October 26, 2026: Liam Garside (Newcastle University): "On the structure of Romance syntactic causatives: cross-dialectal evidence from Spanish"
Romance causative verbs can take various verbal complements of different sizes, one of the most productive across varieties being a monoclausal construction wherein the 'make' verb selects a vP/VP with a post-infinitival embedded semantic subject (henceforth the causee) as in (1a) (Folli and Harley 2007, Tubino Blanco 2011). Causees in monoclausal constructions are subject to a case alternation determined by the transitivity of the embedded predicate: transitive verbs take dative causees, while intransitive verbs standardly give accusative causees. Unlike its French and Italian cognates, Spanish hacer also allows for a pre-infinitival causee in a construction that is typically analysed as being Exceptional Case Marking (ECM) (Ciutescu 2015), in which hacer embeds a TP/VoiceP infinitival complement (Labelle 2017, Sheehan and Cyrino 2018) as in (1b).
- a. Jordi hizo jugar a su hija [post-infinitival]
'Jordi made his daughter play'
- b. Mónica hizo a su hijo leer el libro. [pre-infinitival]
'Mónica made her son read the book'
Under an ECM analysis of pre-infinitival causee causatives, causees are expected to be accusative regardless of the transitivity of the embedded verb, as is found in Portuguese pre-infinitival constructions. Spanish pre-infinitival constructions, however, are claimed to frequently take dative causees, both when the causee is cliticised or a full DP causee is doubled by a clitic. This extension of the dative appears to be truly syntactic rather than an example of leísmo as it is found in non-leísta dialects at comparable to rates as in leísta dialects (Garside 2024, Ordóñez & Roca 2018). Despite thorough syntactic analysis of the post-infinitival construction found across Romance, the pre-infinitival structure in Spanish is comparatively understudied. At the level of analysis, though ECM is commonly cited (Ciutescu 2015, Labelle 2017), there have been alternatives proposed to account for the dative causees (Torrego 2010, Ordóñez & Saab 2017). At the descriptive level, very little is known in terms of diatopic distribution and variation and, as far as I am aware, these constructions have not been analysed quantitatively.
In this talk I present acceptability judgement task data from Spanish dialects, including Rioplatense and Mexican Spanish, investigating the case of causees in both constructions.
References
Ciutescu, E. 2015. Romance causatives and object shift. In: Aboh, E., Schaeffer, J. and Sleeman, P. ed. Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2013: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' Amsterdam 2013. John Benjamins, pp. 21-38.
Folli, R. and Harley, H. 2007. Causation, Obligation, and Argument Structure: On the Nature of Little v. Linguistic Inquiry, Volume 38, Number 2, pp.197-238.
Garside, L. 2024. A socio-syntactic perspective on Spanish causative verbs. MA Dissertation.
Labelle, M. 2017. Causative and Perception Verbs. In Dufter, A., and E., Stark (eds.) Manual of Romance Morphosyntax and Syntax. De Gruyter. 299-331.
Ordóñez, F. and Roca, F. 2018. Causativas y leísmo generalizado en dialectos del español. In Á.J. Gallego, Y. Rodríguez, & J. Fernández-Sánchez (eds), Relaciones sintácticas. Homenaje a José M. Brucart y M.Lluïsa Hernanz, 531-546. Bellaterra: Servei de Publicacions UAB.
Ordóñez, Francisco, & Andrés Saab. 2017. Sobre la distribución de los sujetos causados en dos dialectos del español. Estudos linguísticos e literários 58: 186-209.
Sheehan, M. and Cyrino, S. 2018. Why do some ECM verbs resist passivisation? A phase- based explanation. In Hucklebridge, S. and Nelson, M. (eds.), Proceedings of NELS 48 (vol 3), 81-90. University of Massachusetts.
Torrego, E. 2010. 'Variability in the Case Patterns of Causative Formation in Romance and Its Implications', Linguistic inquiry, 41(3), pp. 445-470.
Tubino Blanco, M. 2011. Causatives in Minimalism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
October 5, 2026: Josep Ausensi (Universitat Rovira i Virgili): "Els verbs de manera opcionalment causatius en català "
Aquest seminari investiga una classe de verbs del català, que denominem verbs de manera opcionalment causatius (OCMV, seguint Alexiadou et al. 2017), els quals presenten una alternança dependent del context entre interpretacions de manera i de resultat. Mentre que els verbs de manera canònics, com wipe 'fregar', no impliquen lèxicament un resultat (Rappaport Hovav i Levin 2010), els OCMV, com rentar, presenten implicacions de resultat en contextos no agentius i implicacions de manera en contextos agentius. Adoptant un enfocament d'al·losèmia contextual (Wood i Marantz 2017, Hopperdietzel 2024, Zhu i Yu 2024), defensem que els OCMV del català exemplifiquen la polisèmia de manera/resultat (Levin i Rappaport Hovav 2013, 2014; Hopperdietzel 2024), ja que les seves arrels són polisémiques. En concret, les arrels dels OCMV s'associen a dos al·losemes diferents: un al·losema eventiu (de manera), seleccionat en contextos agentius, i un al·losema estatiu (de resultat), seleccionat en contextos no agentius.
A diferència de l'anàlisi dels OCMV del francès proposada per Alexiadou et al. (2017), segons la qual en els contextos no agentius s'afegeix un nucli de resultat silenciós, el nostre enfocament tracta les interpretacions de manera i de resultat com a realitzacions mútuament excloents de la mateixa arrel. D'aquesta manera, l'anàlisi dona compte del contrast entre agent i causant alhora que preserva la complementarietat entre manera i resultat (Rappaport Hovav i Levin 2010).