In search of diagnostics for verb movement: a Rioplatense Spanish case

MARÍA FLORENCIA SILVA

Puebla de Zaragoza

Congreso; II Encuentro de Lingüística Formal; 2021

Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla

This presentation focuses on the different positions of adverbs in Rioplatense Spanish (RS). Building on Cinque (1999), I propose that only very low adverbs are a suitable diagnostic for verb movement.The presence of verb movement from V° to T°/I° in a language can be recognized with two classic diagnostics postulated for French and English by Pollock (1989): negative markers and adverbs. Verb movement is present in those cases in which the inflected verb appears before the adverb (1a) and not in those cases where the verb remains after the adverb (1b):(1) a. Astérix mangeit souvent du sanglier.b. Anne often eats (*often) beans.However, in RS the movement of the verb seems to be optional since adverbs can appear post or preverbally (2). I argue that given the presence of the same adverb in multiple positions along the syntactic structure, it does not follow that verb movement could be determined by the raise of the verb over the adverb:(2) a. Los invitados (probablemente) comen (probablemente) pizza.b. Los invitados (a menudo) comen (a menudo) pizza. I argue that high adverbs are not a good diagnostic for verb movement given that they can be placed post and preverbally. Since verb movement can be diagnosed from the movement of the verb in V° to T° above a specific kind of hierarchical ordered adverbs, I argue that high adverbs are not a suitable diagnostic to test movement because they are merged above the TP.