Chapter 7
Middle formation and inalienability in Asturian
Asturian middle-passive contexts containing activity verbs, such as lleer (to read), as well as a relational or body-part noun as their grammatical subject allow for the insertion of a non-selected dative argument interpreted as the inalienable possessor of such noun. Two configurations can yield these structures: one where the dative phrase raises to preverbal subject position, and another where the dative DP is left-dislocated and the theme in subject position. Interestingly, an analysis relying on the notion of low applicative heads relating the possessor and the possessee cannot successfully account for these configurations. An approach whereby the inalienable possession construal arises inside the DP-theme and subsequently spreads to the applicative head that introduces the dative possessor successfully overcomes this shortcoming.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Structural properties of middle-passives
- 3.Two positions for preverbal datives in middle-passive contexts
- 4.The analysis
- 5.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
Abbreviations
-
References
References (52)
References
Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2001). Gramática de la llingua asturiana [Tercera edición]. Academia de la Llingua Asturiana.
Ackema, P. & Schoorlemmer, M. (1994). The middle construction and the syntax-semantics interface. Lingua, 93, 59–90. 

Ackema, P. & Schoorlemmer, M. (1995). Middles and nonmovement. Linguistic Inquiry, 26, 173–197.
Ackema, P. & Schoorlemmer, M. (2006). Middles. In M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk. (eds.). The Blackwell Companion to Syntax 1 (pp. 131–203). Blackwell. 

Alexiadou, A., Haegeman, L. & Stavrou, M. (2007). Noun phrase in the generative perspective. Mouton de Gruyter. 

Bhatt, R. & Pancheva, R. (2006). Implicit arguments. In M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk. (eds.). The Blackwell companion to syntax 1 (pp. 558–588). Blackwell. 

Chierchia, G. (2003). A semantics for unaccusatives and its syntactic consequences. In A. Alexiadou, E. Anagnostopoulou & M. Everaert. (eds.). The unaccusativity puzzle. Explorations of the syntax-lexicon interface (pp. 60–84). Oxford University Press.
Cuervo, M. C. (2003). Datives at large. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation] Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Demonte, V. (1988). El ‘artículo en lugar del posesivo’ y el control de los sintagmas nominales. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 36, 89–108. 

Demonte, V. (1991). El ‘artículo en lugar del posesivo’ y el control de los sintagmas nominales. In V. Demonte. (ed.). Detrás de la palabra. Estudios de gramática del español (pp. 235–255). Alianza Editorial.
Demonte, V. (1995). Dative alternation in Spanish. Probus, 7, 5–30. 

Dixon, R. M. W. (1982). Where have all the adjectives gone? And other essays in semantics and syntax. Mouton. 

Fábregas, A., Jiménez-Fernández, Á. & Tubino Blanco, M. (2017). What’s up with dative experiencers? In R. E. V. Lopes, J. Ornelas de Avelar & S. M. L. Cyrino. (eds.). Romance Languages and Lingustic Theory. Selected papers from the 45th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL). Campinas, Brazil (pp. 29–48). John Benjamins Publishing Company. 

Fagan, S. (1992). The syntax and semantics of middle constructions. A study with special reference to German. Cambridge University Press.
Fernández Rubiera, F. (2009). Clitics at the edge. Clitic Placement in Western Iberian Romance languages. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Georgetown University.
Fernández Sánchez, J. (2017). Right dislocation as a biclausal phenomenon. Evidence from Romance languages. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Fernández Soriano, O. (1999”. Two types of impersonal sentences in Spanish: Locative and dative subjects. Syntax, 2, 101–140. 

Guéron, J. (1983). L’emploi ‘Possessif’ de l’article défini en Français. Langue Française, 58, 23–55. 

Guéron, J. (1985). Inalienable possession. PRO-inclusion and lexical chains. In J. Guéron, H. -G. Obenauer & J. -Y. Pollock. (eds.). Grammatical representation (pp. 43–86). Foris.
Hale, K. & Keyser, S. J. (1986). Some transitivity alternations in English. Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca “Julio de Urquijo”, 20, 605–638.
Harley, H. (2014). On the identity of roots. Theoretical Linguistics, 40, 225–276. 

Hoekstra, T. & Roberts, I. (1993). Middle constructions in Dutch and English. In E. Reuland & A. Werner. (eds.). Knowledge and Language (Volume II: Lexical and Conceptual Structure) (pp. 183–220). Kluwer. 

Landau, I. (1999). Possessor raising and the structure of VP. Lingua, 107, 1–37. 

Lema, J. & Rivero, M. L. (1990). Long head-movement: ECP vs. HMC. In J. Carter, R. -M. Déchaine, B. Philip & T. Sherer. (eds.). NELS 20 (pp. 333–347). GLSA.
López, L. (2009). A derivational syntax for information structure. Oxford University Press. 

Keyser, S. J. & Roeper, T. (1984). On the middle and ergative constructions in English. Linguistic Inquiry, 3, 381–416.
Kratzer, A. (1996). Severing the external argument from its verb. In J. Rooryck & L. Zaring. (eds.). Phrase structure and the lexicon (pp. 109–137). Springer. 

Marantz, A. (1984). On the nature of grammatical relations. MIT Press.
Masullo, P. J. (1992). Quirky datives in Spanish and the non-nominative subject parameter. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 16, 82–103.
Mendikoetxea, A. (1999). Construcciones con “se”: medias, pasivas e impersonales. In I. Bosque & V. Demonte. (eds.). Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española (pp. 1575–1630). Espasa Calpe.
Olarrea, A. (2012). Word order and information structure. In J. I. Hualde, A. Olarrea & E. O’Rourke. (eds.). The handbook of Hispanic linguistics (pp. 603–628). John Wiley & Sons. 

Pylkkänen, L. (2002). Introducing arguments. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Pylkkänen, L. (2008). Introducing arguments. MIT Press. 

Radford, A. (2000). NP shells. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics, 33, 2–20.
Roberts, I. (1987). The representation of implicit and dethematized subjects. Foris. 

Roberts, I. (2010). Agreement and head movement. Clitics, incorporation, and defective goals. MIT Press. 

Sánchez López, C. (2002). Las construcciones con se. Estado de la cuestión. In C. Sánchez López. (ed.). Las construcciones con se. Visor.
Sánchez López, C. (2007). The possessive dative and the syntax of affected arguments. Cuadernos de Lingüística del IUI Ortega y Gasset, XVI, 153–173.
Stroik, T. (1992). Middles and movement. Linguistic Inquiry, 23, 127–137.
Stroik, T. (1995). On middle formation: A reply to Zribi-Hertz. Linguistic Inquiry, 26(1). 165–171.
Stroik, T. (1999). Middles and reflexivity. Linguistic Inquiry, 30, 119–131. 

Suárez-Palma, I. (2019). Stuck in the middle. Dative arguments and middle-passive constructions in Spanish. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation] University of Arizona.
Suárez-Palma, I. (2021a). Construcciones mediopasivas no agentivas en asturiano. Lletres Asturianes, 124, 9–31. 

Suárez-Palma, I. (2021b). Grammatical encoding of agency in Asturian middle constructions. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 6(1). 

Suñer, M. (1982). Syntax and semantics of Spanish presentational sentence-types. Georgetown University Press.
Tubino Blanco, M. (2007). Preverbal datives in Spanish: how quirky are they? An Agree analysis of gustar. [Unpublished manuscript].
Vergnaud, J. R. & Zubizarreta, M. L. (1992). The definite determiner and the inalienable constructions in French and in English. Linguistic Inquiry, 23, 595–652.
Villalba, X. (2000). The syntax of sentence periphery. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation] Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Zribi-Hertz, A. (1993). On Stroik’s analysis of English middle constructions. Linguistic Inquiry, 24, 583–589.
Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
Suárez-Palma, Imanol
2024.
Inalienable possession (and lack thereof) in Spanish.
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 17:1
► pp. 109 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.