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This paper has two intertwined objectives that are consistent with the overall goal of using an interface grammar to describe different contrasts among languages. The first one is to describe the internal structure of the English resultative construction or KR, to characterize a representative sample of the KR subtypes and to render explicit the syntax-semantics interface conditions that make it possible. KR is a Macroevent that fuses two Events--an Activity and an Event proper--in the temporal sequence of a 'causal course of Events' so that this Event is the Result of the Activity. In order to reach this characterization, it is necessary to subsume Manner under Activity, Result under Change and CAUSE under 'causal course of Events'. The second objective is to expose the features that license the presence of KR in English while permitting a scarce presence of it in Spanish. KR is the Macroevent that complements the prototypical English Event, which opposes to Spanish in so far as it projects an Activity as main verb while the Spanish Event projects an Event proper. Thus, KR is not a complementary structure for the Spanish Event. Furthermore, KR reflects the typical 'open' combinatory English style, which is quite different from the Spanish 'close' one. This means that English allows for an open set of semantic relations between two words under the same structure while Spanish prefers to reduce them to (likely) one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the geometry of phi-features, with a special emphasis on number and gender in Spanish. We address two sets of questions: (i) are number and gender bundled together or do they constitute separate categories, and (ii) does the internal feature composition of number and gender follow a single- or a multi-valued system? Given the lack of consensus on these issues based on primary data, we approach these questions experimentally, using the phenomenon of agreement attraction: a situation in which ungrammatical sequences are perceived as grammatical when one of the NPs is erroneously identified as determining agreement. Our results offer novel support in favor of an agreement model in which number and gender are in separte projections and are valued independently. In addition, our results indicate that number but not gender in Spanish is multi-valued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Main clauses in Spanish optionally include a root complementizer. The presence of the complementizer adds a reportative component to the meaning of the clause. This paper attempts to characterize more precisely the kind of grammatical object represented by those reports. It argues that the Spanish main clause reports must be analyzed as instances of quotative constructions, and that the latter must be represented as involving an underlying predication between a clausal constituent and a quotative predicate. This predicate is overt in many languages, but silent in Spanish. The paper provides syntactic arguments in support of this hypothesis, as well as a comparison between the properties of those constructions and hearsay evidentiality, which is argued to be a different phenomenon. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Some Castilian grammars intended for use in secondary school are published in the decade of1850. These grammars must be understood in relation with those used in primary school. They participate in the consolidation of national subjectivities (thanks to the spread of the common language), in social disciplining (determining the standard to be met by the practice) and in the reproduction of social structures (educating the members of the elite). The present paper refers to the subject of syntax in four texts published respectively in Buenos Aires, Santiago, Guanajuato and Madrid. We consider the units established in the grammars, the treatment of figures and the analysis they propose in exercises or in recapitulating illustrations. The study allows us to appreciate the guidance offered by grammars but also the different perspectives on grammatical knowledge, on its function in secondary school and on the subject who attends school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the behaviour of VP topicalization in two unrelated languages, Hungarian and Spanish. It will show that in spite of the superficial similarity between the elements involved in such topicalization, the two languages employ a fundamentally different strategy in the derivation of these sentences. Hungarian fronts the VP material and spells it out in the form of a resumptive pronoun in the left periphery, in a mechanism similar to that described in Grohmann (2003). Spanish on the other hand generates the resumptive pronominal as an argument internal to the clause. This difference in the two derivations correlates with other differences in VP topicalization in the two languages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]