Article published in:
New Perspectives on the Study of Ser and E star
Edited by Isabel Pérez-Jiménez, Manuel Leonetti and Silvia Gumiel-Molina
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 5] 2015
► pp. 173–202

What do Spanish copulas have in common with Tibetan evidentials?

The Spanish copula estar ‘be.stage-level’ has both well-known aspectual restrictions and evidential uses. Tibetan evidential ‘dug also shows similar aspectual constraints. Both features are derived from assuming that the relevant property in both cases is the gradability of the predicate, which establishes a comparison class within-individuals (yielding estar ‘be.stage-level’) or between-individuals (yielding ser ‘be.individual-level’). A between-individual comparison class is anchored by the nature of the comparison, whereas a within-individual comparison class must be contextually located. This location requirement results in the possibility of having evidential readings.
Keywords: ‘dug, comparison class, estar, evidentiality, gradability, individual-level, ser, stage-level
Published online: 28 October 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.5.07cam
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Adamou, Evangelia, Stefano De Pascale, Yekaterina García-Márkina & Cristian Padure
2019. Do bilinguals generalize estar more than monolinguals and what is the role of conceptual transfer?. International Journal of Bilingualism 23:6 ► pp. 1549 ff. Crossref logo
Bazaco, Carmelo & Melvin González-Rivera
2020. Nominal predication with estar . Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 13:2 ► pp. 251 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 october 2021. 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.

References

References

Agha, A.
(1993) Structural form and utterance context in Lhasa Tibetan: Grammar and indexicality in a non-configurational language. New York, NY: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Arche, M.J.
(2006) Individuals in time: Tense, aspect and the individual/stage distinction. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bolinger, D.
(1972) Degree words. The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Brucart, J.M.
(2012) Copular alternations in Spanish and Catalan attributive sentences. Linguística: Revista de Estudos Linguísticos da Universidade do Porto, 7, 9–43.Google Scholar
(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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(1994) Aspectual licensing of predicates in Spanish. In V. Samiian (Ed.), Proceedings of the Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL), 23 (pp. 26–38). Fresno, CA: Department of Linguistics, CalState University.Google Scholar
Constantinescu, C.
(2011) Gradability in the nominal domain. Utrecht, The Netherlands: LOT.Google Scholar
Contreras, H., & Zagona, K.
(2014) A note on participial adjectives. Paper presented at the Coloquium on Generative Grammar Workshop in Honor of Violeta Demonte. Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Madrid, Spain: May 30, 2014.
Crespo, L.
(1946) Los verbos ser y estar explicados por un nativo. Hispania, 29, 45–55. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Diesing, M.
(1992) Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
DeLancey, S.
(1986) Evidentiality and volitionality in Tibetan. In W. Chafe & J. Nichols. (Eds.), Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology (pp. 203–213). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Falk, J.
(1979) Visión de norma general vs. norma individual. Ensayo de explicación de la oposición ser/estar en unión con adjetivos que denotan belleza y corpulencia. Studia Neophilologica, 51, 275–293. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Faller, M.
(2002) Semantics and Pragmatics of Evidentials in Cuzco Quechua (Doctoral Dissertation). Stanford, CA: Stanford University.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
Franco, F., & Steinmetz, D.
(1986) Taming ser and estar with predicate adjectives. Hispania, 69, 379–386. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gallego, A., & 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.
Garrett, J.
(2001) Evidentiality and assertion in Tibetan (Doctoral Dissertation). Los Angeles, CA: University of California.Google Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gumiel-Molina, S., & Pérez-Jiménez, I.
(2012a) Aspectual composition in <ser/estar+adjective> structures: Adjectival scalarity and verbal aspect in copular constructions. Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 1, 33–62. Retrieved from http://​septentrio​.uit​.no​/index​.php​/borealis​/article​/view​/2321​/2166 DOI: CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2012b) The gradability properties of adjectives and the distribution of copular verbs in Spanish. Paper presented at the Workshop on Aspect and Argument Structure of Adjectives and Participles. University of Greenwich. London, England: June 22–23, 2012.
Higginbotham, J., & G. Ramchand
(1997) The stage-level/individual-level distinction and the mapping hypothesis. In D. Willis (Ed.), Oxford Working Papers in Linguistics, Philology, and Phonetics, vol. 2, (pp. 53–83). Oxford, England: Oxford University.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 http://​septentrio​.uit​.no​/index​.php​/borealis​/article​/view​/2293​/2163 DOI: CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kalsang, J.G., Speas, M., & de Villiers, J.
(2013) Direct evidentials, case, tense and aspect in Tibetan: Evidence for a general theory of the semantics of evidentials. Natural Language and Linguistics Theory, 31, 517–561. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kratzer, A.
(2011) Situations in natural language semantics. In E.N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2011 edition). Stanford, CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. Retrieved from http://​plato​.stanford​.edu​/archives​/fall2011​/entries​/situations​-semantics/ Google Scholar
(1995) Stage-level and individual-level predicates. In G.N. Carlson & F.J. Pelletier (Eds.), The generic book (pp. 125–175). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuroda, S.Y.
(1972) Categorical and thetic judgments: Evidence from Japanese syntax. Foundations of Language, 9, 153–185.Google Scholar
Luján, M.
(1981) The Spanish copulas as aspectual indicators. Lingua, 54, 165–209. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Maienborn, C.
(2005) A discourse-based account of Spanish ser/estar . Linguistics, 43(1), 155–180. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McNally, L.
(2012) Relative and absolute standards and degree achievements (Unpublished manuscript). Barcelona, Spain: Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
(2011) The relative role of property type and scale structure in explaining the behavior of gradable adjectives. In R. Nouwen, R. van Rooij, U. Sauerland & H. Schmitz (Eds.), ViC 2009 (Papers from the ESSLLI 2009 Workshop on Vagueness in Communication) (pp. 151–168). Berlin, Germany: Springer.Google Scholar
Morzycki, M.
(2009) Degree modification of gradable nouns: Size adjectives and adnominal degree morphemes. Natural Language Semantics, 17, 175–203. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
RAE-ASALE
(2009) Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid, Spain: RAE/Espasa.Google 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sassoon, G.W.
(2011) Adjectival vs. nominal categorization processes: The rule vs. similarity hypothesis. Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 25, 104–147. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2007) Vagueness, gradability and typicality: A comprehensive semantic analysis. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation). Tel Aviv, Israel: Tel Aviv University.Google Scholar
Schmitt, C.
(1992)  Ser and estar: A matter of aspect. In NELS 22 Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society (pp. 411–425). Amherst, MA: GLSA Publications.
Speas, P.
(2010) Evidentials as generalized functional heads. In A.M. di Sciullo (Ed.), Interface legibility at the edge (pp. 127–150). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Speas, M.
(2004) Evidentiality, logophoricity and the syntactic representation of pragmatic features. Lingua, 114, 255–276. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Toledo, A., & Sasoon, G.
(2011a) Absolute vs. relative adjectives – variance within vs. between individuals. In N. Ashton, A. Chereches & D. Lutz (Eds.), Proceedings of Semantic and Linguistic Theory 21. ELanguage, 135–154. Retrieved from http://​elanguage​.net​/journals​/salt​/article​/view​/21​.135 Google Scholar
Toledo, A., & Sassoon, G.
(2011b) Absolute and relative adjectives and their comparison classes (Unpublished manuscript). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: ILLC-University of Amsterdam and Utrecht, The Netherlands: Utrecht UniversityGoogle Scholar
Tournadre, N., & Dorje, S.
(2003) A manual of standard Tibetan. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications.Google Scholar
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