Sintaxis

The Syntax of Spanish

KAREN ZAGONA

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Clear and well-organized, this textbook is an introduction to Spanish syntax, which assumes no prior knowledge of current theory. Beginning with a descriptive overview of the major characteristics of the grammar, it goes on to describe facts about Spanish, such as its word order, notions of “subject,” “direct object,”“auxiliary verb” and so on. The book combines traditional grammatical description with perspectives gained from recent research in the Principles and Parameters framework. It also presents useful theoretical notions such as semantic roles, Case and Predication. Accessibly written, the book gives just enough background so as to allow the reader to understand the lines of investigation that have been pursuedin accounting for such issues as clause structure and constituent order. It will be of use to students who are interested in grammar, Spanish, or in some of the basic results of modern, formal linguistic theory.    is Associate Professor of Linguistics and adjunct Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Washington. She is author of Verb Phrase Syntax: A Parametric Study ofEnglish and Spanish (1988), editor of Grammatical Theory and Romance Languages (1995), and co-editor, with Ivonne Bordelois and Heles Contreras, of Generative Studies in Spanish Syntax (1986).

         
General editors: J. Bresnan, D. Lightfoot, I. Robertson, N. V. Smith, N. Vincent Responding to the increasing interest in comparative syntax, the goal of the CambridgeSyntax Guides is to make available to all linguists major findings, both descriptive and theoretical, which have emerged from the study of particular languages. The series is not committed to working in any particular framework, but rather seeks to make language-specific research available to theoreticians and practitioners of all persuasions. Written by leading figures in the field, these guides willeach include an overview of the grammatical structures of the language concerned. For the descriptivist, the books will provide an accessible introduction to the methods and results of the theoretical literature; for the theoretician, they will show how constructions that have achieved theoretical notoriety fit into the structure of the language as a whole; for everyone, they will promotecross-theoretical and cross-linguistic comparison with respect to a welldefined body of data.

The Syntax of Spanish
K A R EN ZAGONA

PUBLISHED BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS (VIRTUAL PUBLISHING) FOR AND ON BEHALF OF THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, PortMelbourne, VIC 3207, Australia http://www.cambridge.org © Karen Zagona 2002 This edition © Karen Zagona 2003 First published in printed format 2002

A catalogue record for the original printed book is available from the British Library and from the Library of Congress Original ISBN 0 521 57177 4 hardback Original ISBN 0 521 57684 9 paperback

ISBN 0 511 01581 X virtual (netLibrary Edition)For Heles

This page intentionally left blank

Contents
Preface ix Symbols and abbreviations 1 Overview of the grammar
1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7

xi 1
7

Introduction 1 General characteristics of the syntax The subject constituent 26 The predicate constituent 33 Main clauses 48 Subordinate clauses 54 Syntactic dialects 68

2 The Noun Phrase
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9

73Introduction 73 The distribution of argument NPs 73 Predicative NPs 82 The constituents of NP 85 Determiners of argument NPs 94 Pre- and post-determiners 102 Specifiers of predicative NPs 107 Constituent order within NP 109 Summary 116

3 The Verb Phrase
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8

118

Introduction 118 The distribution of VP 118 The external argument of VP 126 Complements of V:...