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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 16: Selected papers from the 47th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Newark, Delaware
Edited by Irene Vogel
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 16] 2020
► pp. 219–240

Split auxiliary selection with affected subjects in Old Majorcan Catalan

| Centre de Lingüística Teòrica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

We aim to shed light on the split auxiliary selection found in Old Majorcan Catalan, in constructions where, instead of haver (‘have’), esser (‘be’) is used as the auxiliary verb for compound tenses, although just with persons 1 & 2; not only with unaccusative verbs, but also with transitive and unergative verbs. We claim that, in fact, these constructions have affected or undergoer subjects, derived from a lower position: at least, [Spec, ProcessP]. Hence, this system for auxiliary selection is mixed: both person-driven and event-driven. The Majorcan data provide evidence in favour of Ramchand’s (2008; 2018) decomposition of the vP, and for a nanosyntactic lexicalization of the auxiliaries: haver lexicalizes a chunk such as [Aux, i*], while esser lexicalizes only [Aux], in case a Person[+participant] head intervenes.

Keywords: split auxiliary selection, person-driven auxiliary selection, affected subject, undergoer, unaccusativity, possessive/interest relationship, subject of result construction, nanosyntactic lexicalization, Majorcan Catalan, Northern Catalan
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous accounts
  • 3.Our provisional analysis: The initiator-undergoer chain
  • 4.Fulfilled predictions
  • 5.A mixed system of auxiliary selection: person-driven and event-driven
  • 6.Final remarks
    • 6.1A resultative construction?
    • 6.2A nanosyntactic approach
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.16.14sal
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