Questions with definite markers in (Old) Romance, with focus on Old Spanish

We will depart from the observation that Romance languages can be subdivided into two groups with respect to free relatives under question-embedding predicates (Kellert 2017). One group has grammaticalized the definite element (e.g. Pt.[1] o, Fl. i’ ‘the’) and que/che into one question pronoun (e.g...

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Autor principal:	Olga Kellert
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 2019
Materias:	(Old) Romance free relatives constituent questions definite descriptions grammaticalization reanalysis Romanic languages PC1-5498 Philology. Linguistics P1-1091
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/95ae7d9f975f49e7860d9bb26d889332
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:95ae7d9f975f49e7860d9bb26d8893322021-11-25T11:16:38ZQuestions with definite markers in (Old) Romance, with focus on Old Spanish2385-4138https://doaj.org/article/95ae7d9f975f49e7860d9bb26d8893322019-03-01T00:00:00Zhttps://revistes.uab.es/isogloss/isogloss/article/view/56https://doaj.org/toc/2385-4138 We will depart from the observation that Romance languages can be subdivided into two groups with respect to free relatives under question-embedding predicates (Kellert 2017). One group has grammaticalized the definite element (e.g. Pt.[1] o, Fl. i’ ‘the’) and que/che into one question pronoun (e.g. Pt. o que ‘what’ and Fl. icché ‘what’); the other group has not (e.g. Spanish and French). We will show that in one group free relatives that are embedded under question predicates resemble more complex nouns (as in Spanish and French), whereas in the other group they are clausal and have the structure of ordinary questions as in Portuguese and Florentine. We will look at the evolution of lo que sentences in Old Spanish and demonstrate that they were used as relative clauses under non-question predicates such as ser ‘be’ and factive predicates such as ‘know’ with much higher frequency than under genuine question predicates such as preguntar ‘to ask’. We will suggest that the interrogative interpretation of lo que- relative clauses has its source in the ambiguity of factive predicates. Factive predicates can select both DPs interpreted as definite descriptions and CPs interpreted as interrogatives. Lo que-relatives can thus be interpreted as definite descriptions and as interrogatives under factive predicates. As we will argue, this ambiguous interpretation was the precondition for the use of lo que-sentences to be used in non-ambiguous question contexts. However, the reanalysis of lo que-sentences as questions has not been fully accomplished in Modern Spanish in contrast to Modern Portuguese, as these sentences still show syntactic and semantic differences from ordinary questions. [1] Fl. stands for Florentine, Sp. for Spanish, Pt. for Portuguese, and Fr. for French. Mo. for Modern and O. for Old and Mi. for Middle languages. Olga KellertUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelonaarticle(Old) Romancefree relativesconstituent questionsdefinite descriptionsgrammaticalizationreanalysisRomanic languagesPC1-5498Philology. LinguisticsP1-1091ENIsogloss, Vol 4, Iss 1 (2019)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	(Old) Romance free relatives constituent questions definite descriptions grammaticalization reanalysis Romanic languages PC1-5498 Philology. Linguistics P1-1091
spellingShingle	(Old) Romance free relatives constituent questions definite descriptions grammaticalization reanalysis Romanic languages PC1-5498 Philology. Linguistics P1-1091 Olga Kellert Questions with definite markers in (Old) Romance, with focus on Old Spanish
description	We will depart from the observation that Romance languages can be subdivided into two groups with respect to free relatives under question-embedding predicates (Kellert 2017). One group has grammaticalized the definite element (e.g. Pt.[1] o, Fl. i’ ‘the’) and que/che into one question pronoun (e.g. Pt. o que ‘what’ and Fl. icché ‘what’); the other group has not (e.g. Spanish and French). We will show that in one group free relatives that are embedded under question predicates resemble more complex nouns (as in Spanish and French), whereas in the other group they are clausal and have the structure of ordinary questions as in Portuguese and Florentine. We will look at the evolution of lo que sentences in Old Spanish and demonstrate that they were used as relative clauses under non-question predicates such as ser ‘be’ and factive predicates such as ‘know’ with much higher frequency than under genuine question predicates such as preguntar ‘to ask’. We will suggest that the interrogative interpretation of lo que- relative clauses has its source in the ambiguity of factive predicates. Factive predicates can select both DPs interpreted as definite descriptions and CPs interpreted as interrogatives. Lo que-relatives can thus be interpreted as definite descriptions and as interrogatives under factive predicates. As we will argue, this ambiguous interpretation was the precondition for the use of lo que-sentences to be used in non-ambiguous question contexts. However, the reanalysis of lo que-sentences as questions has not been fully accomplished in Modern Spanish in contrast to Modern Portuguese, as these sentences still show syntactic and semantic differences from ordinary questions. [1] Fl. stands for Florentine, Sp. for Spanish, Pt. for Portuguese, and Fr. for French. Mo. for Modern and O. for Old and Mi. for Middle languages.
format	article
author	Olga Kellert
author_facet	Olga Kellert
author_sort	Olga Kellert
title	Questions with definite markers in (Old) Romance, with focus on Old Spanish
title_short	Questions with definite markers in (Old) Romance, with focus on Old Spanish
title_full	Questions with definite markers in (Old) Romance, with focus on Old Spanish
title_fullStr	Questions with definite markers in (Old) Romance, with focus on Old Spanish
title_full_unstemmed	Questions with definite markers in (Old) Romance, with focus on Old Spanish
title_sort	questions with definite markers in (old) romance, with focus on old spanish
publisher	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
publishDate	2019
url	https://doaj.org/article/95ae7d9f975f49e7860d9bb26d889332
work_keys_str_mv	AT olgakellert questionswithdefinitemarkersinoldromancewithfocusonoldspanish
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Questions with definite markers in (Old) Romance, with focus on Old Spanish

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