Chapter published in:
Boundaries, Phases and Interfaces: Case studies in honor of Violeta Demonte
Edited by Olga Fernández-Soriano, Elena Castroviejo Miró and Isabel Pérez-Jiménez
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 239] 2017
► pp. 108–128

Adverbial elatives in Caribbean Spanish

| The Ohio State University
| University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez
This paper is a study of the adverbial modifier bien and its use as an elative or operator of extreme degree in a Caribbean Spanish variety, Puerto Rican Spanish. It is argued that there are several properties setting the elative interpretation of bien apart from other well-known uses in other varieties and from the intensifier muy. The modifier bien is also argued to be exclamative and modal in nature, related to the high degree of commitment of the speaker with the truth of a proposition.
Keywords: elative, degree adverb, superlative, extreme-degree interpretation, modality, Puerto Rican Spanish
Published online: 14 June 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.239.06gut
References

References

Alvarez Nazario, Manuel
1982 Orígenes y desarrollo del español en Puerto Rico (Siglos XVI y XVII). San Juan: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico.Google Scholar
Andueza, Patricia L.
2011 Rhetorical Exclamatives in Spanish. PhD dissertation, The Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Arjona, Marina
1990 El adverbio muy y otros intensificadores en el habla popular de México. Anuario de Letras 28: 75–96.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Grant & Pastor, Alberto
2015 A manner of speaking about degrees: The degree term bien in Spanish. Paper presented at The Ohio State University Conference on Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics (OSUCHiLL) . The Ohio State University, Columbus, April 10–11.
Bartra, Anna & Villalba, Xavier
2006. Agreement and predicate inversion in Spanish DP. In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2004 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 278], Jenny Doetjes & Paz González (eds), 23–41. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight
1972 Degree words. Paris: Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bosque, Ignacio
1990 Sobre el aspecto en los adjetivos y en los participios. In Tiempo y Aspecto en Español, Ignacio Bosque (ed.), 177–214. Madrid: Cátedra.Google Scholar
Bosque, Ignacio 1999 El sintagma adjetival. Modificadores y complementos del adjetivo, adverbio y participio. In Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, Vol. 1, Ignacio Bosque & Violeta Demonte (eds), 217–310. Madrid: Espasa.Google Scholar
2002 Degree quantification and modal operators in Spanish. In From Words to Discourse, Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach (ed.), 263–288. Oxford: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Bosque, Ignacio & Brucart, José M.
1991 QP raising in Spanish superlatives. Ms, Universidad Complutense.Google Scholar
Brown, Esther L. & Cortés-Torres, Mayra
2013 Puerto Rican intensifiers: Bien/muy variables. In Selected Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics, Ana M. Carvalho & Sara Beaudrie (eds), 11–19. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Castroviejo, Elena
2006 Wh-Exclamatives in Catalan. PhD dissertation, Universitat de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo
1999 Adverbs and Functional Heads. A Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
CREA (Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual Español)
Delbecque, Nicole
1994 Las funciones de así, bien y mal . Revista Española de Lingüística 24(2): 435–466.Google Scholar
Echevarría, Manuel
1997 Definiteness patterns in N/A of a N contexts and DP-internal XP movement. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 31: 145–169.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier
2001 Spanish exclamatives and the interpretation of the left periphery. In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 1999 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 221], Yves D’Hulst, Johan Rooryck & Jan Schroten (eds), 167–194. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2008 Spanish root exclamatives at the syntax-semantics interface. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 7: 117–133.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier & González-Rivera, Melvin
2012 Negative quantification and degree restriction: The case of más nada in Puerto Rican Spanish. In Selected Proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, Kimberlee Geeslin & Manuel Díaz-Campos (eds), 285–292. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Hernanz, M. Lluïsa
2010 Assertive bien in Spanish and the left periphery. In Mapping the Left Periphery: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Vol. 5, Paula Benincà & Nicola Manuro (eds), 19–62. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Ito, Rika & Tagliamonte, Sali
2003 Well weird, right dodgy, very strange, really cool: Layering and recycling in English intensifiers. Language in Society 32: 257–279. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, Christopher & McNally, Louise
2005 Scale structure and the semantic typology of gradable predicates. Language 81(2): 345–381. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 Degree vs. manner well: A case study in selective binding. In Advances in Generative Lexicon Theory, James Pustejovsky, Pierrette Bouillon, Hitoshi Isahara, Kyoko Kanzaki & Chungmin Lee (eds), 247–262. Dordrecht: Springer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika
1981 The notional category in modality. In Words, Worlds, and Content: New Approaches in Word Semantics, Hans-Jürgen Eikmeyer & Hannes Reiser (eds), 38–74. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Lorenz, Gunter 2002 Really worthwhile or not really significant? A corpus-based approach to the delexicalization and grammaticalization of intensifiers in Modern English. In New Reflections on Grammaticalization [Typological Studies in Language 49], Ilse Wischer & Gabriele Diewald (eds), 143–61. Amsterdam: Jonh Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Masullo, Pascual J.
2003 Hidden exclamatives in Spanish. Ms, University of Pittsburgh & Universidad Nacional del Comahue.Google Scholar
2012 Covert exclamatives (in Spanish) and LF. In Current Formal Aspects of Spanish Syntax and Semantics, Melvin González-Rivera & Sandro Sessarego (eds), 147–178. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Morzycki, Marcin
2012 Adjectival extremeness: Degree modification and contextually restricted scales. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 30(2): 567–609. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Navarro Tomás, Tomás
1948 El español en Puerto Rico. Río Piedras: Universidad de Puerto RicoGoogle Scholar
Padilla-Rivera, Ramón, Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier & González-Rivera, Melvin
2016 Generalized gradability and extremeness in Puerto Rican Spanish. In Inquiries in Hispanic Linguistics: From Theory to Empirical Evidence [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 12], Alejandro Cuza, Lori Czerwionka & Daniel Olson (eds), 95–110. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Paradis, Carita
2000 It’s well weird. Degree modifiers of adjectives revisited: The nineties. In Corpora Galore: Analyses and Techniques in Describing English, John M. Kirk (ed.), 147–160. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Pustejovsky, James
1995 The Generative Lexicon. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
RAE-ASALE (Real Academia Española)
2009–2011 Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa.Google Scholar
Roca, Francesc & Suñer, Avellina
1998 Reduplicación y tipos de cuantificación en español. Estudi General 17-18: 37–67.Google Scholar
Rohena-Madrazo, Marcos
2007 Superlative movement in Puerto Rican Spanish and General Spanish. NYU Working Papers in Linguistics 1. http://​linguistics​.as​.nyu​.edu​/docs​/CP​/2345​/rohena​-madrazo​-2007​-nyuwpl​.pdf Google Scholar
Sedano, Mercedes
2002–2004 Este tema es muy/bien interesante. Archivo de Filología Aragonesa 59–60: 859–873.Google Scholar
2005  muy/bien interesante, muy/bien lejos: Usos y creencias. In Homenaje a José Joaquín Montes Giraldo: Estudios de dialectología, lexicografía, lingüística general, etnolingüística e historia cultural, Mariano Lozano Ramírez (eds), 252–75. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.Google Scholar
Serradilla Castaño, Ana
2006  Bien + adjectivo como perífrasis de superlativo en español. Particularidades semánticas y sintácticas. Verba 33: 215–233.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali
2008 So different and pretty cool! Recycling intensifiers in Toronto, Canada. English Language and Linguistics 12(2): 361–394. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali & Roberts, Chris
2005 So weird; so cool; so innovative: The use of intensifiers in the television series Friends. American Speech 80(3): 280–300. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Villalba, Xavier
2008 Exclamatives: A thematic guide with many questions and few answers. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 7: 9–40.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Kanwit, Matthew & Virginia Terán
2020.  In Current Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 27], ► pp. 253 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 december 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.