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New Perspectives on the Study of Ser and Estar
Edited by Isabel Pérez-Jiménez, Manuel Leonetti and Silvia Gumiel-Molina
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 5] 2015
► pp. 23–50

More than a copula

complex predicates with estar and the clitic se

| ILLA-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
| ILLA-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

This paper aims to provide an analysis of the construction consisting of the clitic se and the copula estar ‘beESTAR’ followed by an adjective (estarse + A) in Spanish. Combining the clitic with the copula triggers two changes in ‘estar + A’ predicates: first, it modifies the eventive structure and, as a consequence, a complex event is obtained that consists of an achievement followed by a result state; and second, it modifies the thematic role of the subject entity from theme to agent by increasing its degree of involvement in the event. This effect of the clitic is not limited to the copula estar ‘beESTAR’, but rather there is a parallel in other predicates with consumption verbs such as comer ‘to eat’ and movement verbs such as salir ‘to leave’.

Keywords: agentivity, clitic se, copulas, lexical aspect, states, theta theory
Published online: 28 October 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.5.02gar
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Fábregas, Antonio
2021. SE in Spanish. Borealis – An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 10:2 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Silvagni, Federico
2022. Whenestaris not there: A cross-linguistic analysis of individual/stage-level copular sentences in Romance. Open Linguistics 8:1 ► pp. 108 ff. DOI logo

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