26.2543, Review: Historical Ling; Syntax: Rosemeyer (2014)

Tue May 19 18:27:53 UTC 2015

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-2543. Tue May 19 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.2543, Review: Historical Ling; Syntax: Rosemeyer (2014)

Moderators: linguist at linguistlist.org (Damir Cavar, Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Anthony Aristar, Helen Aristar-Dry, Sara Couture)
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

*************    LINGUIST List 2015 Fund Drive    *************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:

              http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/

Editor for this issue: Sara  Couture <sara at linguistlist.org>
================================================================

Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:27:25
From: Adina Dragomirescu [adina_drag at yahoo.com]
Subject: Auxiliary Selection in Spanish

Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=35962657

Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-2097.html

AUTHOR: Malte  Rosemeyer
TITLE: Auxiliary Selection in Spanish
SUBTITLE: Gradience, gradualness, and conservation
SERIES TITLE: Studies in Language Companion Series   155
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: Adina Dragomirescu, Romanian Academy, Institute of Linguistics

Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

AUTHOR: Rosemeyer, Malte
TITLE: Auxiliary Selection in Spanish. Gradience, gradualness, and
conservation

SUMMARY

This book is dedicated to the auxiliary selection in Spanish; more
specifically, it deals with the Old Spanish competition between HABER + past
participle (PtcP) and SER + PtcP, aiming to account for the existence of this
competition in Old Spanish and for the loss of the SER + PtcP construction,
which began in Early Modern Spanish and generalized in Modern Spanish. The
book is made up of eight chapters, followed by the References, an appendix
which summarizes the corpus and the verbal lexemes dealt with in the book
(Chapter 9), and an index. The theoretical framework adopted is Construction
Grammar.

The first chapter, “Introduction” (pp. 1-7), contains the aim and concepts of
the book, and also outlines its structure. The author introduces here two of
the main theoretical notions used in what follows; they are strongly
interrelated, i.e. diachronic ‘gradualness’ (a construction intrudes into the
usage contexts of another construction, a process in small steps) and
synchronic ‘gradience’(increases in the usage frequency of a construction).
The corpus is also broadly delimited from the beginning: Spanish
historiographical texts between 1270 and 1699. The distribution of HABER and
SER is also outlined: in Old Spanish, HABER was already used as an auxiliary
for all transitives, whereas for intransitives, there was competition
(although not free variation) between the two auxiliaries. The book will thus
focus on the usage of these auxiliaries with intransitive verbs. The
hypothesis is that the two auxiliaries had different functions: HABER + PtcP
had a temporal function (expressing anteriority), whereas SER + PtcP usually
had an aspectual function, being used as a resultative construction.

In chapter 2, “Theoretical prerequisites” (pp. 9-37), an introduction to the
theories of auxiliary selection is presented. The author explains the general
issue of linguistic variation, focussing on auxiliary selection variation.
Several parameters interacting with auxiliary selection are considered:
geographical distribution, type of intransitive verb, reflexivity, postverbal
subjects, adverbial modification, etc., the relevance of which will be
questioned for Old Spanish in the following chapters. Sorace’s (2000, 2004)
Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy (ASH) is also of interest to the author, since
it does not seem to be relevant for Spanish, although it is for other
(Romance) languages (such as French, Italian, etc.). This chapter also
contains a brief presentation of auxiliary selection in Old Spanish and of the
evolution of this phenomenon, as well as a critical overview of the previous
literature on this topic.

In chapter 3, “A constructional approach to Spanish auxiliary selection” (pp.
39-73), it is shown that Old Spanish HABER + PtcP emerged as a construction
expressing anteriority, whereas in its prototypical use, Old Spanish SER +
PtcP does not express anteriority. The proposal put forth here is the
following one: Old Spanish SER + PtcP is a copula + PtcP construction with an
aspectual function, whereas Old Spanish HABER + PtcP is an auxiliary + PtcP
construction with a temporal function. As is often mentioned, the term
‘construction’ is used in line with the family of grammatical theories termed
Construction Grammar. A special section is dedicated to the comparison between
resultative constructions and anterior constructions, given that these are key
concepts for explaining the competition between the two auxiliaries in the
following chapters. Another important issue dealt with here is the origins of
Spanish auxiliary selection, i.e. HABER + PtcP and SER + PtcP are not
considered Spanish innovations but rather as having been in competition since
Latin and Early Romance. The lack of temporal specification of these
constructions in Latin explains their function in Old Spanish: SER + PtcP is a
copula + PtcP construction with a resultative function, whereas HABER + PtcP
is an auxiliary + PtcP construction expressing anteriority. At the end of the
chapter, the author raises the problem of why Spanish does not obeys Sorace’s
ASH.

Chapter 4, “A model of linguistic disappearances” (pp. 76-103), focuses on
frequency effects in grammatical change. The author proposes a model of
linguistic disappearances that aims to predict the directionality and speed of
the process by which Spanish SER + PtcP was lost. In order to pave the way for
the two following chapters, Malte Rosemeyer reviews the processes by which
constructions disappear, survive (remanence, conservation, persistence), or
expand (i.e. not only grammaticalization but also actualization / analogical
transfer / analogization / analogy (generalization) / regularization). The
crucial question is not “How often does a construction appear in corpus?” but
rather “In how many usage contexts does a construction appear in the corpus?”
The model proposed for linguistic disappearances can be schematized as
follows: the actualization of construction A leads to the intrusion of that
construction into usage contexts associated with construction B; as a result,
a paradigmatic opposition between these two constructions is established; the
replaced construction decreases in both type and token frequency.

In chapter 5, “Methodology and corpus” (pp. 105-136), the corpus and the
methodology of the corpus study are presented. Although the two following
chapters are based on quantitative data modelled with statistical methods, the
author points out several problems related to corpus studies in general: the
identification of discourse traditions (which means an important frequency
rate of a certain pattern in the texts), the copying and transmission of
versions of old texts (which creates idiolectal differences and different
temporal layers in the same text), intertextuality, etc.

Chapters 6 and 7 present the results of the research. Chapter 6, “Auxiliary
selection in Old Spanish” (pp. 137-185), offers very rich quantitative data
which support the constructional approach to Old Spanish auxiliary selection
proposed in Chapter 3. After sketching the periodization with which he will
work (Old Spanish (1200-1424) vs Early Modern Spanish, which includes
Pre-Classical Spanish (1425-1524) and Classical Spanish (1525-1699)), the
author summarizes the results of his corpus study: (i) while Old Spanish HABER
+ PtcP can be characterized as an emerging anterior, SER + PtcP has inherited
the resultative function of Latin ESSE + PtcP; (ii) the inherent reflexive
function of the middle voice in Latin is to some degree continued in the Old
Spanish ser + PtcP construction; (iii) the opposition between HABER + PtcP and
SER + PtcP is rather stable in Old Spanish historiographical texts; (iv) the
process by which SER + PtcP was eventually replaced with HABER + PtcP had not
yet gathered force in Old Spanish texts; the spread of HABER + PtcP gathered
speed only in Early Modern Spanish. 
In order to formulate these conclusions, the influence of the following
parameter clusters on Old Spanish auxiliary selection are analyzed in turn:
date of occurrence, auxiliated verbs, reflexivity, subject referentiality,
locative, manner and intention expressions, temporal adverbial modification
and number marking, modality, temporal-aspectual morphology, persistence
effects. The general conclusion of this chapter is that the distribution of
Old Spanish ser + PtcP and haber + PtcP can be explained by four central
differences between resultative and anterior constructions: transitivity,
reference to event vs. reference to resultant state, persistence of resultant
state, and discourse function.

While the previous chapter focused on the Old Spanish period, Chapter 7,
“Gradualness and conservation in the loss of SER + PtcP” (pp. 185-261), mainly
concerns Early Modern Spanish. In many points, the author used as a reference
point Aranovich’s (2003) work. The main observation is that the relative
stability of auxiliary selection between 1270 and 1424 was lost in the time
span between 1425 and 1699 by the expansion of HABER+ PtcP into contexts of
use formerly associated with SER + PtcP: more and more verbs began selecting
HABER + PtcP after the beginning of the 15th century. The analysis is very
detailed, with a great amount of (quantitative) data. The author pays special
attention to the differences related to timing: certain predicate classes are
affected by the actualization of HABER + PtcP later than others. While it is
obvious that frequency effects slow down the speed of the expansion of HABER +
PtcP and persistence has also a conserving effect, the probability for writers
to stop using a verb in SER + PtcP construction is more difficult to
determine. Therefore the author makes use of a complicated calculus,
‘discrete-time hazard models’ (also used for mortality research in the
sociological field), and employs a mathematical formula (a cumulative
measurement) for survival probability. This complicated analysis confirms the
result from the model of Old Spanish auxiliary selection in that stative
predicates appear to have been affected by the actualization of  HABER + PtcP
as early as in Old Spanish; the most important semantic parameters are
directed change and telicity, these parameters accounting not only for much of
the variability regarding Old Spanish auxiliary selection, but also for the
longevity of ser-selection with certain verbs (also augmented by discourse
tradition).

Chapter 8, “Conclusions” (pp. 263-275) summarizes the findings of this
research. First of all, the author shows that there is a relative continuity
of the function of SER + PtcP between Latin and Old Spanish. In Old Spanish
SER + PtcP often had a resultative function, while HABER + PtcP was used to
indicate anteriority, a temporal notion, and thus refers to events; thus, Old
Spanish HABER and SER are different types of auxiliaries. The replacement of
SER by HABER dates back to Early Modern Spanish. The influence of several
parameters for the choice of one auxiliary over another is carefully
investigated and the hierarchy of these parameters is not always as expected
(for example, reflexivity, reciprocity and number marking have a more
important role than it was previously thought). As for the relevance of this
research for studies of auxiliary selection, the author underlines the
importance of the ‘variationist methodology’ for obtaining finer-grained
explanations of the interplay between synchronic and diachronic processes;
concepts as ‘gradience’ and ‘gradualness’ can be used in the study of similar
phenomena from other languages; the arguments about the (Latin) origin of
these constructions are useful for other Romance languages as well.

EVALUATION

The main goal of the book (which targets mainly linguists working in Romance
diachronic syntax) is to present a very detailed corpus study of auxiliary
selection in Old Spanish. The most important merits of the book are thus
related to the presentation of the data. It is worth mentioning, on the one
hand, the large amount of data illustrating different situations, and, on the
other hand, the extremely rich and relevant quantitative data. The book is
very rich in tables summarizing these quantitative data; the methodology is
always described in detail. The statistics are very carefully realized, and
the parameters of variations are introduced in turn, in the relevant points.
The author is very trenchant in the selection of his corpus (only
historiographical writings), in order to obtain comparable results for
different periods. Taking into account the periodization in the statistics was
very helpful, because important differences related to the distribution of SER
and HABER were identified when comparing Old Spanish to Early Modern Spanish.
Moreover, the author’s option for a specific theoretical framework,
Construction Grammars, is clearly presented from the beginning, and all the
concepts specific to this framework (although not too many) are carefully
defined when used for the first time. In the final part of the book, the
author is interested in providing different suggestions related to the way in
which his research can be continued and his findings can be of help to
linguists working in the same topic but in different languages.

Finally, a few weak points of the book need to be mentioned. First, maybe
because of the strong theoretical option, the relevant literature on Latin and
Early Romance auxiliaries is often ignored (for example, the very recent book
by Adams 2013) or is not sufficiently exploited (for example, the seminal
study by Harris 1982). A better grasp of the relevant literature on this topic
would have led to more nuanced conclusions, maybe more relevant not only for
Spanish linguistics but for Romance linguistics in general. Secondly, although
the statistical data are very important, in Chapters 6 and 7 it seems that
mathematical formulas take over the presentation and the relevance of the
data, and many speculations related to the disappearance of the SER
constructions are presented to the prejudice of the real data. Finally, even
if a long book needs to remind the readers of some of the key concepts, in the
present case, this is done too frequently (for example, the differences
between anterior constructions and resultatives, or the parameters taken into
consideration for statistics are described several times). However, these
small objections do not diminish the importance of the book.

REFERENCES

Adams, James. 2013. Social Variation and the Latin Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Aranovich, Raul. 2003. The semantics of auxiliary selection in Old Spanish.
Studies in Language 27(1): 1-37.

Harris, Martin. 1982. The “Past Simple” and the “Present Perfect” in Romance.
In Studies in the Romance verb. Martin Harris and Nigel Vincent (eds). 42-70.
London: Croon Helm.

Sorace, Antonella. 2000. Gradients in auxiliary selection with intransitive
verbs. Language 76: 859-890.

Sorace, Antonella. 2004. Gradience at the Lexicon–Syntax Interface: Evidence
from Auxiliary Selection for Unaccusativity. In The Unaccusativity Puzzle.
Explorations of the Syntax-Lexicon Interface, Artemis Alexiadou, Elena
Anagnostopoulou and Marin Everaert (eds). 243–268. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Adina Dragomirescu is a Researcher at “Iorgu Iordan -- Al. Rosetti” Institute
of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy, Department of Grammar, and Lecturer at
the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Letters, where she teaches Romanian
syntax, morphology, and phonology, and Romance syntax. In 2009, she defended
her PhD dissertation, “Ergativity, typology, syntax, semantics”, which was
published in 2010 by Bucharest University Press. In 2013, she has published a
book on the Romanian supine. She is the co-author of 8 other books (among
which “The Grammar of Romanian”, OUP, 2013) and has published around 100
articles and book reviews. Her current interests are historical syntax,
grammaticalization, and linguistic typology.

----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-26-2543	
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.org/