Cover not available
Part of
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. 51–84

Ser, estar and two different modifiers

Assuming a novel model based on a minimal cartography where every syntactic node in the structure encodes semantic information (see Romeu, 2014), in this paper I argue that the difference between ser and estar in Spanish is due to the presence of two different modifiers (Conjoint and Disjoint) of the node Stat (which introduces a state) in their respective underlying structures, similarly to the way that the prepositions a and en are distinguished in Romeu (2014). Although both ser and estar lexicalize Stat, ser can also lexicalize Conjoint, which gives the interpretation that there is only one state in the situation described, and estar also lexicalizes Disjoint, which gives the interpretation that the state encoded by Stat is linked to a different state and that there exists a link or relation between these two states. This contrast accounts for the different properties of ser and estar that have been pointed out in the literature: individual-level/stage-level opposition, permanent/temporary interpretation, scalar interpretation of estar, evidential use of estar, etc.
Keywords: Conjoint, copulas, Disjoint, estar, semantics, ser, Spanish, states, syntax
Published online: 28 October 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.5.03rom
References (50)
References
Amritavalli, R., & Jayaseelan, K.A. (2003). The genesis of syntactic categories and parametric variation. In H.J. Yoon (Ed.), Generative Grammar in a Broader Perspective: Proceedings of the 4th GLOW in Asia 2003 (pp. 19–41). Seoul, South Korea: Hankook.Google Scholar
Arche, M.J. (2006). Individuals in time: Tense, aspect and the individual/stage distinction. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bassa, M., & Romeu, J. (2014). A minimal cartography of differential object marking in Spanish. To appear in Iberia, 8.Google Scholar
Bolinger, D. (1947). Still more on ser and estar . Hispania, 30, 361–366. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bosque, I. (1990). Sobre el aspecto en los participios y los adjetivos. In I. Bosque (Ed.), Tiempo y aspecto en español (pp. 177–210). Madrid, Spain: Cátedra.Google Scholar
Brucart, J.M. (2010). La alternancia ser y estar y las construcciones atributivas de localización. In A. Avellana (Ed.), Actas del V Encuentro de Gramática Generativa (pp. 115–152). Neuquén, Argentina: Editorial Universitaria del Comahue.Google Scholar
Camacho, J. (2012). Ser and estar: Individual/stage level predicates or aspect? In J.I. Hualde, A. Olarrea & E. O’Rourke (Eds.), The handbook of hispanic linguistics (Blackwell handbooks in linguistics) (pp. 453–476). Oxford, England: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carlson, G. (1977). Reference to kinds in English (Doctoral Dissertation). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Amherst.Google Scholar
Chung, S., & McCloskey, J. (1987). Government, barriers and small clauses in modern Irish. Linguistic Inquiry, 18, 173–237.Google Scholar
Clements, J.C. (1988). The semantics and pragmatics of Spanish <COPULA+ADJECTIVE> construction. Linguistics, 26, 779–822. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Demonte, V. (2011). Los eventos de movimiento en español: construcción léxico-sintáctica y microparámetros preposicionales. In J. Cuartero Otal, L. García & C. Sinner (eds.), Estudios sobre perífrasis y aspecto (pp. 16–42). München, Germany: Peniope.Google Scholar
Diesing, M. (1992). Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
. (1988). Bare plural subjects and the stage/individual contrast. In M. Krifka (Ed.), Genericity in natural language. Proceedings of the 1998 Tübingen Conference (pp. 107–154). Tübingen, Germany: University of Tübingen: SNS-Bericht 88-42.Google Scholar
Escandell-Vidal, M.V., & Leonetti, M. (2002). Coercion and the stage/individual distinction. In J. Gutierrez-Rexach (Ed.), From words to discourse: Trends in Spanish semantics and pragmatics (pp. 159–179). Oxford, England: Elsevier Science.Google Scholar
Fábregas, A. (2012). A guide to IL and SL in Spanish: Properties, problems and proposals. Borealis. An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 1(2), 1–71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2007). An exhaustive lexicalisation account of directional complements. Nordlyd: Tromsø Working Papers on Language & Linguistics, 34(2), 165–199.Google Scholar
Fernández Leborans, M.J. (1999). La predicación: las oraciones copulativas. In I. Bosque & V. Demonte (Dir.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española (pp. 2357–2460). Madrid, Spain: RAE/Espasa.Google Scholar
. (1995). Las construcciones con el verbo estar: aspectos sintácticos y semánticos. Verba, 22, 253–284.Google Scholar
Gallego, Á. (2010). On the prepositional nature of non-finite verbs. Catalan Journal of Linguistics, 9, 79–102.Google Scholar
Gallego, Á. & Uriagereka, J. (2011). The lexical syntax of ser and estar (Unpublished manuscript). Barcelona, Spain: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and College Park, MD: University of Maryland.
Gallego, Á., & Uriagereka, J. (2009). Estar=Ser+P. Paper presented at the XIX Colloquium on Generative Grammar. Universidad del País Vasco, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain: April 1–3, 2009.
Gumiel-Molina, S., Moreno-Quibén, N., & Pérez-Jiménez, I. (2015). Comparison classes and the relative/absolute distinction: A degree-based compositional account of the ser/estar alternation in Spanish. To appear in B. Gehrke & E. Castroviejo (eds.), Degree and manner modification across categories, special volume of Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hale, K. (1986). Notes on world view and semantic categories: Some Warlpiri examples. In P. Muysken & H. van Riemsdijk (Eds.), Features and projections (pp. 233–254). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris.Google Scholar
Hale, K., & Keyser, S.J. (2002). Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G.K. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1983). Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jiménez-Fernández, Á. (2012). What information structure tells us about individual/stage-level predicates. Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 1, 1–32. Retrieved from <[URL]> DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kratzer, A. (1995). Stage-level and individual-level predicates. In G. Carlson & F.J. Pelletier (eds.), The generic book (pp. 125–176). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
. (1989). An investigation of the lumps of thought. Linguistics and Philosophy, 12, 607–653. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Luján, M. (1981). The Spanish copulas as aspectual indicators. Lingua, 54, 165–210. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maienborn, C. (2005). A discourse-based account of Spanish ser/estar . Linguistics, 43(1), 155–180. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marín, R. (2004). Entre ser y estar. Madrid, Spain: Arco/Libros.Google Scholar
. (2000). El componente aspectual de la predicación. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Barcelona, Spain: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Mateu, J. (2002). Argument structure: Relational construal at the syntax-semantics interface. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Barcelona, Spain: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Google Scholar
McNally, L. (1994). Adjunct predicates and the individual/stage distinction. In E. Duncan, D. Farkas & P. Spaelti (Eds.), The Proceedings of the Twelfth West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (pp. 561–576). Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University.Google Scholar
RAE-ASALE (2009). Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid, Spain: RAE/Espasa.Google Scholar
Ramchand, G. (2008). Verb Meaning and the Lexicon: A First Phase Syntax. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar.
Raposo, E., & Uriagereka, J. (1995). Two types of small clauses (toward a syntax of theme/rheme relations). In A. Cardinaletti & M.T. Guasti (Eds.), Small clauses (pp. 179–206). New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Roby, D.B. (2009). Aspect and the categorization of states: The case of ser and estar in Spanish . Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Romero, J. (2009). El sujeto en las construcciones copulativas. Verba, 36, 195–214.Google Scholar
Romeu, J. (2014). Cartografía mínima de las construcciones espaciales (Doctoral Dissertation). Madrid, Spain: Universidad Complutense de Madrid-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.Google Scholar
. (2013). A vs. en in Spanish locatives. In N. Lavidas, T. Alexiou & A.M. Sougari (Eds.), Major Trends in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics: Selected Papers from the 20th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Vol. I (pp. 459–474). London, England: Versita.Google Scholar
Starke, M. (2007). Nanosyntax class lectures. Center for Advanced Studies in Theoretical Linguistics, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway: Fall 2007.
. (2001). Move reduces to merge: A theory of locality (Doctoral Dissertation). Geneva, Switzerland: University of Geneva.Google Scholar
Svenonius, P. (2006). The emergence of axial parts. In P. Svenonius & M. Pantcheva (Eds.), Adpositions, special issue of Nordlyd: Tromsø Working Papers in Language and Linguistics, 33(1) (pp. 49–77). Tromsø, Norway: University of Tromsø. Retrieved from <[URL]>Google Scholar
de Swart, H. (1991). Adverbs of quantification: A generalized quantifier approach. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Groningen, The Netherlands: Groningen University.Google Scholar
Uriagereka, J. (2001). Adjectival clues. Keynote speech at Acquisition of Spanish & Portuguese/Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL: October 11–14, 2001.
Zagona, K. (2012). Ser and estar: Phrase structure and aspect. In C. Nishida & C. Russi (Eds.), Building a bridge between linguistic communities of the Old and the New World, Cahiers Chronos, 25 (pp. 303–327). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Zagona, K., & Contreras, H. (2011). Sobre la incompatibilidad entre ser y los adjetivos con complemento. In M.V. Escandell-Vidall, M. Leonetti & C. Sánchez López (Eds.), 60 problemas de gramática (pp. 106–110). Madrid, Spain: Akal.Google Scholar
Zwarts, J., & Winter, Y. (2000). Vector space semantics: A model theoretic analysis of locative prepositions. Journal of Logic, Language, and Information, 9, 169–211. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Bazaco, Carmelo & Melvin González-Rivera
2020. Nominal predication withestar. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 13:2 ► pp. 251 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 september 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.