Nonstandard use of directional Ps in Spanish: semantic complexity correlates with possible P choices?

MANGIALAVORI RASIA, MARÍA EUGENIA; MARÍN, RAFAEL

Congreso; 2017 Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain; 2017

Linguistics Association of Great Britain-University of Kent

Nonstandard use of directional Ps in Spanish: semantic complexity correlates with possible P choices?M. Eugenia Mangialavori Rasia (CONICET) & Rafael Marín (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)Varieties like Mexican Spanish [MS] display a non-standard use of the directional P hasta ?up to?. A combination with the copula estar ?be? is productively used in MS in locative constructions like (1) (Lope Blanch 2008, Bosque & Bravo 2011), and alternatively, in non-spatial constructions like (2). (1)c also shows that MS diverges non-trivially by combining hasta with prepositions and adverbs (e.g. adelante ?in front?, arriba ?up?) which in the standard distribution can only appear directly preceded by estar (está (*hasta) adelante). These occurrences draw important contrasts not only with respect to ?standard? Spanish [SS], but they are also unexpected more generally for various reasons.(1) a. La casa está hasta la punta del pueblo.the house isESTAR up to the tip of-the village ?The house is at the end of the village?b. La caja gris que está hasta la derecha.the box grey that isESTAR up to the right ?The grey box that is on the right?c. El puente está hasta el límite oeste de la ciudad.the bridge isESTAR up to the limit West of the city ?The bridge is at the West border of the city?d. En la lista de Fortune Slim está hasta adelante.in the list of Fortune Slim isESTAR up to in front ?In the Fortune Magazine list, Slim is ahead?e. El salón comedor estaba hasta el último piso.the dining room wasESTAR.PT up to the last floor ?The dining room was on the top floor?(2) a. La tarea estará terminada hasta el final del día.the work beESTAR.FUT finished up to the end of-the day ?The work will be finished by the end of the day?b. La normativa recién estará lista hasta julio.the regulation only beESTAR.FUT ready up to July ?The regulation will be ready by July?(3) La Selección estará completa hasta el lunes. ⇒?The Team will be complete by Monday? (MS)the team beESTAR.FUT complete up to the Monday ?The Team will be complete until Monday? (SS)Problems. ●hasta, a directional boundary P, is generally expected with dynamic verbs, but not with statives; and it is certainly not expected to yield locatives like (1), according to both SS and general (crosslinguistic) standards.●(2) is possible in SS, under a crucially different (?until?) reading in line with the standard semantics of hasta (3). Hypothesis: A natural question to ask is whether these MS constructions could be related to some innovative use of either the copula or the P. However, a systematic contrast with the standard P choice (estar en/a)?both possible in MS?discourages simplifications along these lines, as well as a coercion-like solution to the alleged conflict between a directional P and a stative verb. Experimental surveys on natives indicate that estar hasta is used in MS to introduce a sense of distance (reported as ?remoteness? (50%), ?distance? (30%), ?route? (20%)) from an implied starting point (in principle, the location of the speaker), thus allowing to introduce additional spatial information. The non-trivial P choice, along with the relative complexity introduced by hasta, also argues against a potential ambiguity of P. Instead, the situation is closer to the notion that there are no lexically ambiguous Ps, and that the delivery of a locative relation from a directional P is compositional (Gehrke 2006 i.a.). The idea is supported by productivity patterns with verbs of spatial configuration combined with hasta in MS (4). hasta is optional but not irrelevant: (4) contrasts with the standard distribution (vive/está/se sienta adelante) by involving the noted sense of distance.(4) Juan {está/vive/se sienta} hasta adelante. ?Juan is/lives/seats at the front? (cf. Lope Blanch 2008:78)Proposal: A non-trivial P choice. Key to the problem: two general conditions constraining the combination of a copula with a directional P (5). An endpoint condition furnishes the proposal that hasta can be associated with a locative predication different from the one yielded by locative Ps (e.g., somehow benefitting from the directionality of hasta) in combination with the locative copula estar. The specific semantics of locative estar hasta, intuitively related to some sort of perspectival location?which is central to explain the fact that this alternative coexists non-trivially with the standard locative P choice (a/en)?, matches the additional variable introduced by from here in(6)a). Cresswell (1978) notes that this condition depends on the denotational properties of the directional P, which introduces a contextually determined point of view from which the object is located. Note that in MS this entailment is strong enough to render the adjunct redundant (cf. (7)).(5) Locative Ps can always be used in combination with the copula be in a locative sentence. With directional Ps this is sometimes possible if the location is understood as the endpoint of a hypothetical journey described by the preposition from an implicit point of view, as in (6)a, or with a measure phrase, as in (6)b. (Cresswell 1978:112, also in Zwarts 2005:742)(6) a. The house is {behind/outside/across} the woods (from here) (Zwarts 2005(3))b. The car is one mile {from the garage/to the east}(7) La casa está (hasta) detrás del lote (*?desde aquí). ?The house is behind of the lot (from here)?The general analysis is compatible with fundamental definitions of hasta such as Talmy?s (2000:254). The specific implementation builds on studies where the aspectual contribution of spatial Ps is laid out in terms of Vector Space Semantics [VSS] (Winter 2001 i.a.). Proposal: MS locatives determine a specific circumstance where P introduces an endpoint in an (abstract) set of ordered vectors, with a starting point and points in between on which the direction lexically encoded by P imposes an ordering (Zwarts?s 2005:744 definition of Path). Our analysis rests on two assumptions: (i) location and other spatial properties are represented as relative positions modelled by vectors (Zwarts&Winter 2000); (ii) paths (atemporal stretches of space) require a fixed reference object [RO] (Zwarts 2005:283) to locate the object. Even if this RO also figures in simple locative constructions (estar en/a), applied to directional Ps this essential relativity allows for the possibility to accommodate the ?from here? entailment making hasta a non-trivial choice in MS and explaining non-standard uses under a general condition like (5). VSS account: Vectors are analyzed in the semantics of directional Ps by representing a spatial stretch (a located vector) connecting the starting point and the endpoint of a trajectory. Assuming that atemporal uses of directional Ps determine that the path merely preserves a linear ordering (Zwarts & Winter 2000:29, Zwarts & Gärdenfors 2016), then the set of ordered vectors (path) may be a line of sight, a walking distance or, ultimately, the route for the hypothetical journey in (6)a. If correct, the path introduced by hasta would have an endpoint at the RO and a starting point at an unspecified location set by default at location of the speaker, yielding the ?from here? entailment that accommodates the relevant condition ((6)a) and explains (7). The use of hasta over other directional Ps follows naturally: the projective direction (?up to? as opposed to desde ?from?) imposes the correct ordering on the points connecting the path´s start/endpoint. The fact that hasta is a directional boundary P is also relevant to the endpoint interpretation that allows locative use (5). Note that DPs identifying a boundary in the landmark (la punta, el límite in (1)) stress the ?journey sense? ((1)a is understood as saying that you have to go through the whole town to find the house). Thus, while in standard locatives (e.g. La casa está en el bosque ?the house is in the woods), a located vector u determines the region within which the situation of the located object [LO] is framed, where w0=location of the RO (the woods) and w1=relative location of the LO house (Winter 2001), in the construction with hasta RO and LO coincide at w1 (endpoint of u), thus leaving the additional (the contextually-fixed starting point noted by Cresswell) (w0) as key variable yielding the relevant sense of distance. The difference is that in standard locatives w0, w1 are in the landmark, while with hasta w0 is not. Extensions. The analysis allowed by (5) can be extended to non-spatial uses (2) where hasta marks the endpoint of a preparatory phase crucially involved. This non-standard use is crucially restricted to predicates allowing result interpretation (Juan estará listo/*triste hasta las 3 ?Juan will be ready/*sad by 3?). Conclusions: Hasta imposes a locative condition on a path (endpoint) defined in terms of distance and direction. Non-standard use of Ps like hasta would represent an understudied strategy for grammatically realizing complex locative constructions with two key variables (distance and contextually-fixed starting point), something that has consequences on generalizations on how stative predicates can be constructed in natural languages, but also in understanding internal mechanisms of micro-variation in P alternations.