Linguística : Revista de Estudos Linguísticos da Universidade do Porto 

About: Linguística : Revista de Estudos Linguísticos da Universidade do Porto is an academic journal published by University of Porto. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Linguistics & Computer science. It has an ISSN identifier of 1646-6195. It is also open access. Over the lifetime, 135 publications have been published receiving 362 citations.

Copular alternation in Spanish and Catalan attributive sentences

Abstract: This paper deals with copular selection in Spanish and Catalan attributive clauses. We develop an analysis of the copular alternation that is based on the relation of coincidence. Locative attributives, the class of copular sentences that has received less attention in the literature, are analyzed in detail. It is concluded that locative attributives express an abstract path; that is, a terminal coincidence relation between a figure (the entity that is located) and a ground (the location). The use of estar in these sentences is justified by the fact that this copula has an interpretable terminal coincidence feature that can license its uninterpretable counterpart in the attributive clause. Nevertheless, ser –the default copula– can also co-occur in locative attributives when the notion of bounded path is already incorporated in the entity that is being located. This is the case in Catalan, which uses a –a preposition that expresses a limit– instead of en –a central coincidence preposition. The copula ser also appears in the location of eventive entities and in path noun constructions. The terminal coincidence feature of estar can also superimpose a delimiting aspectual boundary to the attributive relation when there is no uninterpretable terminal coincidence feature to value in it. In these cases, evidential and sensorial readings are conveyed. Finally, a possible analysis is sketched for the differences in the selection of the copula between Spanish and Catalan with participles and perfective adjectives. It is suggested that the selection of estar in these cases may be due to the fact that both classes have a weaker functional structure in Spanish than in Catalan.

Code switching in student-student interaction; functions and reasons!

Abstract: Today’s students of English will communicate mostly with non-native speakers, in predominantly non-native speaking environments. English teachers know that if they are to realistically prepare students for international communication, they must focus on speaking activities that promote communicative competence and fluency. Presence of mother tongue in communicative exchanges is frequently detected by teachers in EFL classrooms. This study analyses student-student interaction during a group-work speaking activity, to uncover some of the reasons for code switching (CS). It also presents participants’ perspectives revealing mixed feelings towards this linguistic behaviour, which is sometimes intentional and sometimes unconscious. The aim of this paper is to illustrate how EFL students alternate between foreign language and native language to perform certain pragmatic functions and counter-balance for language deficiencies. It also considers the relationship between students’ language level and the functional character of their switches.

Evidentials dizque and que in Spanish: Grammaticalization, parameters and the (fine) structure of Comp

Abstract: In this paper we study one type of Spanish que (the equivalent to the complementizer “that”) that can be shown to belong into the crosslinguistically restricted list of evidentials. In particular, we will claim that it encodes the (most basic) marks of nonfirst-hand or indirect (reported) evidence. Our point of departure is certain (apparently) independent clauses of Spanish headed by an overt complementizer (que). Some tests will be presented that support the idea that that one type of que introducing a well specified subset of root sentences shares most of the properties that have been claimed to characterize reportative evidentials in languages such as Quechua (Faller 2002, 2006). As for the properties of reportative que, it will be further shown that it does not encode any features related to epistemic modality (reliability or (im)probability) and we will propose that it is better analyzed as an illocutionary operator, affecting the illocutionary force (in line with Faller 2002 among others) and not as an epistemic modal (Izvorsky 1997 among others). In order to determine the nature of this reportative element and its origin, we contrast it with an old Spanish form, dizque, which exists nowadays in certain modern American varieties. This particle also has the properties of an evidential but behaves as an epistemic modal. In the last sections, we will propose that both evidential particles (que and dizque) are the result of a process of grammaticalization (i.e. ‘upward reanalysis’, or categorial change, of functional material, in the sense of Roberts and Roussou 2003) of the complex structure headed by a communication verb, dicen que “they say that”. We will tentatively describe such process and introduce a hypothesis as to the nature and role of the parameter involved in the claimed reanalysis.

On Double-Headed Relative Clauses

Abstract: The present article documents the presence in a number of languages and language families (as well as in various child languages) of relative clauses displaying simultaneously an internal and an external head, and considers the implications of this finding for the general theory of relative clauses.

The nominalized infinitive in French: structure and change

Abstract: Many European languages have both nominal and verbal nominalized infinitives. They differ, however, in the degree to which the nominalized infinitives possess nominal and verbal properties. In this paper, nominalized infinitives in French are analyzed. It is shown that, whereas Old French was like other Romance languages in possessing both nominal and verbal nominalized infinitives, Modern French differs parametrically from other Romance languages in not having verbal infinitives and in allowing nominal infinitives only in a scientific style of speech. An analysis is proposed, within a syntactic approach to morphology. that tries to account for the loss of the verbal properties of the nominalized infinitive in French. It is proposed that the loss results from a change in word order (the loss of the OV word order in favor of the VO word order) and a change in the morphological analysis of the nominalized infinitive: instead of a zero suffix analysis, a derivational analysis was adopted by the speakers of French. It is argued that the derivational analysis restricted nominalization to Vo, which made nominalization of infinitives less iverbali than in other Romance languages.