The left periphery of Spanish DP: Ad sensum agreement and ellipsis

SAAB, ANDRÉS

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Workshop; COLOQUIO DE MORFOSINTAXIS; 2004

Universidad de Buenos Aires

In this paper, I propose a new analysis of the so-called ad sensum agreement phenomenon in Spanish, which mainly occurs in partitive and pseudo partitive constructions. Some examples are given in (1): (1) a. Un grupo de los senadores salió del salón. a group of the senators left.3.SG the room b. Un grupo de los senadores salieron del salón. a group of the senators left.3.PL out of the room c. Un grupo de senadores salió del salón. a group of senators left.3.SG the room d. Un grupo de senadores salieron del salón. a group of senators left.3.PL the room However, there are other context in which a similar phenomenon occurs. One of them is in constructions that contain an epithet plus a prepositional complement headed by de. (2) El ángel de tu mujer no sé si estará {*contento/contenta} the angel.masc of your wife not know.1Psg if will be {happy.masc/happy.fem}. (example adapted from Suñer 1999) I propose a unified account of these two types of constructions. In doing that, I will show that they behave similarly with respect to nominal ellipsis. First, epithets cannot be elided: (3) El burro de Juan y el e de Pedro… the donkey of John and the e of Pedro… Both DPs must be interpreted as possesive, even though in non elliptical contexts they are ambiguous between a possesive and an attributive reading. The same pattern is found in some DPs that are ambiguous between a descriptive and a quantified reading: (4) Tengo una pila de camisas y una e de pantalones para lavar. Have.1psg a pile of shirts and one of trusers for washing Second, with respect to (pseudo)partitive constructions, ad sensum agreement is impossible in elliptical context, as the following example shows: (5) a. Un grupo de senadores entró al salón justo cuando uno e de diputados salía. a group of the senators entered.3.SG the room just when one of delegates left.3.SG b. *Un grupo de senadores entraron al salón justo cuando uno e de diputados salían. a group of senators entered.3.PL the room just when one of delegates left.3.PL c. Una parte de los turistas visitó el museo y una e de los profesores visitó la universidad. a part of the turist visited.3.SG the museum and one of the professors visited.3.SG. the universiy d.*?Una parte de los turistas visitaron el museo y otra e de los profesores visitaron la universidad. a part of the turist visited.3.PL the museum and other of the professors visited.3.PL the universiy I propose that the full paradigm can be accounted for if it is the case that epithets and partitive nouns trigger ad sensum agreement are located in a prenominal position outside the lexical NP projection. In this sense, epithets and these (pseudo)partitive constructions behave as calificative adjectives. In fact, theses adjectives neither can constitute part of an elliptic gap, so the generalization we arrive is formulated in (6): (6) Any element out of the lexical NP projection can be elided. This support the same conclusion to which Giannakidou & Stavrou 1999 arrived based on data from Greek. At the same time, my analysis supports a structural theory of the so-called ad sensum agreement, against Brucart 1994 who proposes a semantic account. I will demonstrate that a such analysis have both empirical and conceptual problems.