Why does Spanish have a dozen pseudocopulas to express change-of-state? Towards a cognitive-functional account.

In Spanish a dozen verbs can be used as pseudo-copula to express a change-of-state. An in-depth analysis is needed to know their distribution and to gain insights into the conceptual differences that determine the verb choice. The project is not limited to the aspectual restrictions on the verb and the lexical semantics of the attribute, but aims at offering a full-fledged description of the variation potential of the subject as well as of the verb and the attribute. Starting off from the hypothesis that to each verb corresponds a different representation of kinesis and evolution, for each of the three constituents various parameters will be examined in the light of their possible contribution to the specific interpretation of the double event-structure (process of change and resulting state). In order to measure the degree of grammaticalization and lexical persistence of the verb used as pseudo-copula, the contiguity and interface with other than the pseudo-copular construction will be taken into account. The degree of paradigmatic entrenchment will be put in relation with the possibilities of using the stem of the verb and of the attribute in other syntactically and/or semantically related clausal structures. By bringing in the context in the usage-based analysis it will also be possible to picture elements of semantic prosody and (incipient) subjectification. The qualitative lexico-constructional analysis will be quantified by applying the collostructional method on and between comparable sub-corpora for each of the twelve verbs.

Keywords:Spanish, Pseudo-copulas, Change-of-state, Cognitive-functional, Data-based, Grammaticalization

Disciplines:Language studies, Literary studies