LINGUIST List 26.2543
Tue May 19 2015
Review: Historical Ling; Syntax: Rosemeyer (2014)
Editor for this issue: Sara Couture <saralinguistlist.org>
Date: 29-Sep-2014
From: Adina Dragomirescu <adina_drag
yahoo.com>
Subject: Auxiliary Selection in Spanish
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AUTHOR: Malte Rosemeyer
TITLE: Auxiliary Selection in Spanish
SUBTITLE: Gradience, gradualness, and conservation
SERIES TITLE: Studies in Language Companion Series 155
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2014
REVIEWER: Adina Dragomirescu, Romanian Academy, Institute of Linguistics
Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry
AUTHOR: Rosemeyer, Malte
TITLE: Auxiliary Selection in Spanish. Gradience, gradualness, and conservation
SUMMARY
This book is dedicated to the auxiliary selection in Spanish; more specifically, it deals with the Old Spanish competition between HABER + past participle (PtcP) and SER + PtcP, aiming to account for the existence of this competition in Old Spanish and for the loss of the SER + PtcP construction, which began in Early Modern Spanish and generalized in Modern Spanish. The book is made up of eight chapters, followed by the References, an appendix which summarizes the corpus and the verbal lexemes dealt with in the book (Chapter 9), and an index. The theoretical framework adopted is Construction Grammar.
The first chapter, “Introduction” (pp. 1-7), contains the aim and concepts of the book, and also outlines its structure. The author introduces here two of the main theoretical notions used in what follows; they are strongly interrelated, i.e. diachronic ‘gradualness’ (a construction intrudes into the usage contexts of another construction, a process in small steps) and synchronic ‘gradience’(increases in the usage frequency of a construction). The corpus is also broadly delimited from the beginning: Spanish historiographical texts between 1270 and 1699. The distribution of HABER and SER is also outlined: in Old Spanish, HABER was already used as an auxiliary for all transitives, whereas for intransitives, there was competition (although not free variation) between the two auxiliaries. The book will thus focus on the usage of these auxiliaries with intransitive verbs. The hypothesis is that the two auxiliaries had different functions: HABER + PtcP had a temporal function (expressing anteriority), whereas SER + PtcP usually had an aspectual function, being used as a resultative construction.
In chapter 2, “Theoretical prerequisites” (pp. 9-37), an introduction to the theories of auxiliary selection is presented. The author explains the general issue of linguistic variation, focussing on auxiliary selection variation. Several parameters interacting with auxiliary selection are considered: geographical distribution, type of intransitive verb, reflexivity, postverbal subjects, adverbial modification, etc., the relevance of which will be questioned for Old Spanish in the following chapters. Sorace’s (2000, 2004) Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy (ASH) is also of interest to the author, since it does not seem to be relevant for Spanish, although it is for other (Romance) languages (such as French, Italian, etc.). This chapter also contains a brief presentation of auxiliary selection in Old Spanish and of the evolution of this phenomenon, as well as a critical overview of the previous literature on this topic.
In chapter 3, “A constructional approach to Spanish auxiliary selection” (pp. 39-73), it is shown that Old Spanish HABER + PtcP emerged as a construction expressing anteriority, whereas in its prototypical use, Old Spanish SER + PtcP does not express anteriority. The proposal put forth here is the following one: Old Spanish SER + PtcP is a copula + PtcP construction with an aspectual function, whereas Old Spanish HABER + PtcP is an auxiliary + PtcP construction with a temporal function. As is often mentioned, the term ‘construction’ is used in line with the family of grammatical theories termed Construction Grammar. A special section is dedicated to the comparison between resultative constructions and anterior constructions, given that these are key concepts for explaining the competition between the two auxiliaries in the following chapters. Another important issue dealt with here is the origins of Spanish auxiliary selection, i.e. HABER + PtcP and SER + PtcP are not considered Spanish innovations but rather as having been in competition since Latin and Early Romance. The lack of temporal specification of these constructions in Latin explains their function in Old Spanish: SER + PtcP is a copula + PtcP construction with a resultative function, whereas HABER + PtcP is an auxiliary + PtcP construction expressing anteriority. At the end of the chapter, the author raises the problem of why Spanish does not obeys Sorace’s ASH.
Chapter 4, “A model of linguistic disappearances” (pp. 76-103), focuses on frequency effects in grammatical change. The author proposes a model of linguistic disappearances that aims to predict the directionality and speed of the process by which Spanish SER + PtcP was lost. In order to pave the way for the two following chapters, Malte Rosemeyer reviews the processes by which constructions disappear, survive (remanence, conservation, persistence), or expand (i.e. not only grammaticalization but also actualization / analogical transfer / analogization / analogy (generalization) / regularization). The crucial question is not “How often does a construction appear in corpus?” but rather “In how many usage contexts does a construction appear in the corpus?” The model proposed for linguistic disappearances can be schematized as follows: the actualization of construction A leads to the intrusion of that construction into usage contexts associated with construction B; as a result, a paradigmatic opposition between these two constructions is established; the replaced construction decreases in both type and token frequency.
In chapter 5, “Methodology and corpus” (pp. 105-136), the corpus and the methodology of the corpus study are presented. Although the two following chapters are based on quantitative data modelled with statistical methods, the author points out several problems related to corpus studies in general: the identification of discourse traditions (which means an important frequency rate of a certain pattern in the texts), the copying and transmission of versions of old texts (which creates idiolectal differences and different temporal layers in the same text), intertextuality, etc.
Chapters 6 and 7 present the results of the research. Chapter 6, “Auxiliary selection in Old Spanish” (pp. 137-185), offers very rich quantitative data which support the constructional approach to Old Spanish auxiliary selection proposed in Chapter 3. After sketching the periodization with which he will work (Old Spanish (1200-1424) vs Early Modern Spanish, which includes Pre-Classical Spanish (1425-1524) and Classical Spanish (1525-1699)), the author summarizes the results of his corpus study: (i) while Old Spanish HABER + PtcP can be characterized as an emerging anterior, SER + PtcP has inherited the resultative function of Latin ESSE + PtcP; (ii) the inherent reflexive function of the middle voice in Latin is to some degree continued in the Old Spanish ser + PtcP construction; (iii) the opposition between HABER + PtcP and SER + PtcP is rather stable in Old Spanish historiographical texts; (iv) the process by which SER + PtcP was eventually replaced with HABER + PtcP had not yet gathered force in Old Spanish texts; the spread of HABER + PtcP gathered speed only in Early Modern Spanish.
In order to formulate these conclusions, the influence of the following parameter clusters on Old Spanish auxiliary selection are analyzed in turn: date of occurrence, auxiliated verbs, reflexivity, subject referentiality, locative, manner and intention expressions, temporal adverbial modification and number marking, modality, temporal-aspectual morphology, persistence effects. The general conclusion of this chapter is that the distribution of Old Spanish ser + PtcP and haber + PtcP can be explained by four central differences between resultative and anterior constructions: transitivity, reference to event vs. reference to resultant state, persistence of resultant state, and discourse function.
While the previous chapter focused on the Old Spanish period, Chapter 7, “Gradualness and conservation in the loss of SER + PtcP” (pp. 185-261), mainly concerns Early Modern Spanish. In many points, the author used as a reference point Aranovich’s (2003) work. The main observation is that the relative stability of auxiliary selection between 1270 and 1424 was lost in the time span between 1425 and 1699 by the expansion of HABER+ PtcP into contexts of use formerly associated with SER + PtcP: more and more verbs began selecting HABER + PtcP after the beginning of the 15th century. The analysis is very detailed, with a great amount of (quantitative) data. The author pays special attention to the differences related to timing: certain predicate classes are affected by the actualization of HABER + PtcP later than others. While it is obvious that frequency effects slow down the speed of the expansion of HABER + PtcP and persistence has also a conserving effect, the probability for writers to stop using a verb in SER + PtcP construction is more difficult to determine. Therefore the author makes use of a complicated calculus, ‘discrete-time hazard models’ (also used for mortality research in the sociological field), and employs a mathematical formula (a cumulative measurement) for survival probability. This complicated analysis confirms the result from the model of Old Spanish auxiliary selection in that stative predicates appear to have been affected by the actualization of HABER + PtcP as early as in Old Spanish; the most important semantic parameters are directed change and telicity, these parameters accounting not only for much of the variability regarding Old Spanish auxiliary selection, but also for the longevity of ser-selection with certain verbs (also augmented by discourse tradition).
Chapter 8, “Conclusions” (pp. 263-275) summarizes the findings of this research. First of all, the author shows that there is a relative continuity of the function of SER + PtcP between Latin and Old Spanish. In Old Spanish SER + PtcP often had a resultative function, while HABER + PtcP was used to indicate anteriority, a temporal notion, and thus refers to events; thus, Old Spanish HABER and SER are different types of auxiliaries. The replacement of SER by HABER dates back to Early Modern Spanish. The influence of several parameters for the choice of one auxiliary over another is carefully investigated and the hierarchy of these parameters is not always as expected (for example, reflexivity, reciprocity and number marking have a more important role than it was previously thought). As for the relevance of this research for studies of auxiliary selection, the author underlines the importance of the ‘variationist methodology’ for obtaining finer-grained explanations of the interplay between synchronic and diachronic processes; concepts as ‘gradience’ and ‘gradualness’ can be used in the study of similar phenomena from other languages; the arguments about the (Latin) origin of these constructions are useful for other Romance languages as well.
EVALUATION
The main goal of the book (which targets mainly linguists working in Romance diachronic syntax) is to present a very detailed corpus study of auxiliary selection in Old Spanish. The most important merits of the book are thus related to the presentation of the data. It is worth mentioning, on the one hand, the large amount of data illustrating different situations, and, on the other hand, the extremely rich and relevant quantitative data. The book is very rich in tables summarizing these quantitative data; the methodology is always described in detail. The statistics are very carefully realized, and the parameters of variations are introduced in turn, in the relevant points. The author is very trenchant in the selection of his corpus (only historiographical writings), in order to obtain comparable results for different periods. Taking into account the periodization in the statistics was very helpful, because important differences related to the distribution of SER and HABER were identified when comparing Old Spanish to Early Modern Spanish. Moreover, the author’s option for a specific theoretical framework, Construction Grammars, is clearly presented from the beginning, and all the concepts specific to this framework (although not too many) are carefully defined when used for the first time. In the final part of the book, the author is interested in providing different suggestions related to the way in which his research can be continued and his findings can be of help to linguists working in the same topic but in different languages.
Finally, a few weak points of the book need to be mentioned. First, maybe because of the strong theoretical option, the relevant literature on Latin and Early Romance auxiliaries is often ignored (for example, the very recent book by Adams 2013) or is not sufficiently exploited (for example, the seminal study by Harris 1982). A better grasp of the relevant literature on this topic would have led to more nuanced conclusions, maybe more relevant not only for Spanish linguistics but for Romance linguistics in general. Secondly, although the statistical data are very important, in Chapters 6 and 7 it seems that mathematical formulas take over the presentation and the relevance of the data, and many speculations related to the disappearance of the SER constructions are presented to the prejudice of the real data. Finally, even if a long book needs to remind the readers of some of the key concepts, in the present case, this is done too frequently (for example, the differences between anterior constructions and resultatives, or the parameters taken into consideration for statistics are described several times). However, these small objections do not diminish the importance of the book.
REFERENCES
Adams, James. 2013. Social Variation and the Latin Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Aranovich, Raul. 2003. The semantics of auxiliary selection in Old Spanish. Studies in Language 27(1): 1-37.
Harris, Martin. 1982. The “Past Simple” and the “Present Perfect” in Romance. In Studies in the Romance verb. Martin Harris and Nigel Vincent (eds). 42-70. London: Croon Helm.
Sorace, Antonella. 2000. Gradients in auxiliary selection with intransitive verbs. Language 76: 859-890.
Sorace, Antonella. 2004. Gradience at the Lexicon–Syntax Interface: Evidence from Auxiliary Selection for Unaccusativity. In The Unaccusativity Puzzle. Explorations of the Syntax-Lexicon Interface, Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou and Marin Everaert (eds). 243–268. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Adina Dragomirescu is a Researcher at “Iorgu Iordan -- Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy, Department of Grammar, and Lecturer at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Letters, where she teaches Romanian syntax, morphology, and phonology, and Romance syntax. In 2009, she defended her PhD dissertation, “Ergativity, typology, syntax, semantics”, which was published in 2010 by Bucharest University Press. In 2013, she has published a book on the Romanian supine. She is the co-author of 8 other books (among which “The Grammar of Romanian”, OUP, 2013) and has published around 100 articles and book reviews. Her current interests are historical syntax, grammaticalization, and linguistic typology.
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