To the Right of the Verb: An Investigation of Clitic Doubling and Right Dislocation in three Spanish Dialects

Valeria A. Belloro

Oct 2015 · Cambridge Scholars Publishing

About this ebook

This book provides a new approach to the study of clitic doubling in Spanish, based on spontaneous data considered within their broad discourse context, and focusing on the cognitive and pragmatic factors that underpin the use of these constructions.

Considering examples from Argentine, Mexican and Spanish regional variants of the language, the study embraces the graduality and heterogeneity that emerge from the data, and distinguishes different subtypes of “doubling” depending on the pragmatic constraints that govern their use, as well as the morphophonological and morphosyntactic characteristics of dative and accusative clitics in each variant. Each “doubling” subtype, in turn, is shown to have different degrees of spreading.

The book concludes with an examination of these constructions within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar. The formalizations proposed account for the complex interplay of syntax, semantics and pragmatics evidenced by clitic doubling in a way that, at the same time, is consistent with the diversity uncovered by the analysis of the natural data.

About the author

Dr. Valeria A. Belloro obtained her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has lectured at Columbia University, the Universidad de Buenos Aires, the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, among other institutions, and is currently a full-time professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Mexico. She specializes in the study of the syntax-pragmatics interface and has published articles examining this topic in Spanish, as well as some of the indigenous languages of Mexico.