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This paper attempts to explain the alternation between the prepositions a and de when used as complements to the adjectives contrario 'contrary', diferente 'different', and distinto 'distinct', as illustrated in Yo no fui distinta __mi madre 'I wasn't different __my mother', where both prepositions can be inserted. Relying on Langacker's3 notion of construal, the hypothesis is that a construes the comparison in the sense of 'direction toward' while de construes it in the sense of 'separation' or 'point of departure', and that these senses should be reflected in the usage contexts of the two prepositions. The quantitative analysis of some 800 cases extracted from Davies'4 two billion word Corpus del español, however, shows no indication of a and de setting up different construals. This lack of correlation between usage and semantics appears to be due to the diachronic generalization of a as complement of the three adjectives, thus relegating the use of de to specific collocations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on a group of Spanish emotion verbs, such as asustar 'to frighten' or asombrar 'to amaze', that takes as grammatical subject the cause which triggers the emotion and as first verbal object the experiencer (El violador asusta a las madres 'The rapist frightens the mothers'). Most of these verbs present an alternance in their superficial syntactic structure in such a way that the referred first verbal object can be interpreted as DO (El violador las asusta 'The rapist frightens them') or as IO (A las madres les asusta el violador 'The mothers are afraid of the rapist'). The goal of this paper is to ascertain whether these two syntactic expressions entail also differences in meaning and whether these differences are important enough to distinguish two lexical units within a polysemous word (lexical ambiguity) or, on the contrary, they can be covered by the same definition (lexical vagueness). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper tries to show the functions of titles, especially the reciprocal semantic relationships between the title and its text. Some traditional concepts have been questioned or qualified. In the very centre of the analysis the paper puts the effects, of common fixed phrases, for instance phraseological units --idioms and proverbs--, used as titles on books or on articles. The study takes place mainly within the framework of a certain text linguistics --hermeneutic of the sense--, the starting point of which is outlined at the beginning of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of the experiment of association of a number of items of color images -color names and locomotion images - locomotion names as a test to validate two hypotheses: a) if there is a ordering relationship between the cognitive domain (of images, concepts) and the semantic field of words in Spanish language (H1), and b) if a relationship exists, it is stronger in the cultural fields than in natural areas (H2). The results do not confirm that there is a close relationship between concepts and terms in Spanish language; seems to be some gradual in concepts and in terms in a cultural field such as locomotion field but this correlation is not given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poder, deber (de), tener que, haber de and haber que constitute the hard core of the Spanish auxiliary modal verbs. Nevertheless, there exist other verbs with modal meaning whose grammatical properties, at least some, allow them to be included in this class too. This is the analysis, for instance, proposed in the NGLE for conseguir, necesitar, prometer, lograr and saber. A priori, the Spanish verb caber could also be added to the former group to the extent that it has to be glossed by poder 'can' in constructions such as No cabe exigir otro comportamiento, 'No se puede exigir otro comportamiento'. The aim of this paper is two-fold. Firstly, a detailed description of the grammar and the semantics of caber, in isolation as well as in comparison with other Spanish modal verbs, is offered. Secondly, we address the topic of whether it should or not be considered an auxiliary modal verb with respect to both its syntax and its meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feminization of nouns denoting professions and positions held by women is a gradual process that is influenced by different areas: linguistic, social and institutional. The media reflect a daily variation that occurs between the resources used for the formation of the feminine gender of nouns of this type. In this paper we have analyzed the way this phenomenon is manifested in the field of journalism, which is the filter for general linguistic habits and one of the main references for shaping the current purism. To achieve this objective we have selected a representative group of professions, with particular emphasis on the analysis of those cases where linguistic variation was found and comparing the results obtained with their lexicographic treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the analysis of the locution gracias a Dios, this article provides a model for the linguistic description of Spanish evaluative expressions according to the objectives that should be considered in an exhaustive study of this kind of modal words. To this end, this paper offers some observations on the categorial characterization of gracias a Dios, the discursive instructions that make up its semantic information and ultimately the pragmatic effects favoured by its meaning. Furthermore, the linguistic study of gracias a Dios can explain relations with other emotive expressions in Spanish that can evaluate a discourse positively, but that offer some differences concerning its distributional properties, its semantic values and the communicative intentions which can be used nowadays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The six particles dis–, ex–, abs–, de, des–and desde constitute the relational subsystem of the “movement of separation” with heterogeneous vitality and profitability in Spanish language. This paper analyzes the issue of invariant signification in each of those particles, the senses they develop in preverbal or compositional position and the degree of vitality they show in contemporary speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses some verbs with the –izar suffix based on names of current politicians. Its aim is to determine their semantic schema and some of the factors guiding their interpretation. The analysis takes as a base the semantic classification of denominal verbs, the semantic peculiarities of proper names and some syntactic constructions in which those verbs can participate. The article concludes that these verbs encode a causative meaning, but not a similative one; it also concludes that, although the semantic properties of the base noun contributes to the imprecision of the meaning of these verbs, their semantic properties are similar to those that some researches attribute to denominal verbs in general: they have an underspecified meaning that involves the notion of ‘change'; their senses are modulated by sublexical or encyclopedic information related the verbal arguments and the base noun. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a critical review of the so-called Verbal Government Complement (VGC), arguing, with Demonte, that two types of VGCs must be distinguished: the insist type, and the consist type. An analysis will be proposed according to which the former is formed by a small clause selected by a light verb (which explains their obligatory presence, e.g., The exam consists *(offive questions)), the latter being a variety of adjunct (in particular, a "lexical adjunct", in Mateu's sense, which will explain the possibility to suppress them: The witness insisted (that he is innocent)). Besides providing additional evidence to differentiate two types of VGCs, the analysis has the more general goal of discussing the traditional distinction between arguments (participants obligatorily selected) and adjuncts (or circumstantial complements). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with syntactic, semantic-denotative and terminological criteria used in attempt to characterize and classify several types of Spanish nominal combinations. We are going to revisite such criteria in order to propose some guidelines on delimiting free syntax constructions from phraseological ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the semantic and syntactic properties of the Spanish lexical markers of difference distinto/diferente 'different' and diverso 'diverse'. It analizes, in particular, their behaviour as adjectives and determiners with respect to the selection of an overt item of comparison, the expression of either non-identity or qualitative differences between the entities being compared, and the (anaphoric, NP-internal and sentence-internal) readings they may have depending on how the things to be compared are determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the distributional restrictions of elatives in negative contexts. First, I will show that elatives can appear in a negative sentence if they are not within the scope of negation. Second, I will study the behaviour of these modifiers in other negative environments. In order to describe the distribution of elatives, I will adopt the characterisation of negative environments put forward by Ladusaw (1979) and van der Wouden (1997), among others, who distinguish between downward entailing contexts, anti additive contexts and antimorphic contexts. I will show that elatives do not have a uniform behaviour as regards their distribution in negative environments. In this sense, it is possible to distinguish three classes of extreme degree modifiers. The first class cannot appear in downward entailing contexts; the second class is sensitive to the focus of negation; and the third class is compatible with all the negative environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work studies three 'denominal' verbs which has been classified as 'agentive': protagonizar, fiscalizar and tiranizar. The paper examines the relationship between the nominal bases and the meaning of these verbs. It also analyses some of their syntactic and semantic properties: the semantic role of their arguments, their participation in diathesis alternations, some of their aspectual characteristics. The analysis allows to conclude that fiscalizar and tiranizar are 'activity' verbs with a 'similative' meaning, but protagonizar differs from them in many ways. This verb does not seem to be specified with respect to 'agency' or 'activity', and the (sub)lexical, encyclopedic or 'frame' properties of its complements are clearly relevant for the semantic composition of the sentence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Spanish language, the "proportional correlation" is expressed by different syntactic forms depending on the type of discourse, the geographic areas, etc. This paper deals with the semantic-linguistic differences --in many cases, very large-- between these particular forms and the varied senses which they acquire in the speech uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is fourfold: (1) to point out the existence of two types of atypical verb+noun collocations in Spanish, that are the concealing collocations and the metaphorical collocations; (2) to describe their main semantic characteristics; (3) to analyze two semantic processes in the selection of the collocator in these collocations; and (4) to study the distinction between metaphorical collocations and verbal idioms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Verbal politeness is one of the principles which regulate interactional dynamics. Success in communication is the outcome of a conjoint activity carried out by co-communicators. Hence, linguistic activity is also social activity. In this picture, politeness is one of the main social activities contributing to success. Two of the most important semantic and pragmatic ways to express politeness are Face Flattering Acts and mitigating (attenuating or hedging) acts. The former are used to intensify or to enhance the speaker's expressions (in compliments, acknowledgements, and so on), whereas the latter are employed to minimize the speaker's point of view, especially when it affects the hearer's face. If the main goal of conversation is to reach some kind of mutual agreement --be it linguistic or social--, having a good command of both kinds of politeness is a most important advantage for speakers. The present article is an attempt to study mitigating acts, from a threefold approach. Firstly, a semantic approach deals with the meaning encoded in some attenuating devices; attention will be paid to the concept of scale, which provides a partial ordering of terms according to their semantic structure. Secondly, a pragmatic approach studies mitigation as a strategy to gain the hearer's acceptation. Finally, a sociopragmatic approach explains mitigation and politeness on the light of cultural differences, and makes use of concepts such as approach or communicative immediateness. The main hypothesis of this paper is that the threefold approach described above can account for some differences in the use of attenuating devices in American and Peninsular Spanish: for instance if cultures of approaching promote immediateness, this could favour a preference for boosting over attenuating strategies, without being regarded as impolite, threatening or excessively flattering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the use of the expression hasta las trancas --originally hasta las trencas-- which is widely used in modern colloquial Spanish in Europe and to a lesser extent in Mexico, but not included in the DRAE nor in most other dictionaries. A corpus of examples has been collected based on questionnaires and sampling in the provinces of Almería, Granada and Málaga, in Internet discussion forums, the daily press and periodicals and literary texts. In the study the different meanings of this expression are listed, and the different uses of each semantic value are tabled (e.g. predicative and attributive verb combinations, and noun and adjective modifications). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we provide a synchronic and diachronic analysis of an instance of so-called «xpletive» negation in the Spanish approximative adverb por poco. Synchronically, we show that this adverb, when combined with the sentence negator no, is ambiguous between ∼p («expletive») and ∼∼p («canonical») meanings. Diachronically, we show that this ambiguity arose due to a change in the negation system of Spanish around the 15th century. As a result, the supposed instances of «expletive» negation found in present-day uses of por poco are not really expletive at all, but rather are a holdover from the Old Spanish requirement of preverbal negative concord. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal distance and modality have been proposed as core meanings of the indicative (simple and periphrastic) future tense forms in Spanish. In general, the research carried out on the topic has prioritized the first meaning over the second. This paper claims that it is the semantic feature of modality that organizes the contrast between those forms. It also argues that temporal distance simply emerges as an epiphenomenon or byproduct of the main semantic value. These statements are supported by evidence based on oral speech samples of 65 Cuban American living in Miami, Florida. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to consider the need to describe semantics starting from the point of view of forms of content rather than-forms of expression. In this sense, the characterization of semantics facts analyzed from the signifier and not from the signified has been considered incorrect. Approaching the issue in this way, as the instances of linguistic relationships belonging to different levels of semantic analysis exposed illustrate, implies an inadequate mode of setting out the problem. From this starting point, it is proposed that a semantic theory ought to start from its object of study which is the linguistic meaning of its constitutive units. Therefore the true semantic relationships need to be established between single meanings of linguistic signs rather than between signs as a whole. Starting from these epistemological presuppositions, a typology of semantic relationships outline has been put forward in which a basic dinstinction is made between a semiotic dimension constituted by what we have generically denominated «ignificative» relationships, which in turn can also be subdivided in linguistic and designative relationships (each of them includes different subtypes), and the genuine significative ones which only start from the content and only establish connexions between the meaning of linguistics signs. The former makes up the true semantic relationships which we have respectively labelled, in accordance with linguistic level where it works, morphological relationships, lexical relationships, subsentential relationships and sentential relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]