Syntactic variation in Colombian Spanish
The case of the Focalizing Ser (FS) structure
This article examines some of the syntactic properties of the Focalizing ser (FS) structure in Colombian Spanish. The FS has been reported in only a few dialects of Spanish (Venezuelan, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Dominican, and Panamanian), and it is not stigmatized, despite being dialectally marked. Although the FS shows some resemblance to the pseudo-cleft construction, the syntactic analysis included here is based on the premise that the two forms are syntactically different. Looking at the syntactic contexts in which this form may occur, I show that the FS may precede any kind of phrase, serving any kind of syntactic function, as long as it is post-verbal. Furthermore, I illustrate that the agreement relation between FS ser and certain sentential constituents is not random. At the end, I present compelling evidence to suggest that the FS is in a TP-internal Focus Phrase, generated below TP and above vP. Key words: TP-internal focus; functional projection; information structure; dialectal variation
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Méndez Vallejo, Dunia Catalina & Yu-Yin Hsu
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Bosque Muñoz, Ignacio
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Aspectos didácticos de la variación gramatical.
Asterisco: Revista de lingüística española 1
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Sessarego, Sandro & Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach
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