Emphatic verbal doubling in Rioplatense Spanish: implication for the theory of multiple copy realization

SILVA, MARÍA FLORENCIA

San Pablo

Workshop; 30 Years Distributing Morphology from North to South; 2023

Summary: This presentation focuses on a new empirical domain of local verbal reduplication in Rioplatense Spanish (RS) which doubles the verb (1) or the verb plus its clitics (2):[A]: ¿Estudiaste para el examen? studied.2SG for the exam ‘Did you study for the exam?’ [B]: (Si), estudié estudié. yes studied.1SG studied.1SG ‘(Yes), I studied!’ [A]: ¿Compraste los libros de Chomsky?bought.2SG the books of Chomsky‘Did you buy Chomsky’s books?’ [B]: (Sí), los compré, los compré. yes CL bought.1SG CL bought.1SG ‘(Yes), I bought them!’I explore the nature of this type of verbal doubling in order to assess two theories of verbal duplication, namely: verbal doubling by Fusion (Nunes 2004 and Martins 2007; 2013) or verbal doubling as a consequence of the Sub-Word Deletion Corollary (Saab 2017). The Rioplatense data just show that the latter account seems superior in non-trivial respects.The issue: Within the Romance domain, other varieties of verbal doubling are found in RS (Saab 2008; 2017) and European Portuguese (EP) (Martins 2007; 2013), among other languages. Particularly, EP presents a variety of local doubling very similar to the one in (1) and (2):[A]: O João não comprou o carro, pois não?the João not bought the car‘John didn’t buy the car.’[B]: Comprou comprou. bought.3SG bought.3SG ‘John did buy the car.’ (Martins 2013: 97)However, according to Martins, (1) and (2) should not be possible in RS because “only languages that independently allow verb movement to Σ and verb movement to C display the verb reduplication strategy” (2013: 100). RS, in contrast to EP, does not present verb movement from V to Σ in regular non-imperative clauses, although as the examples in (1) and (2) indicate it allows for local verbal doubling.According to Martins, (3B) derives via V-to-T-to-Σ-to-C successive cyclic movement. Multiple copy realization is possible if there is morphological Fusion of the verb in C. One of the pieces of evidence in favor of Fusion comes from the incompatibility of local verbal doubling with clitics:[A]: Não me devolveste o livro que eu te emprestei, pois não? not me returned.2SG the book that I you-DAT lent ‘You haven’t returned me the book I lent you, did you?’[B]: *Devolvi-te, devolvi-te. returned-you returned-you[B’]: *Devolvi-to, devolvi-to. returned-you.it returned-you.it ‘Yes, I DID.’ (Martins 2007: 110)In contradistinction, in RS verbal doubling also requires clitic repetition:[A]: ¿Devolviste el libro de gramática a la biblioteca? returned.2SG the book of grammar to the library ‘Did you return the grammar book to the library?’[B]: *Devolví, devolví. returned.1SG returned.1SG[B’]: Lo devolví, lo devolví. CL returned.1SG CL returned.1SG ‘I returned it!’Therefore, it is necessary to explore an alternative analysis that departs from Fusion and explains why local verbal doubling is possible in RS.Analysis: Saab (2017) has provided an alternative to Fusion analyses for other varieties of verbal doubling in RS arguing that there is a general restriction that prevents deletion of sub-words:Sub-Word Deletion Corollary: Subwords cannot be elided with independence of the Morphosyntactic words containing them. I then propose that, given the hierarchical structure FocP > ΣP > TP > VP, emphatic affirmative verbal doubling, can be explained through the excorporation of T to Foc.This analysis is indeed very similar to the derivation proposed by Martins for verbal doubling in European Portuguese, with a crucial difference: there is no need for an additional step of morphological Fusion. Excorporation alone is enough to prevent deletion of the lower T, a subword of Σ. I contend that this approach directly derives the clitic repetition in (5B’). Since that clitics are subwords of T, T excorporation to Foc forces double pronunciation of T and all the heads attached to it. This forces us to look for another alternative to the ban of clitic repetition in EP. Namely, one possibility is that in EP clitics are left-adjoined to VP and movement goes through V-to-T-to-Σ and then excorporation of T-to-Foc applies. This potential analysis has two advantages: on one hand, it also departs from Fusion and, on the other hand, is compatible with the presence of verb stranded VP-ellipsis in emphatic affirmative verbal doubling. Selected references: Martins, A. M. 2007. “Double realization of verbal copies in European Portuguese emphatic affirmation”. In N. Corver & J. Nunes (eds.). The copy theory of movement. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 78-118. || Martins, A. M. 2013. “Empathic polarity in European Portuguese and beyond”. Lingua 128: 95-123. || Nunes, Jairo. 2004. Linearization of chains and sideward movement. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. || Saab, A. 2017. “Varieties of verbal doubling in Romance”. Isogloss 3/1.