Cover not available
Part of
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2013: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' Amsterdam 2013
Edited by Enoch O. Aboh, Jeannette Schaeffer and Petra Sleeman
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 8] 2015
► pp. 239–260

The (non-)grammaticalization of possession in Guatemalan Spanish

| Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main

My study focuses on Guatemalan Spanish and discusses a distinctive morphosyntactic property of it: the possibility of combining a prenominal weak possessive with a, usually indefinite, determiner (as in una mi hermana). On the basis of an empirical evaluation of spontaneous speech data, extracted from the Preseea-Guatemala corpus, I consider the distributional properties of this phenomenon and interpret the results against the background of current grammaticalization theory. In particular, I argue that an indefinitely marked DP can impede the grammaticalization of the possessive adjective.

Published online: 2 December 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.8.13els
References
Abney, Steven
1987 The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect. Ph.D. Dissertation. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Alexiadou, Artemis
2004 “On the development of possessive determiners: Consequences for DP structure.” In Diachronic Clues to Synchronic Grammar, ed. by Eric Fuß, and Carola Trips, 31–58. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 “Possessors and (In)definiteness.” Lingua 115: 787–820. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alexiadou, Artemis, Liliane Haegeman, and Melita Stavrou
2007 Noun Phrase in the Generative Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cardinaletti, Anna
1998 “On the Deficient/Strong Opposition in Possessive Systems.” In Possessors, Predicates, and Movement in the Determiner Phrase, ed. by Artemis Alexiadou, and Chris Wilder, 17–53. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1970 “Remarks on Nominalization.” In Readings in English Transformational Grammar ed. by Roderick A. Jacobs, and Peter S. Rosenbaum, 184–221. Waltham, Mass.: Ginn & Co.Google Scholar
Company Company, Concepción
2005 “Frecuencia de uso y contacto lingüístico en sintaxis. Artículo indefinido + posesivo en el español Americano.” Spanish in Context 2 (2): 131–156. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Di Meola, Claudio
2001 “Synchronic Variation as a Result of Grammaticalization: Concessive Subjunctions in German and Italian.” Linguistics 39 (1): 133–149. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dickey, Stephen M
2011 “The Varying Role of po- in the Grammaticalization of Slavic Aspectual Systems: Sequences of Events, Delimitatives, and German Language Contact.” Journal of Slavic Linguistics 19 (2): 175–230. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
García Tesoro, Ana Isabel
2002 “El español en contacto con lenguas mayas. Guatemala.” In El Indigenismo Americano III. Actas de las Terceras Jornadas sobre Indigenismo Americano, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 6, 7, 8 y 9 de marzo de 2001. (Anejo n.o XLVIII de la Revista Cuadernos de Filología), ed. by Azucena Palacios, and Ana Isabel García, 31-58. Valencia: Facultat de Filología, Universitat de Valencia.Google Scholar
Giorgi, Alessandra, and Giuseppe Longobardi
1991 The Syntax of Noun Phrases: Configuration, Parameters and Empty Categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Giusti, Giuliana
2009 “On Feature Sharing and Feature Transfer.” University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics 19: 157–174.Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy
1981 “On the Development of the Numeral ‘one’ as an Indefinite Marker.” Folia Linguistica Historica 15 (2.1): 35–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gómez Seibane, Sara
2010 “De nuevo sobre artículo+posesivo+sustantivo. Textos vizcaínos de los siglos XV-XVIII.” Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 58 (1): 241–256.Google Scholar
Granda, Germán de
1988 “Notas sobre retenciones sintácticas en el español del Paraguay.” Lexis 12 (1) : 43–67.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin
1999 “Explaining Article-Possessor Complementarity: Economic Motivation in Noun Phrase Syntax.” Language 75 (2): 227–243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd
1993 Auxiliaries: Cognitive Forces and Grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
1997 Cognitive Foundations of Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2003 “Grammaticalization.” In The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, ed. by Brian D. Joseph, and Richard D. Janda, 575–601. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd, and Tania Kuteva
2003 “On Contact-induced Grammaticalization.” Studies in Language 27 (3): 529–572. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J., and Elizabeth C. Traugott
2003 (2nd edition). Grammaticalization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hundertmark-Santos Martins, Maria Teresa
1998 Portugiesische Grammatik. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ihsane, Tabea
2003 “A Typology of Possessive Modifiers.” In From NP to DP. Volume 2: The Expression of Possession in Noun Phrases, ed. by Martine Coene, and Yves D’Hulst, 23–42. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kany, Charles
1963 (2nd edition). American-Spanish Syntax. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kupisch, Tanja, and Esther Rinke
2011 “The Diachronic Development of Article-Possessor Complementarity in the History of Italian and Portuguese.” In Linguistic Universals and Language Variation, ed. by Peter Siemund, 92–127. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
1984 “Field Methods of the Project on Linguistic Change and Variation.” In Language in Use: Readings in Sociolinguistics ed. by John Baugh, and Joel Sherzer, 28–54. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Lapesa, Rafael
2000 [1971] “Sobre el artículo ante posesivo en castellano antiguo.” In Estudios de Morfosintaxis Histórica del Español, vol. 1, ed. by Rafael Cano Aguilar, and Mª Teresa Echenique Elizondo, 413–435. Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar
Lees, Robert B
1960 The Grammar of English Nominalizations. Ph.D. Dissertation. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Lyons, Christopher
1986 “The Syntax of English Genitive Constructions.” Journal of Linguistics 22 (1): 123–143. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin, Laura
1978 “Mayan influence in Guatemalan Spanish. A Research Outline and Test Case.” In Papers in Mayan Linguistics ed. by Nora C. England, 106–126. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri (Museum of Anthropology).Google Scholar
1985 “Una mi tacita de café. The indefinite article in Guatemalan Spanish.” Hispania 68 (2): 383–387. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McGregor, William B
(ed.) 2009 The Expression of Possession. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meisel, Jürgen M., Martin Elsig, and Esther Rinke
2013 Language Acquisition and Change: A Morphosyntactic Perspective. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moreno Fernández, Francisco
2005 “Corpus para el estudio del español en su variación geográfica y social. El corpus ‘PRESEEA’.” Oralia 8: 123–139.Google Scholar
2006 “El español en su variación geográfica y social. Informe sobre el corpus ‘PRESEEA’.” In Estudios sociolingüísticos del español de España y América, ed. by Ana Ma Cestero Mancera, Isabel Molina Martos, and Florentino Paredes García, 15–31. Madrid: Arco Libros.Google Scholar
Nieuwenhuijsen, Dorien
2007 “Un amigo suyo se enfrenta con un su amigo. El uso de dos construcciones posesivas en dos periódicos de Guatemala y México.” Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 55 (2): 321–350.Google Scholar
Palacios Alcaine, Azucena
2004 “Artículo indefinido + posesivo + nombre con valor discursivo en Centroamérica.” Signo y Seña 13: 185–214.Google Scholar
Pato Maldonado
, Enrique. 2002. “La estructura posesiva una mi amiga en el español de Guatemala.” In El indigenismo americano III. Actas de las Terceras Jornadas sobre Indigenismo Americano. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 6, 7, 8 y 9 de marzo 2001, ed. by Azucena Palacios, and Ana Isabel García, 121–154. Valencia: Universitat de Valencia.Google Scholar
PRESEEA
2014 Corpus del Proyecto para el estudio sociolingüístico del español de España y de América. Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá. [[URL]]. Consulted: [14.09.2015]Google Scholar
Rinke, Esther
2010 “A combinação de artigo definido e pronome possessivo na história do português.” Estudos de Lingüística Galega 2: 121–139.Google Scholar
Roberts, Ian, and Anna Roussou
2003 Syntactic Change. A Minimalist Approach to Grammaticalization. Cambridge, UK & New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rodríguez Barreiro, Ana
2003 “La sintaxis del posesivo en castellano medieval, una construcción característica.” Res Diachronicae 2: 284–293.Google Scholar
Sandoval, Lisandro
1942 Semántica guatemalense o diccionario de guatemaltequismos. Tomo II. Guatemala: Tipografía Nacional.Google Scholar
Thepkanjana, Kingkarn, and Satoshi Uehara
2005 “Pragmatic Inferencing in Grammaticalization: A Case Study of Directional Verbs in Thai.” In Language in Use: Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives on Language and Language Learning, ed. by Andrea Tyler, Mari Takada, Yiyoung Kim, and Diana Marinova, 176–187. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Ticio, M. Emma
2010 Locality Domains in the Spanish Determiner Phrase. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C., and Graeme Trousdale
2010 Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verdugo de Lima, Lucía, Ana María Palma Chacón, Mayra Fong de Rivera, and Ana Acevedo-Halvick
2007 PRESEEA Guatemala - Proyecto para el estudio sociolingüístico del español de las ciudades de Guatemala. Proyecto PRESEEA-Guatemala. Guatemala City: Intituto de Lingüística y Educación, Universidad Rafael Landívar.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Elsig, Martin
2017. New insights into an old form: A variationist analysis of the pleonastic possessive in Guatemalan Spanish. Language Variation and Change 29:2 ► pp. 157 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 june 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.