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Stripping is a phenomenon whereby a full clause is coordinated with a phrase (XP) and an adverb, typically NEG(ation) (e.g. John read Hamlet but not Othello). As noted previously in the literature (e.g. Bosque 1984), while in English NEG must precede XP, Spanish allows the reverse order as well (XP-NEG). This paper examines these two strings (i.e. XP-NEG and NEG-XP) in Spanish and compares them with respect to a number of properties. The major goal of this paper is to show that, despite the appearances, the two strings constitute radically distinct phenomena. Analytically, I defend, in line with many others, that XP-NEG involves sentential coordination and clausal ellipsis (Depiante 2000; Vicente 2006, a.o.). With respect to NEG-XP, I contend that it involves constituent negation, constituent coordination and no ellipsis at all. This paper thus provides novel data and arguments which support the view originally proposed in Bosque (1984). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the L2 acquisition of Spanish object drop by advanced learners whose L1s are English and Brazilian Portuguese, in order to assess effects on their knowledge of the interpretable and uninterpretable features conditioning the realization of object drop in their L2 Spanish. Object drop in Spanish is subject to semantic restrictions related to definiteness and specificity, as well as syntactic restrictions related to subjacency. Current debates about second language acquisition (SLA) have led to different hypotheses. On the one hand, the Interpretability Hypothesis/IH (Hawkins, Roger & Hajime Hattori. 2006. Interpretation of English multiple wh-questions by Japanese speakers: A missing uninterpretable feature account. Second Language Research 22. 269–301) claims that uninterpretable features will not be completely acquired. On the other hand, the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis/FRH (Hwang, Sun Hee & Donna Lardiere. 2013. Plural-marking in L2 Korean: A feature-based approach. Second Language Research 29. 57–86; Lardiere, Donna. 2009. Some thoughts on the contrastive analysis of features in second language acquisition. Second Language Research 25. 173–227) does not distinguish between interpretable and uninterpretable features for the purposes of SLA, arguing that the difficulty of the acquisition task hinges on the required amount of feature reassembly from the L1 to the L2 lexicon. Finally, the Full Transfer/Full Access (FT/FA) (Schwartz, Bonnie & Rex Sprouse. 1996. L2 cognitive states and the Full Transfer/Full Access model. Second Language Research 12. 40–72; Schwartz, Bonnie & Rex Sprouse. 2000. When syntactic theories evolve: Consequences for L2 acquisition research. In John Archibald (ed.), Second language acquisition and linguistic theory, 156–186. Malden, MA: Blackwell; White, Lydia. 2003. Second language acquisition and universal grammar. New York: Cambridge University Press) hypothesis treats SLA as equivalent to first-language acquisition, in terms of the potential for ultimate attainment. Both the FT/FA and the FRH are in principle compatible with full attainment in L2 acquisition. To assess these hypotheses, this study tests the L2 acquisition of the semantic and syntactic restrictions on Spanish object drop by learners whose L1 either lacks widespread object drop (English), or has regular object drop but realizes it differently from Spanish (Brazilian Portuguese). The Full Transfer/Full Access hypothesis seems to best explain the results of the two experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article aims at investigating the pro-drop phenomenon in L2 Spanish. The phenomenon of pro-drop or null subject is a typological feature of some languages, which are characterized by an implicit subject in cases of topic continuity. More specifically, behaviour regarding subject (dis)continuity in Spanish differs from French. This paper will offer a contrastive analysis on subject realisation by French learners of L2 Spanish compared to L1 Spanish speakers. So, the goal of this pilot study is to see if a different functioning in pro-drop in the mother tongue also influences the L2. The study is based upon a written description task presented to the two groups of participants: the experimental group of French mother tongue L2 Spanish language learners and the control group of Spanish native speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In research on intra-sentential pronominal anaphora resolution in null subject languages, it has been argued that null pronouns tend to be biased towards subject antecedents, whereas overt pronouns tend to prefer object antecedents, as predicted by Carminati's 'Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis'. However, these studies have mainly focused on only one of the two possible clause orders (main-subordinate or subordinate-main), which have not been overtly contrasted. This paper investigates the effects of clause order on the interpretation of third-person subject pronouns in globally ambiguous intra-sentential contexts by 49 native speakers of Spanish. The results of an acceptability judgment task explicitly comparing both clause orders indicate that relative clause order is a key factor affecting the interpretation of pronouns: while a preference of overt pronouns for object antecedents holds across clause orders, null pronouns show a bias towards subject antecedents only in subordinate-main sequences. These findings refine the Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis predictions by restricting them to subordinate-main complex sentences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that Spanish prenominal and postnominal possessives target different external merge positions focusing on alienable possessive constructions. The analysis is developed alongside a proposal on the organization of DPs, according to which articles are merged as a DP-internal category between the domains assigned to direct and indirect modifiers. Prenominal possessives are determiners reanalyzed from direct modification adjectives whereas postnominal possessives are indirect modification adjectives that arise as predicates of reduced relative clauses. This analysis provides a principled explanation on the behavior of Spanish possessives that is lacking in the generalized idea that they are pronouns with a unique merge position. Arguments are also presented showing that syntax-driven phonological restrictions condition the derivation of DPs. The account successfully derives the core properties of word order variation and related issues within possessive constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I show that a constraint-based approach to DOM, such as the OT system proposed by Aissen (2003), leads to the conclusion that the child will entertain a number of grammars different from the target grammar, before acquiring the final ranking of constraints, even under the learnability assumptions of the OT framework (such as those made by Tesar and Smolensky (1998, 2000). The data examined here, from Spanish-speaking children in the CHILDES database, clearly shows that children master Spanish DOM with a performance virtually errorless. This raises doubts regarding the capacity of the OT framework to explain a key aspect of human language, namely, the process of acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Spanish ni siquiera is like other n words in that it is ambiguous: it can have a genuinely negative interpretation and one where it is not by itself negative but requires a negative context to be licensed as a NPI. The ambiguity of ni siquiera is reduced w an ambiguity of ni, which is shown to also appear in other contexts, namely when ni combines with a minimizer and when it functions as a conjunction. The semantics of ni siquiera is argued to be relevant to the debate of whether English even is ambiguous. It also bears on a recent proposal whereby NPIs are limited to downward entailing contexts because they contain a tacit 'even'. [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]

The present contribution compares Caribbean Spanish (CS), especially the Dominican variant (DS), and Brazilian Portuguese (BP). These dialects, which show several similarities with respect to the loss of pro-drop (and related grammatical features), are described in a framework based on Toribio (1996, 2000): both in CS/DS and in BP the inflectional head seems to partly have lost not only its capacity of identifying the contents of a null pronoun, but also the possibility to assign nominative Case in a rightward direction. Speakers of BP have replaced the morphology-based identification mechanism by a special kind of antecedent identification, and it is argued that their competence is expanded by a "grammatical bolt-on" along the lines of Rowlett (2013). The situation in DS is much more complex due to the fact that null subjects are still possible in virtually all contexts where General Spanish has them. Although antecedent identification is a plausible mechanism (attested in other languages, for instance Icelandic and Russian), there is no conclusive evidence that it is at work in DS. Furthermore, and in contrast to BP, contact with, and exposure to, an educated variety of the language can hardly be made responsible for the actual variation in DS, with the exception of the use of ello as an overt expletive, which is disfavoured by more educated, urban speakers. The paper discusses also alternative proposals to the "competing grammars model" (cf. Toribio 2000) for DS, especially Holmberg et al.'s (2009) explanation for the partial null subject status of BP and other languages. Apart from exhibiting theoretical problems, it fails to do justice to the actual language variation in BP and is incompatible with the DS data. On the other hand, Sessarego and Gutiérrez-Rexach's (in press) model for Chinchano Spanish (an Afro-Hispanic dialect spoken in Peru), which is based on the idea that input consisting of variable L2 outputs is responsible for variation in L1, may be promising, if similar acquisition processes can be established to have taken place in the dialects under scrutiny. For the moment, however, there is still some mystery about the partial pro-drop nature of CS/DS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics Volume 4, Issue 1 Spring 2011 Interfaces in Bilingualism Silvina Montrul University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Abstract In recent research on bilingualism, explanations and predictions of developmental delays or inability to reach native-like attainment in specific areas of grammatical knowledge have been linked to the architecture of the language faculty. The specific emphasis has been on interfaces between the linguistic system and grammar external components, such as syntax/discourse, or between different modules of grammar, such as syntax/semantics, syntax/morphology or morphology/phonology. In this context, Sorace's Interfaces Hypothesis has generated a significant deal of research in several bilingual populations and in different languages. This paper provides an overview of the current research and debates on interfaces and points to future directions to address pending critical questions, as well as empirical and methodological challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to show that the structure of CP in Spanish is more complex than it appears to be in most descriptive approaches. In particular, we analyze five types of constructions, which are quite extended in all dialects of Spanish but which have remained almost unaddressed in grammatical studies. These data clearly reveal a complex structure for Spanish CP both in root and embedded clauses: They involve sentences with more than one instance of a complementizer heading the clause, sentences where a wh-element (interrogative or exclamative) can be preceded or followed by the complementizer que ‘that’, and matrix sentences (obligatorily) introduced by an explicit Comp, among other cases. Our point of departure will be the studies on the so called “sentence left periphery” (Rizzi, The fine structure of left periphery, Kluwer, 1997) containing an upper limit, ForceP and a lower limit, FinP. Our claim will be that in Spanish there are two instances of que: que1 and que2 which are respectively generated in the upper and in the lower part of the sentence periphery. In addition, we will provide data suggesting that there might even be a third instance of que, a kind of “reinforcement” of Force. In this sense Spanish resembles some languages which are very different from the typological point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We respond to Rodríguez Arrizabalaga's recent claim that Spanish shows genuine cases of strong resultative constructions, e.g. Juan apuñaló a Tomás hasta la muerte 'John stabbed Tom to death', argued to be equivalent to the English construction with the PP to death. This claim is theoretically relevant as it challenges the verb-framed behavior of Spanish with respect to Talmy's typology. Adopting a constructivist view of argument structure, we argue that Spanish hasta la muerte and English to death constructions of this type involve two completely distinct syntactic configurations, and that only the English to death PP can be regarded as a resultative phrase. We claim that the Spanish hasta PP is syntactically computed as an adjunct external to the argument structure of the predicate and provides a boundary to the predicate it merges with. We thus show that the Spanish construction with hasta la muerte fully conforms to the class of Talmy's verb-framed languages in that this type of construction is expected to be fully available and productive in this class of languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to provide an overview of current issues in the field of Spanish heritage speaker bilingualism from a formal-generative linguistic perspective. We consider previous research findings and how these have shaped our understanding of the differential nature of heritage speaker grammars. Finally, we identify a list of future lines of investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of instruction on L2 learners' ability to recognize and produce differential object marking in Spanish as measured by three written tasks: a grammatical preference task, a cued sentence production task, and a discourse-length narrative task. These assessment measures are hypothesized to tap both implicit and explicit knowledge based on criteria proposed by Ellis (2005) and Ellis, Loewen, Elder, Erlam, Philp & Reinders (2009). English-speaking learners (n = 123) were randomly assigned to one of three instructional treatments: input flood, enhanced input flood, and explicit grammar. The results indicate a significant advantage for the explicit grammar group on the preference task and the cued sentence production task. The remaining two groups showed modest improvement after the treatment, but with no significant differences between them. These results confirm the advantage of explicit instruction vis-à-vis more implicit treatments, although this advantage seems to be limited to controlled assessment measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English irrealis modality is usually captured by syntactic structures that often exclude overt complementizers that and for and include indicative or infinitival morphology. The Spanish equivalents to English structures of irrealis modality, however, typically require the overt subordinate marker que ('that') followed by a [+finite] subordinate verb. These syntactic differences between English and Spanish produce asymmetrical surface structures caused by functional categories (FCs). The primary goal of this study is to examine the role of FCs, and more specifically, complementizers (CPs), in the syntactic development of L1 English speakers with L2 Spanish. The results of our data suggest that L1 CP properties (i.e. CP = Ø) persisted in learners' interlanguage (IL) systems, following the work of Schwartz & Sprouse (1996). As a result, learners at all levels of instruction intuitively perceived English-like [-overt] CP structures as more grammatical than their [+overt] CP counterparts, even at advanced levels of acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research asked whether speakers are influenced by systematic semantic patterns in their language in forming new word meanings. We used the novel word mapping technique (Nagy and Gentner 1990) to test whether English and Spanish speakers would show effects of their differing semantic systems in inferring the meanings of novel motion verbs. We also tested for any language-specific effects in inferring novel nouns. Participants were given short passages containing either a novel noun or a novel motion verb, and were asked to infer the meaning of the novel word. The passages provided information about both the path and the manner of a novel motion event. Consistent with the semantic patterns in the respective languages, English speakers were more likely to infer a manner interpretation than a path interpretation and Spanish speakers showed the reverse pattern. Language-specific effects were not found for the meanings inferred for novel nouns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No fully satisfactory explanation has yet been offered for the Spanish recourse to "spurious" se instead of dative le. Three distinct questions are at issue: the failure of le to cluster with accusative lo; the number of grammatically distinct se's in Spanish; and their/its respective value(s). The analysis proposed here deals coherently with all three: the various uses of single se follow from the interaction of its meaning with the inferential economy imposed on clitics by the verbal complex of which they are a part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows that Judeo-Spanish, the language of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, is a fused language although it retained remarkably archaic lexical and grammatical features of medieval Spanish. Morphology, which is generally considered the least affected area of grammar, shows this kind of fusion. In most cases, the morphological fusion results in lexicalization: once a word is newly categorized as a noun, adjective, or verb, its inflection follows the grammatical norms of Spanish. The exceptions involve words of Hebrew-Aramaic of origin which might take Hebrew rather than Spanish inflection. The morphological processes are discussed in terms of the Strong vs. Weak Lexicalist Hypotheses.

This article focuses on productive processes involved in the adaptation of Spanish loanwords in Basque. It is shown that together with processes that are clearly justified, there are also synchronically unjustified adaptations. It is argued that the motivation for such seemingly anomalous adaptations can be found in earlier stages of the languages in contact. In particular, Spanish words ending in -on replace this ending by -oi in Basque. It is concluded that, in prolonged situations of language, bilingual grammars may contain correspondence rules whose exclusive function is to adapt borrowings from one language to the other.

An analysis of Spanish todavia, ya and German noch, schou (cf. English still, already) in relation to negation is proposed in which expectations and not only lime enter the picture. Used with wide scope, these adverbs apply to descriptions of changes that do or do not take place; it is this change of a given state of affairs that is central to their meaning, which is made up of a presupposition and an expectation. A unified analysis is offered that covers a variety of uses, such as evaluative, epistemic, quantitative, and temporal with narrow scope (including German erst and Spanish solo; cf. English only). The conflicting analyses of the different uses are discarded in favor of asemantic definition procedure where differences are accounted for by appropriate semantic operators. A claim to include in the semantics of the adverbs the components previously considered pragmatic is thus substantiated. since expectations are well-defined linguistic objects, and not the result of inferences of any sort. At the same time, in the semantic definitions of the adverbs a place is secured for inferential access to knowledge used in utterance interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has two basic purposes: 1) to show that phonotactical patterns that do not exist are relevant for establishing the phonology of languages, and; 2) that non-existent phonotactical structures provide an argument against purely formal analyses of phonological structure. The position taken by the author is that phonotactical analyses should be based on possible syllable types, not on the existing ones. The author's evidence comes from the Castilian dialect of Spanish. Being fairly conservative, Castilian Spanish provides an adequate source of data for generalizations on syllable structure since syllable- and word-final consonants are relatively well preserved.

This article explores one case of semantic and syntactic shift of a single word in the Spanish language; namely the development of Latin gustare among the Romanic languages of the Iberian peninsula. In particular, an attempt is made to link, in a partially causal manner, the semantic shift and the syntactic evolution of the various reflexes of gustare, and to outline the possible mechanism of a semantically motivated syntactic change. It was shown that the semantic evolution of a verb resulted in an immediate discrepancy between the deep semantic structure and the surface structure, and required the application of an additional transformation to map between these two levels.