Margarita Suñer

V-movement and the licensing of argumental Wh-phrases in Spanish

Although verbs in Spanish obligatorily raise through the functional projections of IP, they do not continue to C0. Support is given for this idea based on sluicing, left-dislocated structures, the position of adverbs, and the constituent order in adjunct Wh-questions. The issue then is how to account for the mandatory Wh-V-subject order when the Wh-phrase is argumental. The proposal is that both argumental and adjunct Wh-phrases obey the universal licensing mechanism known as the Wh-Criterion, but that only the former subtype must also comply with a language specific condition: Argumental Agreement Licensing.

Left dislocations with and without epithets

Abstract Left dislocated constructions in the Porteño dialect of Spanish may have, in addition to the obligatory clitic and/or subject agreement marker, an anaphoric epithet doubled by the clitic (CL). This construction sheds some light on the controversial issue of whether the LD phrase reaches its final position via movement or whether it is directly merged where it appears. After summarizing the properties of Clitic Left Dislocations (CLLD), I briefly discuss the movement and the base-generation hypotheses for the LD constituent. I also point out the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. I derive the examples of CLLD with and without epithets by merging the LD phrase directly into TopP while accounting for connectivity effects and select island sensitivity through long distance agreement between the CL and TopP. Finally, I show that the proposal explains the properties of both subtypes of CLLD constructions without the disadvantages of previous accounts.

Sequence of Tenses and the Subjunctive, Again

The topic of sequence of tenses and the subjunctive is not a new one to this journal. Over twenty years ago, Farley (1965) presented eleven patterns which defy the strict sequence of tenses between the verb in the main clause and the one in the embedded clause. His article was followed by others (e.g. Obaid 1967, Farley 1970) which contributed more data against the concordantia temporum principle (also known as consecutio temporum). But what does this principle state? In essence, concordantia temporum claims that the morphophonological form that any subjunctive verb exhibits is determined

Looking down the tree in Spanish

Abstract Three syntactic processes in Spanish: Complementizers, the Subjunctive vs. the Indicative, and the Impersonal se construction are tested against a Chomskian hypothesis which maintains the existence of a certain condition on transformations. This presentation explores the permissibility of transformations to ‘reach down’ into lower sentences. Any resulting non-synonymity proves to be predicted by yet another hypothesis of transformational grammar, that transformations be meaning-preserving. Each of the three syntactic processes explored support both the ban against movement of morphological materials into lower sentences, as well as the meaning-preserving hypothesis. The conclusions drawn demonstrate morphological insertion and meaning preservation to be complementary to the extent that their observation leads to the more general and descriptively adequate solution in each instance.