary a kiss’

Clitic fronting (Sects. 7.6.3; 8.1): see also Conflated AcI Cliticization to a higher verb of a pronominal reference to a participant involved in the event named by a lower, dependent non-finite verb. Clitic movement, promotion: see Clitic fronting Concatenated AcI (Sect. 9.2.1): Accusative-cum-Infinitive structure in which a lexical reference to the Middleman participant appears between finite verb and Infinitive. Conflated AcI (Sect. 9.2.2): Morpho-syntactically fused Accusative-cum-Infinitive structure, where 1. the finite verb adjoins the Infinitive, and 2. clitic reference is heterogenously (which see) made to participants who contrast in focus at the Infinitive. Congruent role/referent allotment (Sects. 5.1, 5.2): Allotment of case-roles to participants so that the ranking of the latter in terms of their person and/or inherent salience matches the ranking of the case-roles assigned to them. “Control” structure (Sects. 12.1, 12.3): Complex Verb Phrase consisting of a verb plus an infinitival complement which is “controlled” by a non-focus participant in the event named by the main verb. Eg: (i) (ii)

le prohibí comer la sopa ‘I forbade him to eat the soup’ lo obligué a comer la sopa ‘I forced him to eat the soup’

Dative (Dat): see Peripheral case Dative of reference (Dr; Sect. 8.4): Participant shared by the finite verb (Vx) and Infinitive of a static Accusative-cumInfinitive structure, in both of which he plays a Peripheral role. Clitic reference to the Dr normally appears at the finite Vx: (i) le vi sangrar la herida ‘I saw him bleeding from his wound; I saw his wound bleeding’



Abbreviations 

le in relation to vi: the bleeding was seen on him. le in relation to sangrar: his wound bled. Double mention (dm; Sect. 4.1): See also Introversion and Pasiva refleja Clitic reference to the participant in focus intended to reflect his involvement in the event in some non-focus capacity. The participant either plays two distinct (focus vs. non-focus) roles, or the event is such that specification of the non-focus role is irrelevant and/or impossible. In “single” mention the participant in focus is referred to only once, by the verb-ending. Dynamic vs. Static event (Sect. 8.4): Action-like events, which presuppose a volitional and inherently agentive participant in focus, in contrast to happening-like events, which presuppose an inactive or passive participant in focus. The participant in focus’ action makes dynamic events relevant; static ones deserve mention because of how they affect a topical Peripheral participant. Duplicate reference: See Clitic duplication. Focus (Sect. 3.2.1): see also Participant in focus Unequal attention paid to the distinct participants involved in an event. The single (Centrally involved) participant to whom Focus is allotted, is referred to by the ending of the finite verb; a specific participant may be understood to be implicitly in Focus in events referred to by non-finite verbal forms. Focus-defeasing (foc. def.; Sect. 6.4.3): see also impersonal se Recourse to the totally unmarked 3rd person clitic se in combination with a 3rd person singular verb in order to prevent focus from falling on an agent whose identity is irrelevant; focus allotment is short-circuited by the presence of focus-neutral se. Heterogeneous clitic cluster (Sects. 8.1; 8.2): see also Homogeneous clitic cluster Clitic reference at the finite verb (Vx) of an Accusative cum Infinitive structure to participants that contrast in focus status at the subsequent Infinitive. Eg. (i) te la hice comprar ‘I made you buy it te: in focus at comprar, as the Infinitive’s participant in focus; out of focus in hice la: Direct Object of comprar; out of focus in both events. (ii) me la viste caer de las manos ‘You saw it fall out of my hands, “on” me’ me: Indirect Object at caer; out of focus in both events. la: in focus at caer, as the Infinitive’s participant in focus; out of focus in viste

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Homogenenous clitic cluster: see also Heterogeneous clitic cluster Cluster at the finite verb (Vx) of an Accusative cum Infinitive structure where none of the participants referred to is in focus at the Infinitive. Eg. (i) te la hice comprar ‘I had it bought for you’ te: Indirect Object in comprar la: Direct Object in comprar Both participants out of focus in the Infinitive event ‘to buy’; the “agent” of comprar is tacit. (ii) te la hice comer ‘I had her eat, seeing you wanted it’ te: Dative of interest at hacer la: Direct Object at hacer, implicit subject at comer Both participants out of focus in the event referred to by the finite verb ‘make, have’. (iii) Esas persianas están totalmente descascaradas: ¿me las hacés pintar de una buena vez? ‘The paint on those shutters is peeling off: will you have them painted once and for all?’ me: Dative of interest at hacer las: Direct Object at pintar. Neither participant in focus at the Infinitive. Impersonal se (imp. se; Sect. 6.4.3): see also Focus-defeasing Exploitation of the focus-neutral se to absorb the focus conveyed by a 3rd person sg. verb-ending. Introversion (event-) (Sect. 4.1): see also Role-levelling Monopolization of an event’s case-roles by a double-mentioned participant in focus; characterization of the event as dynamic vs. static becomes irrelevant. Eg. (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

se rompió ‘It broke (on its own)’ (introverted event) lo rompió ‘She broke it’ se cayó (introverted event) ‘She fell (down)’ cayó del techo al suelo y se quebró la nuca ‘She fell from the roof to the ground and broke her neck’



Abbreviations 

leísmo vs. loísmo (adj. leísta vs. loísta; ch. 3, note 27): Dialectal differentiation in clitic reference to a masculine – in particular human – Direct Object. Northern Peninsular Spanish is leísta, inasmuch as it resorts to le(s), the reflex of Dative l. illi(S); the rest of the Hispanic world is loísta for it maintains the etymological use of lo(s), reflex of Accusative l. illum/illos, eg. (i) ayer le vi (leísmo) (ii) ayer lo vi (loísmo) ‘I saw him yesterday’ Middleman (M; Sect. 8.4): Central non-focus participant in an Accusative cum Infinitive structure, categorizable as the Direct Object of the finite verb, and/or as the participant in focus of the dependent Infinitive; the role is often referred to as the “Causee” in causative AcI’s. Middle voice: see (event-) Introversion Migrant -s (Sect. 6.4.1.1): Plural -s ending on an Accusative clitic which signals the plural number of a Dative participant referred to with a “spurious” se. Eg. (i) (ii)

les dije que no debían hablar tan fuerte ‘I told them they should not talk so loud’ se los dije ‘I told them it’

Object Complement (OC; Sect. 5.5.2): Predicative complement of the Direct Object, eg. (i) (ii)

la considero hermosa ‘I find her pretty’ lo nombré mi ayudante ‘I appointed him my assistant’

Paradigmatic opposition (ch. 2 note 1): Atemporal contrast between the different terms of a paradigm or of an ad hoc opposition, capable of filling the same morphological or syntactic slot. Eg: singular vs. plural; Accusative vs. Dative case, for the single Object of a Verb. Participant (Sect. 3.2): Entity immediately engaged in an event, “actant” presupposed by the nature of the event. Participant in focus (p.i.f.; Sect. 3.2.1)): see also Focus Participant enjoying the focal attention of the Speaker, as constituting the Central point on which the event hinges.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

Pasiva refleja (Sect. 4.1): Passive interpretation of the double mention of an inanimate participant in focus, who plays a “Patient” role in the event; incompatible with explicit reference to the actual agent by means of a por- introduced Prepositional phrase. Eg. Este cuarto evidentemente no se barre desde hace tres meses (**por la mucama) ‘This room has evidently not been swept for three months (**by the maid)’

Peripheral case (Dative Sect. 3.2.2, 3.3): A non-focus participant indirectly and tangentially involved in the event; the role may range over the entire gamut of activeness, from de facto patient to de facto agent. Polarization (of an event) (Sects. 3.2.2; 3.3.1): see also Introversion Sharp syntagmatic differentiation, in terms of agentivity, of the roles played by distinct Central participants in the event, i.e. the participant in focus and the Accusative. (see also Case and Central case) Reference duplication: see Clitic duplication Reflexive/reflexivity (refl.): see Double mention Role-levelling (Sect. 4.1): see also event-Introversion Neutralization of case-role differentiation across the focus/non-focus contrast, when the event is monopolized by the double-mentioned participant in focus. Role-referent allotment (Sects. 5.1; 5.2): Assignment of the specific case-roles presupposed in an event to its diverse participants. Single mention of the participant in focus: see Double mention. Spurious se (spur. se; Sects. 2.1.1; 6.4.1): Non-reflexive use of se in reference to a 3rd person Dative participant; possible only when included in a Verbal Complex that likewise contains clitic reference to a 3rd person Accusative. Subject: See Participant in focus Subject Complement (SC; Sects. 3.2.3; 5.5): Predicative complement of the participant in focus. – ¿María es bonita? – ¡Vaya si lo es! ‘Is Mary pretty? You bet she is (it)’ Syntagmatic contrast (ch. 2 note 1): see also Paradigmatic opposition.



Abbreviations 

Strictly local relation between the temporally aligned constituents of a larger syntagm; eg: Accusative vs. Dative case, for different Objects of one and the same Verb in a specific utterance. Verb incorporation: see Conflated AcI Verbal complex (VC; Sect. 3.1): Morpho-syntactic unit consisting of a verbal form plus associated clitics.

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Corpus Quotations go by page and line, when relevant Albee

Albee, Edward. 1963. Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York: Pocket Cardinal

Borges

Borges, Jorge Luis. 1966. Antología personal. Buenos Aires: Sur

Cid

Menéndez Pidal, Ramón. 1964. Cantar de Mio Cid. Vol. 3, Text. Madrid: Espasa Calpe



References 

Cinco

Delibes, Miguel. 1981 [1966]. Cinco horas con Mario. Barcelona: Destino.

Cuatro

Martínez Estrada, Ezequiel. 1968. Cuatro novelas. Montevideo: Arca.

Cuentos

Lynch, Benito. 1964. Cuentos camperos. Buenos Aires: Troquel.

CZM

González Muela, Joaquín. 1982. Libro del Caballero Zifar. Madrid: Clásicos Castalia.

CZP

Olsen, Marilyn A. 1984. Libro del Cauallero Çifar Madison,WI: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies.

Doña

Brunet, Marta. 1978. “Doña Santitos.” In: Montaña adentro y otros cuentos, Marta Brunet, 80–87. Santiago de Chile: Ed. Andrés Bello.

Egoist

Meredith, George. 1951. The Egoist. New York: Random House

Fuegos

Cortázar, Julio. 1968. Todos los fuegos el fuego. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana.

Grail

Pietsch, Karl. 1924. Spanish Grail Fragments. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Héroes

Sábato, Ernesto. 1970. Sobre héroes y tumbas. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana.

Inquietudes

Unamuno, Miguel de. 1957. Inquietudes y meditaciones. Madrid: Aguado.

Lázaro

Lázaro Carreter, Fernando. 1987. “El dequeísmo.” In Grandes Firmas, Guillermo Solana and Angel García Pintado (eds), 313–324. Madrid: EFE

Mex Pop

Lope Blanch, Juan M. (ed.). 1976. El Habla Popular de la Ciudad de México. Materiales para su estudio. México, DF: UNAM.

Otas

Baird, Herbert L. jr. 1976. Análisis lingüístico y filológico de Otas de Roma. Boletín de la Real Academia Española. Anejo 33.

Pago

Payró, Roberto. 1953. Pago Chico y Nuevos Cuentos de Pago Chico. Buenos Aires: Losada.

 The motivated syntax of arbitrary signs

PCG

Menéndez Pidal, Ramón. 1977. Primera Crónica General. Madrid: Gredos.

People

Leakey, Richard E. and Roger Lewin. 1979. People of the Lake. New York: Avon Books.

Rayuela

Cortázar, Julio. 1973. Rayuela. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana.

Resentimiento

Mallea, Eduardo. 1970. El resentimiento. Buenos Aires: Losada.

Retahilas

Martín Gaite, Carmen. 1981 [1974]. Retahilas. Barcelona: Destino.

Sábato

Sábato, Ernesto. 1987. “Algunos porqués de mi obra (II).” In Grandes Firmas, Guillermo Solana and Angel García Pintado (eds.), 79–83. Madrid: EFE

Segundo

Güiraldes, Ricardo. 1952. Don Segundo Sombra. Buenos Aires: Losada

Sentimiento

Unamuno, Miguel de. 1982. Del sentimiento trágico de la vida. México: Espasa Calpe mexicana. Col. Austral.

Tres

Cancela, Arturo. 1946. Tres Relatos Porteños. Buenos Aires: Espasa Calpe. Col. Austral.

Wink

Grimes, Martha. 1999. The Lamorna Wink. London: Headline.

Texts used as corpus in the quantitative analysis referred to in García (2003c): Borges, Cuatro, Cuentos, Fuegos, Héroes, Pago, Rayuela [sample analyzed: up to p.€71.], ��� Segundo, Tres.

Name index A Abbot-Smith╇ 16, 28 Ackerman╇ 196 Aijón Oliva╇ 269 Aissen╇ 1, 7, 11, 27, 28, 132, 172, 186, 187, 265 Alcoba╇ 8 Alfonso Vega╇ 188, 208, 258, 263, 286, 287 Alrenga╇ 30 Anderson, J.╇ 122, 152 Anderson, S.╇ 20, 30 Arnold╇ 2, 11, 30 Asudeh╇ 30 B Baldwin╇ 13, 29 Barclay╇ 14 Barlow╇ 12, 293 Barnes╇ 40 Barrenechea╇ 81, 83, 155 Barry╇ 147 Barton╇ 209 Bastida╇ 42, 44, 114 Bates╇ 123 Bazell╇ 294 Behaghel╇ 240 Bello╇ 8, 25, 38, 46, 68, 84, 89, 105, 107, 108, 118, 135, 148, 152, 193, 195 Benjamin╇ 17, 36, 46, 59, 65, 89, 152, 195 Berg╇ 9 Bever╇ 26, 29 Blanche-Benveniste╇ 127 Bloomfield╇ 295 Bock╇ 14, 51 Bod╇ 10, 22, 268 Bohannan╇ 293 Boland╇ 28 Bolinger╇ 172–174, 186, 194, 200, 266, 269, 272, 275, 277, 281, 286 Bonet╇ 21, 28, 42, 43, 47, 124, 132–134, 179, 289

Bordelois╇ 228, 230, 277 Bornkessel╇ 14 Boroditsky╇ 29 Boronat╇ 13 Bowdle╇ 13 Bowerman╇ 7, 16, 25, 28 Braine╇ 25 Brakel╇ 132–134, 141, 178 Branigan╇ 123 Bransford╇ 13, 14. 28 Bresnan╇ 1, 5, 7, 11, 27, 28 Brighton╇ 8, 16 Britt╇ 28 Broe╇ 17 Brooks╇ 25 Browman╇ 17 Bull╇ 272 Butt╇ 17, 36, 46, 59, 65, 89, 152, 195 Bybee╇ 2, 7–11, 16, 23, 26, 30, 59, 91, 268 C Campos╇ 58, 63, 65, 68, 76, 85, 91, 92, 127, 147, 180, 187, 188, 208 Caplan╇ 123 Carstairs-MacCarthy╇ 7 Chater╇ 26 Chater╇ 7, 22 Chipere╇ 295 Choi╇ 16, 28 Chomsky╇ 1, 8, 22, 26, 291, 295 Clark, A.╇ 292 Clark, B.╇ 11, 27 Colantoni╇ 269, 283 Company Company╇ 78, 152, 154, 178 Comrie╇ 293 Contreras╇ 193, 197, 214 Couquaux╇ 152 Croft╇ 9, 20, 26, 30 Cruse╇ 9, 20, 26, 30 Culicover╇ 9, 20, 22, 26, 28 D Dabrowska╇ 30

Danziger╇ 29 Dahl╇ 121 Davidse╇ 23 Davies╇ 191, 200, 201, 269, 281–284, 286, 287 Davis╇ 81 Deacon╇ 2, 12, 14, 24, 30, 50 Deane╇ 30 Delbecque╇ 266, 269, 285, 287 Demonte╇ 84, 85, 91–93, 127, 201 De Saussure╇ 2, 12, 13, 15 Dik╇ 293 Dryer╇ 30, 150 Dumas╇ 152 E Eberenz╇ 47 Eddington╇ 9, 26, 30 Elman╇ 9, 13, 27, 123 Enrique-Arias╇ 36 Erman╇ 9 Ertel╇ 14, 51 Everett╇ 30, 150, 294 F Fanselow╇ 22 Fernández╇ 84, 125, 154, 178 Fernández Soriano╇ 21, 36, 42–44, 63, 84, 85, 89, 94, 126, 127, 132, 140, 155, 172, 180, 186, 197, 251, 265, 281 Fertig╇ 7 Franks╇ 13, 14 Friederici╇ 14 Finch╇ 26 Fisher╇ 13, 14, 51 Fitch╇ 291 Fodor╇ 2 Folgar╇ 128, 152, 208 Fortescue╇ 30, 150 Fox╇ 20 Friederici╇ 14 Franco╇ 42, 43, 47, 110, 161, 179, 197, 205, 209

 Motivated Constraints on Clitic Clustering G Gahl╇ 27 García╇ 23, 29, 30, 38, 41–43, 47, 48, 53, 59, 63, 65, 67, 79, 81, 89–94, 116, 122, 128, 141, 143, 146, 147, 152, 154, 156, 157, 179, 195, 198, 200, 201, 253, 259, 261, 286, 294, 295 Garnsey╇ 27 Garrod╇ 13, 28 Gaskins╇ 28, 29 Gentner╇ 13, 15, 28, 94, 292, 294 Gerlach╇ 42, 46, 132, 179 Gibbs╇ 15, 29 Gibson╇ 28, 141 Girón Alconchel╇ 47 Gisborne╇ 3 Goldberg╇ 2, 4, 9, 10, 24, 26, 28, 53 Goldin-Meadow╇ 28 Goldstein╇ 17 Gómez Torrego╇ 171, 208, 265, 270, 272 González╇ 54, 64, 115, 119–121 Goodall╇ 197, 200 Green╇ 12 Gries╇ 9, 24, 25, 27, 30 Grimshaw╇ 20, 42, 43, 101, 132, 154 Grodner╇ 28 Groefsema╇ 23–25 Gropen╇ 4 Guion╇ 17 Gutiérrez Ordóñez╇ 60, 83, 84 Gutiérrez-Rexach╇ 85, 92 Guy╇ 11 H Haiman╇ 14, 15 Halle╇ 153 Hankamer╇ 26 Hare╇ 9, 13, 27 Harris, C.╇ 16, 42 Harris, J.╇ 21, 26, 42–45, 133–135, 150, 153, 157, 179 Hasher╇ 11 Haspelmath╇ 2, 21, 27, 38, 42, 43, 47, 99, 107, 121, 290 Hauser╇ 291 Hawkins╇ 10, 11, 17, 19, 28, 30, 141 Hay╇ 10, 22, 26, 27, 30, 268 Heap╇ 42, 43, 132, 134 Henry╇ 21, 30

Hernanz╇ 3, 23, 45, 187, 190, 191, 195, 197, 200, 234, 240, 246, 251, 261, 272, 273, 275, 277, 280 Hewson╇ 43, 132, 134 Hills╇ 122, 152 Hinzen╇ 10 Hockett╇ 22, 27, 95, 123, 292, 295 Hollander╇ 4 Hollmann╇ 14 Holmes╇ 3 Hopper╇ 8, 9, 11, 59, 291, 294, 295 Hörmann╇ 14 Howe╇ 25 Hudson╇ 3 Huffman╇ 65, 153 Hura╇ 17 Hurford╇ 1, 8, 28, 292 I Israel╇ 11 Isard╇ 29 J Jackendoff╇ 6, 7, 12, 23, 26, 295 Jaeggli╇ 134 Jakobson╇ 19, 20, 26, 63 Jannedy╇ 10, 22, 268 Jespersen╇ 30 Johnson╇ 14, 123 Johnson-Laird╇ 14 Joos╇ 14 Jurafsky╇ 16 K Kako╇ 13 Kany╇ 46, 49, 63, 90, 153, 286, 287 Karmiloff-Smith╇ 123 Kay╇ 9 Keller╇ 2, 12, 21, 28, 292, 295 Kemmer╇ 11 Keniston╇ 46, 47, 63, 128, 154, 156, 281, 287 Kiparsky╇ 12 Kirby╇ 8, 16, 30 Kita╇ 29 Kleiber╇ 14 Klein, F.╇ 18, 159 Klein, Ph.╇ 68 Koster╇ 22 Krug╇ 16 Kurtz╇ 28 L Laenzlinger╇ 42–44 Lamiroy╇ 266

Landa╇ 43, 110, 161, 197, 205, 209 Langacker╇ 9, 51, 53 Lapesa╇ 47, 65, 128 Lausberg╇ 142 Le Goffic╇ 14 Leumann╇ 294 Levin╇ 24, 25, 27, 29 Levinson╇ 14, 28–30, 294 Lindblom╇ 17 Liversedge╇ 28 Llorente╇ 79 Loewenstein╇ 28 Lohse╇ 30 López╇ 187, 188, 200, 201 López Garcia╇ 38, 46, 79, 125 Loucks╇ 13, 29 Lucy╇ 28, 29 Lüdtke╇ 26, 292, 295 Luján╇ 21, 197, 251, 266, 273, 281 Lyons╇ 156 M MacDonald╇ 9, 11, 28, 295 MacLaury╇ 17 MacWhinney╇ 51, 132, 146 Maiden╇ 17, 48, 132, 142, 154, 295 Maldonado╇ 53, 60, 63, 65, 91, 92 Manning╇ 10, 11, 14, 16, 30 Maratsos╇ 14 Marcus╇ 26 Markman╇ 13, 98 Marslen-Wilson╇ 28 Martin╇ 30, 209 Martinet╇ 13 Matthews╇ 2, 31 Mayberry╇ 100 Mayerthaler╇ 132 McCarrell╇ 14, 28 McRae╇ 9, 13, 27 Melis╇ 156 Mendikoetxea╇ 37, 68, 135, 155, 156, 168, 169, 173, 180, 187, 188 Menéndez Pidal╇ 262 Menn╇ 132 Menzerath╇ 30 Miikkulainen╇ 100 Miller, G.╇ 13, 29 Miller, P.╇ 2, 21, 42, 195, 209 Mintz╇ 26 Moliner╇ 282, 287 Monachesi╇ 2, 195, 209 Mondéjar╇ 79 Mondorf╇ 152 Monge╇ 89, 135, 147



Name index  Montrul╇ 156 Monville-Burston╇ 40 Moon╇ 17 Moore╇ 196 Murray╇ 28 Myhill╇ 186, 269, 283, 284 N Naro╇ 12, 20 Nevins╇ 132, 133 Newmeyer╇ 1–3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 20, 22, 23, 26–28, 280, 290–294 Newport╇ 26 Nikitina╇ 5 Nowak╇ 28 O Olbertz╇ 282 Onnis╇ 7, 22 Orecchia╇ 81, 83 Orf╇ 282 Ormazábal╇ 47, 152 Oroz╇ 46 Otero╇ 42, 132, 135, 136, 140, 145, 147, 150, 156, 180 P Parisi╇ 123 Parodi╇ 42 Paul╇ 295 Pearlmutter╇ 28, 295 Pearson╇ 23 Pederson╇ 29 Peña-Alfaro╇ 156 Penke╇ 5 Perfetti╇ 28 Perlmutter╇ 39, 40, 42, 44, 157, 158, 186, 265 Pickering╇ 13, 123, 209 Picoche╇ 294 Piera╇ 2, 37, 132 Pierrehumbert╇ 10, 17, 29, 180 Pinker╇ 2, 4–6, 10, 23–25, 28, 29, 93, 293, 295 Pizzini╇ 197 Plag╇ 30 Plaut╇ 26 Plunkett╇ 123 Postal╇ 28, 40 Poston╇ 84 Pountain╇ 23, 187, 195 Pullum╇ 16, 26, 30

Q Quine╇ 14 R Radford╇ 197, 263 Rappaport Hovav╇ 25, 29 Rayner╇ 28 Redington╇ 26 Reid╇ 15, 154, 291 Richards╇ 29 Rini╇ 36, 153, 154, 156, 180 Rivarola╇ 152 Rivas╇ 43. 72, 172, 187 Rivera-Castillo╇ 153, 157 Rivero╇ 125 Rizzi╇ 156 Roberts╇ 7, 22 Rohde╇ 26 Rohdenburg╇ 152 Rojas╇ 152 Romero╇ 47, 152 Roorijck╇ 281 Rosenbach╇ 5, 30 Ross╇ 27 Rosta╇ 3 S Sag╇ 2, 9, 21, 26, 42 Salomon╇ 141 Sampson╇ 10, 25, 27 Sánchez López╇ 68, 135, 156, 168, 173, 180 Sanford╇ 13 Sapir╇ 295 Scheibman╇ 268 Schlesewsky╇ 14 Schlesinger╇ 63 Schmaus╇ 13 Schmidely╇ 128, 132 Scholz╇ 16, 26, 30 Schroten╇ 41 Schütze╇ 2, 11, 22, 30, 141 Seidenberg╇ 9, 11, 28 Senft╇ 29 Seuren╇ 40, 42–44, 134, 157, 197 Sharp╇ 132 Shillcock╇ 209 Sicot-Domínguez╇ 153 Silverstein╇ 124 Slobin╇ 14, 16, 27, 29, 294 Smith, K.╇ 8, 16 Smith, L.╇ 26 Smith, M.╇ 7 Smith, N.╇ 26

Sperber╇ 12–14 Spivey-Knowlton╇ 14, 100 Sportiche╇ 20 Stefanowitsch╇ 1, 2, 5, 9, 17, 24, 25, 27, 30 Strozer╇ 53, 83, 113 Stubbs╇ 17 Sturgis╇ 94, 153 Suñer╇ 42, 84, 147, 156 T Tanaka╇ 123 Táboas Baylín╇ 89, 155, 266 Tanenhaus╇ 14, 28, 100 Thompson╇ 20, 26 Thornton╇ 292 Tomasello╇ 13, 16, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 291, 292 Torrego╇ 91–93, 127, 172, 265 Torres Cacoullos╇ 90, 272, 281, 283 Townsend╇ 29 Treviño╇ 21, 196, 201, 240, 261, 275, 281 Trueswell╇ 28, 100 Tyler╇ 28 V Van Lambalgen╇ 10 Van Putte╇ 30 Van Valin╇ 26 Varela╇ 2, 37, 132 Verstraete╇ 12 W Wanner╇ 20, 21, 37, 42, 43, 45, 46, 99, 133, 134, 141, 150, 153, 158, 171, 294 Warner╇ 180 Warren╇ 9 Wasow╇ 2, 8, 9, 11, 22, 30 Waters╇ 123 Watson╇ 28, 127 Weinreich╇ 154 Werner╇ 7 Wexler╇ 22 Wheelock╇ 22 Whitley╇ 54, 64, 115, 119–121 Whitney╇ 292 Wierzbicka╇ 19, 23, 24, 25 Wilkins╇ 29 Willerman╇ 17 Wilson, D.╇ 12, 13, 14 Wilson, R.╇ 4 Wilson, W.╇ 23

 Motivated Constraints on Clitic Clustering Winters╇ 26 Wolff╇ 13 Wray╇ 9, 12, 26, 295 Wright╇ 28

Y Yang╇ 20, 26 Yllera╇ 285

Z Zacks╇ 11 Zagona╇ 156, 265, 281 Zubizarreta╇ 196

Subject index For terms not appearing in this Index, see the Glossary; for specific grammatical categories and clitic clusters, consult the Table of Contents. A Acc cum clause╇ 275, 279–280, 286, 287 Acc cum Gerund╇ 282–283 Acc cum Infinitive╇ 3, 23, 41, 48, 185–263, 279–280 Dative of reference╇ 188–190, 196, 197, 206, 236–237, 238–239 Middleman╇ 186, 188–194, 195, 199–201, 201–202, 203–206, 207–208 recursion╇ 254–258, 263 roles╇ 188–191, 196, 199–201, 211–212 syntactic structure of╇ 186– 187, 187–188, 195 Agentivity╇ 52–53, 55–60, 60–61, 63, 67–71, 85–87, 102, 103–105, 147–149, 188, 189 AUTOSYN╇ 1–2, 3–4, 8–9 Auxiliary periphrases╇ 8, 40–41, 171–174, 174–177, 265, 266–267, 268–272, 282, 283, 284 B Baker’s paradox╇ 2, 4–5, 22 C Case government╇ 58–60 Causee see AcI, Middleman Clause as verbal DO╇ 187, 195, 249, 259–260, 262, 266–267, 275, 276, 278, 285, 287 Clitic climbing see clitic fronting cluster

ambiguity of se (me) lo╇ 39, 135, 137–143, 158–160, 164–167 constraints on╇ 2–3, 20–21, 42–43, 47, 107, 174–175, 192, 194, 197–198, 289 grammatical status of╇ 20–21, 42–43, 99, 289–290 heterogenous vs. homogeneous 186, 188, 192, 193, 199, 201, 204, 265, 276, 277, 289 non-occurring╇ 2, 20–22, 36–44, 131–143, 157–163 disjunction╇ 36, 40–41, 171–174, 174–177, 185–186, 191, 203, 236, 248, 249, 250, 260, 262, 269, 283, 285 duplication╇ 47, 60, 67, 79–88, 92, 124, 139–140, 160, 170–171, 215, 245, 269 filter╇ 43, 44 fronting╇ 180, 185–186, 192– 194, 205–208, 212–258, 262, 265–279, 281–282, 282–283, 283–284, 285, 286 grammatical status of╇ 20–21, 43, 49–61, 79, 85–87 movement see clitic fronting order within clusters╇ 20, 36, 46, 159, 171, 178, 179–180 relative to verb╇ 20, 36, 171, 265 promotion see clitic fronting

Cognitive economy╇ 14–15, 17, 20–21, 28, 30, 45, 64–65, 96–97, 100–107, 142–143, 150–152, 194, 292–293, 295 Coherence╇ 4, 6, 7–8, 13–14, 17–19, 25, 29, 42 Complex VP’s╇ 3, 171–174, 174–178, 195, 265–280 Compositionality╇ 9–10, 10–12, 12–13, 14–16, 17–18, 20–21, 26, 28, 107, 131–152, 291 Compositional routine╇ 16, 21, 28, 29, 140–141, 142, 280 Constructions╇ 2, 9–10, 26 Contextual support╇ 13–14, 15, 17–18, 55, 73, 114, 137–140, 163–168, 224, 227, 291 Control structures╇ 261, 265, 266, 272–275, 276–279, 281, 283 Conventionality╇ 9–10, 20, 107, 294 D Dative alternation (in English)╇ 2, 4–7, 24, 27 Defective paradigms╇ 7–8, 25, 42 E Event centripetal╇ 54–55, 68, 71, 90, 115–121, 227 dynamic vs. static╇ 54, 55–59, 63, 67–69, 71, 72–74, 188–190, 196, 204 introversion╇ 67–71, 71–75, 83–84, 89, 113–115, 117–121, 177 polarization see role differentiation

 Motivated Constraints on Clitic Clustering F Focus╇ 50–51, 52, 67–70, 168–170, 194–195 defeasing╇ 37, 145–149, 150– 152, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161, 162–163, 163–168, 168–170, 171–174, 175–176, 177, 283 Frequency╇ 1, 9, 26, 27–28, 141, 152, 195 relative╇ 10–12, 15, 16–18, 19, 27, 43, 47–48, 122 G Grammaticality╇ 1–2, 3–4, 7, 22, 27, 29, 44, 127, 135, 157, 193, 195, 230, 261, 280, 291 H Homonymy╇ 132, 133, 150, 157 Horror aequi╇ 132, 142, 152, 175–176, 180 I Iconicity╇ 3, 14–15, 28 Iconic mapping╇ 13, 14–16, 18–19, 28–29, 54, 68, 76, 85–87, 97, 98, 100, 106, 108, 110–112, 116–117, 124, 127–128, 142–143, 171, 172–174, 180, 192, 204, 205–107, 214–215, 220–223, 241, 289, 290, 292 Impersonal se see focus defeasing Inference╇ 14, 28, 291 Inferential impasse╇ 116, 161, 162, 166–167, 174–175, 179, 205, 215, 219–225, 244–246, 246–248, 262, 289–290, 294 Inferential overload╇ 42, 111–112, 116, 123, 142, 160, 162–163, 176–177, 209, 244–246, 246–248, 254–258, 294 Inferential routine╇ 16, 21, 28, 30, 87–88, 94, 107, 113–114, 117–118, 131, 135, 136–149, 157, 163–168, 174, 241–242, 280, 289, 291, 294 L Leísmo╇ 65, 132, 178 lexical bias╇ 11–12 M Migrant –s╇ 140–141, 152, 153, 154

Morphological template╇ 40, 41, 42 N Non-occurrence, absolute╇ 1–3, 3–4, 5–7, 7–8, 11, 15, 16–18, 19, 20–21, 37, 44–45, 141, 150, 154, 162–163 O Object agreement╇ 79 Overgeneralization╇ 25 P Participant status╇ 50–51, 85–87, 88–89, 90–91, 95 with clitic reference╇ 50–51, 76, 81–82, 84–85, 85–87, 95, 108–109, 190–191, 208 with non-clitic reference╇ 76, 77–78, 85–87, 95–97, 108–109, 190–191 “understood” participants╇ 79, 188, 196, 214, 215, 217–218, 222, 225, 230, 231, 234, 239–242, 251 Pasiva refleja╇ 68, 147, 156, 180, 238, 259–260 Passive voice╇ 146, 155 Predicate lo╇ 54–55, 64, 115, 117–118, 227–230 Processing╇ 2–3, 12, 19–20, 28, 40–41, 45, 96–97, 135–136, 136–149 recursive╇ 167, 280 “Psych” verbs╇ 61, 69, 73, 86, 90, 228–230, 259–260 R Ranking mismatch in role/referent╇ 42–43, 98, 99–100, 100–102, 103–4, 105, 106, 109–115, 121, 123, 124–125, 212–214, 217–219, 219–225, 226–227 referent╇ 50, 99–100, 100–102, 105, 107–108, 121–122, 123, 289–290, 294 role╇ 51, 53, 59–60, 60–61, 73, 97–98, 100–107, 110–113, 115, 123, 211–212

Reference dissimilation╇ 77–78, 91–92, 101, 108–109, 110–113, 116–117, 127–128, 131, 142–143, 154 Reference duplication see clitic duplication Referent dissimilation╇ 106, 108–109, 110–113, 154, 192 Reflexivity╇ 37, 38, 46, 67–75, 83, 103–104, 105, 113–115, 117–121, 132–133, 134–135, 136–149, 150–151, 153, 156, 157, 158–159, 178, 233–258, 270–272 Respectful address╇ 36, 39, 46, 47–48, 49–50, 92, 93, 101–102, 122 Role differentiation╇ 52–54, 63, 68–70, 71–72, 72–73, 89, 97–98, 103, 119, 124, 127, 165–166, 178, 233, 234–235, 244–245, 246–248, 258, 259–260, 261, 294 Role levelling╇ 67–70, 71–72, 83–84, 98, 119, 147–149, 164, 178, 233, 234–235, 239–240, 244–245, 246–247, 294 see also event introversion Role polarization see role differentiation Role/referent allotment╇ 51, 95–121, 154, 159, 186, 192, 197, 199, 203, 208, 212–214, 217–219, 225, 242, 250 Rules lexical╇ 4–6, 23 linking╇ 5, 23–24, 25 syntactic╇ 4, 27 S S Spurious se╇ 37, 39, 41, 43, 44, 48, 131–133, 134, 136, 137–143, 149, 150–152, 157–160, 161, 162, 164–167 Subject-verb inversion (in English)╇ 26, 291 Syntactic computation╇ 2–3, 10, 13–14, 17, 19–20, 290, 291 indeterminacy╇ 7, 10–11, 14, 27, 187–188, 200, 250–251, 275–279, 279–280, 291



Subject index  variation╇ 11–12, 16–17, 27, 29–30, 172, 174, 201–202, 203–204, 205–207, 234, 293, 295 Syntax arbitrariness of╇ 1–2, 3–4, 4–6, 9, 14–15, 20, 289

autonomy of╇ 1–2, 4, 21, 25, 26, 167–168, 178–179, 289, 291–292, 294 negative exceptions in╇ 2, 3–4, 4–6, 8, 16–17, 23

U Usage-based grammar╇ 3, 8–9, 10–12, 27–28, 42–43, 107 V Voseo╇ 46, 49, 50

In the series Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics (SFSL) the following volumes have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 61 García, Erica C.: The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs. Cognitive constraints on Spanish clitic clustering. 2009. xvi, 335 pp. 60 Gómez González, María de los Ængeles, J. Lachlan Mackenzie and Elsa M. González Ælvarez (eds.): Current Trends in Contrastive Linguistics. Functional and cognitive perspectives. 2008. xxi, 333 pp. 59 Dreer, Igor: Expressing the Same by the Different. The subjunctive vs the indicative in French. 2007. xxx, 272 pp. 58 Munat, Judith (ed.): Lexical Creativity, Texts and Contexts. 2007. xvi, 294 pp. 57 Davis, Joseph, Radmila J. Gorup and Nancy Stern (eds.): Advances in Functional Linguistics. Columbia School beyond its origins. 2006. x, 344 pp. 56 Jing-Schmidt, Zhuo: Dramatized Discourse. The Mandarin Chinese ba-construction. 2005. xxii, 337 pp. 55 Beedham, Christopher: Language and Meaning. The structural creation of reality. 2005. xiv, 225 pp. 54 Štekauer, Pavol: Meaning Predictability in Word Formation. Novel, context-free naming units. 2005. xxii, 289 pp. 53 Eddington, David: Spanish Phonology and Morphology. Experimental and quantitative perspectives. 2004. xvi, 198 pp. 52 Gorlach, Marina: Phrasal Constructions and Resultativeness in English. A sign-oriented analysis. 2004. x, 151 pp. 51 Contini-Morava, Ellen, Robert S. Kirsner and Betsy Rodríguez-Bachiller (eds.): Cognitive and Communicative Approaches to Linguistic Analysis. 2004. viii, 389 pp. 50 Vachek, Josef: Dictionary of the Prague School of Linguistics. Translated from the French, German and Czech sources. In collaboration with Josef Dubský. Translated by Aleš Klégr, Pavlína Šaldová, Markéta Malá, Jan Cermak and Libuše Dušková. Edited by Libuše Dušková. 2003. x, 216 pp. 49 Hladký, Josef (ed.): Language and Function. To the memory of Jan Firbas. 2003. x, 339 pp. 48 Reid, Wallis, Ricardo Otheguy and Nancy Stern (eds.): Signal, Meaning, and Message. Perspectives on sign-based linguistics. 2002. xxii, 413 pp. 47 Martín-Vide, Carlos (ed.): Issues in Mathematical Linguistics. Workshop on Mathematical Linguistics, State College, PA, April 1998. 1999. xii, 214 pp. 46 Štekauer, Pavol: An Onomasiological Theory of English Word-Formation. 1998. x, 192 pp. 45 Martín-Vide, Carlos (ed.): Mathematical and Computational Analysis of Natural Language. Selected papers from the 2nd International Conference on Mathematical Linguistics (ICML ’96), Tarragona, 1996. 1998. xviii, 391 pp. 44 Jessen, Michael: Phonetics and Phonology of Tense and Lax Obstruents in German. 1999. xx, 394 pp. 43 Andrews, Edna and Yishai Tobin (eds.): Toward a Calculus of Meaning. Studies in markedness, distinctive features and deixis. 1996. xxviii, 432 pp.