Hasta el moño. Boundedness and (non)directionality following from of estar´s semantic structure.

MANGIALAVORI RASIA, MARÍA EUGENIA; MARÍN, RAFAEL

Buenos Aires

Congreso; Romania Nova VII; 2014

Instituto de Filología y Literaturas Hispánicas ?Dr. Amado Alonso? / ALFAL

The selectional patterns and semantic underpinnings of Spanish copulas can very well take pride in being one of the most debated topics in Romance grammar. However, it is also known that both traditional and recent proposals eventually fall short in accounting for the semantic and (l)syntactic properties of this copula; alternatively, they either dwell on gross overgeneralizations (e.g., attributing inchoativity to estar as a general property, cf. Zagona 2009, Camacho 2010) or rest on coarse-grained or ill-defined concepts (e.g. light verb in Bosque 2010 or intransitive verb in Leborans 1999 i.a.). Previous works (e.g. Gallego & Uriagereka 2011, Mangialavori 2013a) have shown that the selectional patterns of estar can be better accounted for (and predicted) on the basis of its l-syntactic structure and the involvement of a prepositional component. Further to this, the argumental (l-syntactic) structure traditionally ascribed to the morphosyntactic category P happens to accommodate the different eligible copular complements combined with estar (PP/AdvP/AP) by regarding both AdvPs and APs as non-atomic lexical structures and probing into their internal configuration (Mateu 2002, Jayaseelan 2007, Kayne 1997, Mangialavori 2013b).On the other hand, though in full accordance to the (l)syntax proposed above, the locative content of this copula has been shown to account quite straightforwardly for its eventive properties and the aspectual underpinnings of stative predications delivered by it, in contrast to those yielded by ser. More importantly, these observations have served as an important ground to argue in favor of a clear (and much needed) distinction between telicity ?which has been classically, though not accurately, ascribed to estar? and boundedness (cf. Marín 2010, Mangialavori 2013a). With these considerations as starting point, the present investigation will exploit the potential of both p0-incorporation in (l)syntax and spatial semantic structure in order to explain some particular constructions involving (micro)variations among Spanish dialects. Specifically, we will focus on the combination of estar and the prepositional complement hasta in the delivery of two kinds of predications regularly unexpected with a stative copula: (upper)boundedness and extensive reading of directional Ps. On the one hand, we will address expressions such as those represented in (1), in order to elucidate how come that a stative v can be articulated with an (ordinarily) directional P (hasta). More importantly, we will elaborate on the relation between the semantic structure corresponding to the (stative) locative verb and boundedness (traditionally withdrawn from the inventory of potential semantic properties of stative verbs). In trying to abide by syntax/semantics homomorphism, we will argue for a relation between PP complements and the presence of a p0 incorporated/conflated into a categorizer little (verbal) head (the stative VBE0), along the lines of (though with crucial disagreements with respect to) the structure proposed by Gallego & Uriagereka (2009). (1) Estar hasta la coronilla el moño las manos (Argentina) la polla (España) la madre (El Salvador) la tusa (Chile) la picha (Costa Rica) los cojones (España) el gorro (Perú) On the other hand, we will address the use of hasta in locative (i.e. non-directional) expressions in Caribbean Spanish, as illustrated in (2). (2)a. La casa está hasta la punta del pueblo. b. La casa está hasta el fondo de la calle a mano izquierda. c. Necesito un tequila pero la tienda está hasta la Quinta Chingada. d. La caja gris que está hasta la izquierda. e. La vista que está hasta la derecha donde hay una puerta. f. Wayne está hasta la montaña hasta las 12 pm. Although the main lines of the syntactic construction will follow those presented above with regard to (1), data in (2) call for finer considerations on the semantic architecture of locative predicates and on the link between directional Ps and the notion of Path. With Gawron (2006) and Zwarts (2006) as main references, and taking claims like (3) as main ground, we will build on these data in order to redefine and elaborate on the notion of spatial paths, extension and location. In this regard, the distinction between spatial and non-spatial paths will become crucial in order to account for the data in (1) and (2) on the basis of extent reading on directional Ps. (3) Besides motion verbs, other verbs (e.g. degree achievemets) describe non-spatial paths which can be formalized as paths in one-dimension scales (Zwarts 2006). Hence, (2) can be handled on the basis of extensive paths, as long as the extent reading entails not motion but the occupation of a region of space (Gawron 2006). In this sense, it could be argued that location stems from a fictive path extending between the speaker and the situation of the located entity; thus, a measure (rather than movement) function is mapped onto the locative predication. In turn, (1) might also been explained by means of the concept of fictive or abstract extension, by conceiving experiencers as fictive containers of emotions (Marín & Sánchez Marco, 2012). Following Gawron (2006), we assume that a PP like hasta in (1) denotes a property of paths (3); however, no directional reading emerges; rather, the implementation of an extensive path allows the delivery of boundedness effect on the stative predicate rendered by estar, as the extensive reading of path describes the dimensions of state, increasing along an axis extending within parts (boundaries) of the container. (4) ⟦hasta el moño⟧ = λπ[π(ENDSS(e)) overlaps el moño] = a property true of a path if the path evaluated at minimal number of its domain overlaps el moño Besides presenting countless technical advantages, we will show that dissociating the notions of Path and movement/transition (i.e., implementing extensive paths) allows us to better explain both the bounded and the stative nature of estar predication. More importantly, this would be done without involving the transitional value associated with paths (e.g. terminal coincidence relation, Hale & Keyser 2002), which would be hard to justify in a stative predicate. By the same token, other transition-associated properties such as inchoativity, unaccurately ascribed to estar on a generalized basis, would also be successfully avoided. Crucially, data in (1)-(2) would be handled without appealing to additional devices or ad-hoc stipulations.