LINGUIST List 11.402

Sat Feb 26 2000

Qs: Spanish clitic "se",Searching for Helga Humbert

Editor for this issue: James Yuells <jameslinguistlist.org>



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  • Randy Sharp, Spanish clitic "se"
  • S J Hannahs, In search of Helga Humbert

    Message 1: Spanish clitic "se"

     Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 22:58:42 -0800 (PST)
    From: Randy Sharp <randycs.ubc.ca>
    Subject: Spanish clitic "se"


    Dear Linguists,

    I am doing research on the Spanish clitic "se". I've not been able to find much on it; I've found more on Italian "si" (e.g. Manzini 1986, Hyams 1986) and French "se" (Wehrli 1986). I'm trying to do something similar to their approach, i.e. unifying the different uses of "se" into a single morpheme which covers all of the instances of Spanish "se". I would be very grateful if you could direct me to any references on this topic.

    Some immediate questions that I have are the following: (1) What is the "se" in (i)b and (ii)b? (i) a. Lo comio todo. (sorry; no accents) b. Se lo comio todo. (ii) a. Metio las manos en los bolsillos. b. Se metio las menos en los bolsillos.

    Could this be an ethical dative? I've never seen it described as such anywhere. A pedagogical grammar I have describes it as an "affective" or "intensifier", which at best describes its effect.

    (2) Is there any explanation for why the spurious "se" is "se" and not something else? For that matter, is there an explanation for why it even occurs, other than "for phonological reasons"?

    Thank you very much.

    Randy Sharp University of British Columbia

    Manzini, Hyams and Wehrli (1986) are all taken from "Syntax and Semantics: The Syntax of Pronominal Clitics" Vol.19, Hagit Borer (ed.).

    Message 2: In search of Helga Humbert

     Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 12:15:44 +0000 (GMT)
    From: S J Hannahs <S.J.Hannahsdurham.ac.uk>
    Subject: In search of Helga Humbert


    Does anyone in the LINGUIST community know the whereabouts of Helga Humbert (i.e. e-mail and/or terrestrial address)? She has a paper in a volume I co-edited, recently published by Benjamins, and we're trying to get offprints and a copy of the book to her. I've had no success finding her through the normal channels, LINGUIST, LSA, HIL, nor from the Meertens Instituut, Amsterdam, her last known address.

    Many thanks!

    - S.J. Hannahs ============================================== Dr S.J. Hannahs Department of Linguistics and English Language University of Durham, Elvet Riverside, Durham, DH1 3JT phone: +44 (0)191 374-2646 United Kingdom fax: +44 (0)191 374-2685 http://www.dur.ac.uk/Linguistics/hannahs1.html ==============================================