Part of
Verb Classes and AspectEdited by Elisa Barrajón López, José Luis Cifuentes Honrubia and Susana Rodríguez Rosique
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 9] 2015
► pp. 98–109
Edited by Elisa Barrajón López, José Luis Cifuentes Honrubia and Susana Rodríguez Rosique
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 9] 2015
► pp. 98–109
Argumental comitative and reciprocity in Spanish
This research paper deals with the reciprocity relationships in Spanish. It is our intention to establish the conditions needed in reciprocal constructions and their distinctive characteristics. One of these features is the presence of an argument characterized by being semantically obligatory and syntactically marked by the Spanish preposition con. This argument is referred to as ‘argumental comitative’ and is determined by a certain kind of symmetrical reciprocity, which is gradual and is related to the active role of the agent. This argument has to do with some types of alternations in Spanish verbs that present a syntactic constraint that is referred to as complemento de regimen preposicional in Spanish and is the syntactic function that represents the argumental comitative in these types of reciprocal constructions.
Keywords: alternations, argument, comitative, obligatory prepositional object, reciprocity, Spanish
References (20)
Cifuentes Honrubia, José Luis. 2006. “Alternancias verbales en español.” Revista Portuguesa de Humanidades, 10.1/2: 107–132.
Conti, Carmen. 2004. Papeles semánticos (instrumento y comitativo). Madrid: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Díaz de Cerio, Mercedes. 1998. “La codificación de la asociación-compañía como segundo término argumental de la predicación en griego antiguo.” Revista Española de Lingüística 28: 421–452.
. 2006. “Sintaxis y semántica del dativo en griego antiguo.” In Sintaxis griega, María Dolores Jiménez (coord.), Online, Portal de Humanidades Liceus, 30 pp.
Dimitriadis, Alexis. 2008. “Irreducible symmetry in reciprocal constructions.” In König and Gast (eds.) 2008.
Dik, Simon. 1989. The theory of functional grammar. Part I: The structure of the clause. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
Givón, Talmy. 1984. Syntax: A functional-typological introduction. Volume I. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 
Haspelmath, Martin. 2007. “Further remarks on reciprocal constructions.” In Reciprocal constructions, Vladimir P. Nedjalkov, (ed.). 5 vols., 2087–2115, Amsterdam: Benjamins.
. 2009. “Terminology of case.” In The Oxford handbook of case, Andrej Malchukov and Andrew Spencer, (eds.), 505–517. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hurst, Peter. 2010. “The syntax of lexical reciprocal constructions.” In Proceedings of the LFG10 Conference, Miriam Butt and Tracy Holloway King (eds.), 290–310.
Kemmer, Suzanne. 1993. The middle voice. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Komlósy, András. 1992. “Régensek és vonzatok.” In Strukturális Magyar Nyelvtan 1, Ferenc Kiefer (ed.), 299–527. Mondattan, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
. 1994. “Complements and Adjuncts.” In Syntax and Semantics: The Syntactic Structure of Hungarian. Volume 27, Ferenc Kiefer and Katalin É. Kiss (eds.), 91–178. Academic Press: San Diego.
Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Quintana Hernández, Lucía. 2010. “Aktionsart, agentividad y reciprocidad en español.” Philologia hispalensis 24: 143–166.
. 2013. Construcciones recíprocas. Madrid: Arco libros.
Rákosi, György. 2003. “Comitative arguments in Hungarian.” In Uil-OTS Yearbook 2003, Willemijn Heeren, Dimitra Papangeli and Evangelia Vlachou (eds), 47–57. Utrecht: Institute of Linguistics OTS.
. 2008. “The argument structure of inherently reflexive and reciprocal predicates.” In Reciprocals and reflexives: theoretical and typological explorations, Ekkehard König and Volker Gast (eds.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Real Academia Española (R.A.E.). 2009. Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
Siloni, Tal. 2012. “Reciprocal verbs and symmetry.” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 30: 261–320.