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Article published In:
Copulas in Spanish and Beyond
Edited by Silvia Gumiel-Molina and Isabel Pérez-Jiménez
[Spanish in Context 20:2] 2023
► pp. 257–281

Estar+ILP

Testing the experiential commitment

| Universidad Complutense de Madrid
A sentence like María está muy guapa (‘María looks very pretty’) attributes the property of being pretty to María but also conveys the assumption that the state-of-affairs described is based on direct experience. Several explanatory hypotheses are found in the literature to account for this fact: (i) experientiality is a property of the copula estar; (ii) experientiality is an effect of contextual factors; and (iii) experientiality is the result of resolving the aspectual mismatch produced by combining estar with an Individual-Level Predicate (ILP). To test the predictions of these hypotheses, a comprehension-based survey was carried out. Participants were given isolated copular sentences with estar followed by either an ILP or an SLP (Stage-Level Predicate). Using a 5-point Likert scale, they had to rate how likely it was that the utterer had direct experience about the quality s/he was asserting. The results show a significant preference for the experiential interpretation in estar+ILP, an outcome that is consistent only with the hypothesis that the linguistic mismatch found in estar+ILP is enough to induce the accommodation of a direct experience presupposition.
Keywords: copulas, aspect, Individual-Level Predicates (ILPs), Stage-Level Predicates (SLPs), aspectual mismatch, direct experience, commitment, accommodation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Literature review
    • 1.2Study overview
  • 2.Methods
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Materials
    • 2.3Procedure
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1General considerations
    • 4.2Specific comments
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 August 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.00089.esc
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Cited by (1)

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Gumiel-Molina, Silvia, Norberto Moreno-Quibén & Isabel Pérez-Jiménez
2023. Perspectivized estar-sentences with aesthetic adjectives across American Spanish varieties. Spanish in Context 20:2 ► pp. 313 ff. DOI logo

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