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These past decades have seen an emergence of studies on speech acts. Condolences, however, are among the least addressed out of them. Bibliography on this subject is scarce if compared to that of petitions, promises, offers, and so on, more so in Spanish, where papers on this subject are few and far between. This gap is especially notable in diachronic studies. This paper aims to offer a first approach to strategies for delivering condolences in 18th and 19th century letters written in the Canary Islands, Spain. Its goal is to describe which are the most common semantic formulas used to give condolences, and how much they resemble those described by different authors regarding this speech act in modern languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the concepts of modality and subjectivity, according to different bibliographic studies. The main purpose of the review is to note the defining flaws of both domains, which cause confusion when it comes to being explained in the uses of different linguistic units (from verbs to adverbs and discursive particles). The approximation carried out shows that the description of both concepts is intertwined from the beginning of the theorizing about it, but, above all, that its descriptive features are eminently semantic, although the grammatical (and functional) categories that mainly manifest these phenomena operate at the pragmatic level. Thus, here we propose new definitions of modality and subjectivity that they are not mutually exclusive nor overshadow either of the two domains. For this purpose, it is proposed a conception of the studied terms based in some definition of last year's cognitive-functional theories (Nuyts and Van der Auwera 2016, Abraham 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the main results of the allophonic variation of the consonantal group /tr/ in a variety of Chilean Spanish -that of speakers that have not completed secondary education- obtained from eight cities (Iquique, La Serena, Valparaíso, Santiago, Concepción, Temuco, Coyhaique and Punta Arenas), using two elicitation tasks -semi-spontaneous interview and reading-aloud- completed by male and female speakers. The results showed that the sequence of plosive followed by a tap, that is /tr/, was more frequent. In addition, the independent variables geographic origin, elicitation task and gender were shown to have a statistically significant effect on the phonetic realizations of /tr/. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the diatopic variation of the periphrasis andar + ger, comparing its use in Mexican and Peninsular Spanish. To this end, the relative frequency of the construction is analyzed in several corpora, as well as its most distinctive semantic and syntactic features. Our quantitative analysis shows, on the one hand, the high frequency of andar + ger in Mexican Spanish as compared to Peninsular Spanish. On the other hand, it reveals that the periphrasis occurs, above all, in informal language modalities. Semantically, the present study corroborates that, in periphrases with a gerund, the verb andar ('to walk'), has progressively lost its lexical meaning of physical movement and has come to transmit pragmatic values, particularly of determination and insistence. In addition, unlike Peninsular Spanish, in Mexican Spanish the periphrasis is less subject to selectional restrictions with respect to the gerund, a relatively recent change that points to a strong grammaticalization. Syntactically, the grammaticalization process is reflected in the adjacency of the auxiliary and the gerund, the fixed internal order of the two components of the periphrasis, clitic climbing and a drop in the frequency of coordinated gerunds. The case of andar + ger demonstrates that grammaticalization of the same construction can take place in different ways depending on the specific dialectal environment. Likewise, and at a more general level, it stresses the importance of a diatopic approach in studies on verbal periphrases and grammaticalization processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a broad overview, seen from the perspective of Diachronic Construction Grammar, of the readings and values developed in Latin by the construction so/eo+iNF. The evidence provided and the analysis of the various factors involved in the interpretation of this periphrasis show that its original and basic value is not the expression of habitual aspect, as traditional models maintain, but a typifying meaning that should be considered in the framework of the continuous aspect. On the other hand, the structural possibilities and the behavior of so/eo+iNF in Latin allow to set an interesting reference framework to explain some particular uses of so/er+ INF in the earliest stages of the Spanish language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the description of the verb soleo, the Latin cognate of the Spanish auxiliary soler, with the aim of contributing to the explanation of the Spanish lexical periphrasis soler + INF, when considering it from a diachronic perspective. Soleo is an especial verb whose singularity is manifested in its etymology and its grammatical particularities. Concerning its etymology, two hypotheses have been considered which start from two different Aktionsart stems: one makes it derive from a Proto-Indo-European iterative stem, the other from a stative one. From this second etymological hypothesis, soleo could be included among Latin denominative stative *e-presents with the basic meaning of 'to be of oneself, to have as one's own, to be normal, to be custom'. Regarding its morphosyntactic features, the semi-deponent soleo has a morphologically passive perfect stem, solitus sum, whose use with aoristic value comes into contradiction with the morphological restriction of the Spanish auxiliary soler and with the aspectual categorization of habitual auxiliary attributed to it. Together with the function as an auxiliary verb constituting a periphrasis with an infinitive, it also presents a use as a full lexical verb in which the prototypical semantic value of its etymology emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a diachronic study of the inchoative periphrases comenzar a and empezar a + infinitive drawing upon grammaticalization theory, in an attempt to contribute to the history of Spanish and, particularly, to the studies focused on verbal periphrases. Based on the results of an analysis of a large number of documented occurrences between the 11th and 21st centuries, we propose that the lexical meaning of words to be relevant in the construction of grammatical pieces; therefore synonymy seems to play an important role in shaping the grammar of a language. As we will see, alternation of the studied forms shows that both coexist nowadays, and that their use is conditioned both by contextual and chronological factors, because both express the same semantic values. Since the use of empezar a + infinitive increases around the 19th century, we reflect on other change processes linked to verbal periphrases during this period, and on their importance in the syntactic periodization of Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the diatopic variation of the periphrasis andar + GER, comparing its use in Mexican and Peninsular Spanish. To this end, the relative frequency of the construction is analyzed in several corpora, as well as its most distinctive semantic and syntactic features. Our quantitative analysis shows, on the one hand, the high frequency of andar + GER in Mexican Spanish as compared to Peninsular Spanish. On the other hand, it reveals that the periphrasis occurs, above all, in informal language modalities. Semantically, the present study corroborates that, in periphrases with a gerund, the verb andar ('to walk'), has progressively lost its lexical meaning of physical movement and has come to transmit pragmatic values, particularly of determination and insistence. In addition, unlike Peninsular Spanish, in Mexican Spanish the periphrasis is less subject to selectional restrictions with respect to the gerund, a relatively recent change that points to a strong grammaticalization. Syntactically, the grammaticalization process is reflected in the adjacency of the auxiliary and the gerund, the fixed internal order of the two components of the periphrasis, clitic climbing and a drop in the frequency of coordinated gerunds. The case of andar + GER demonstrates that grammaticalization of the same construction can take place in different ways depending on the specific dialectal environment. Likewise, and at a more general level, it stresses the importance of a diatopic approach in studies on verbal periphrases and grammaticalization processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the description of the verb soleo, the Latin cognate of the Spanish auxiliary soler, with the aim of contributing to the explanation of the Spanish lexical periphrasis soler + INF, when considering it from a diachronic perspective. Soleo is an especial verb whose singularity is manifested in its etymology and its grammatical particularities. Concerning its etymology, two hypotheses have been considered which start from two different Aktionsart stems: one makes it derive from a Proto-Indo-European iterative stem, the other from a stative one. From this second etymological hypothesis, soleo could be included among Latin denominative stative *ē-presents with the basic meaning of 'to be of oneself, to have as one's own, to be normal, to be custom'. Regarding its morphosyntactic features, the semi-deponent soleo has a morphologically passive perfect stem, solitus sum, whose use with aoristic value comes into contradiction with the morphological restriction of the Spanish auxiliary soler and with the aspectual categorization of habitual auxiliary attributed to it. Together with the function as an auxiliary verb constituting a periphrasis with an infinitive, it also presents a use as a full lexical verb in which the prototypical semantic value of its etymology emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of the paper is to offer a lexicological and semantic study of the Mexican prison slang at the end of the 19th century that appears in the text of the novel of manners La Chaquira (Belen por dentro), by Francisco Garcia Gonzalez, published in instalments in a Mexican newspaper El Reldmpago during 1894 and 1895. Attention will be paid to its structure (patrimonial vocabulary, Nahuatlisms, Anglicisms, etc.) and to principal word formation processes and patterns of semantic change that can be found there. Another aim of study will comprehend its comparison with other Hispanic prison slangs, mainly the Spanish one, from the historical point of view. This historically focused comparison and analysis will show directions of evolution that would allow us to interpret this jargon as properly Mexican, or "national". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we attempt to examine the way the dictionary, as a discursive instrument, historical and ideological (Lauria, 2010,2011) has intervened in the construction of the sense of the discursive object inmigrante. Thus, this work consists in reveal and analyse diachronically the different lexicographic meanings that the entry inmigrante, the semantically close lexemes (eniigrante, migrante, etc.) and the linked verbs (emigrar, inmigrar, migrar) had in the Spanish language dictionaries edited in Spain and Argentina between 1726 and 1910. We will consider, firstly, the way in which the production conditions, either immediately or broadly speaking (Orlandi, 2015), have largely determined the historical changes that the semantic field of immigration experienced in the Spanish lexicography during the XIX century. Secondly, we will reflect on the way that the local production has re-signified the immigrant at the beginning of the XX century, key historic moment when the "mass immigration" phenomenon and the commemoration of the Centenary of the Revolution of May come together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to offer a lexicological and semantic study of Mexican prison slang during the Porfirian era as it is appreciated in the "Prison Slang Vocabulary" that is included in the costume novel La Chaquira (Belén por dentro), by Francisco García González, published in instalments in a Mexican newspaper El Relámpago during 1894 and 1895. Attention will be paid to its structure (patrimonial vocabulary, Nahuatlisms, Anglicisms, etc.) and to principal word formation processes that can be found there. Another aim of study will comprehend its comparison with other Hispanic prison slangs, mainly the Spanish one, from the historical point of view. This historically focused comparison and analysis will show directions of evolution that would allow us to interpret this jargon as properly Mexican. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish tripartite word-formation like Marx, marxismo, marxista, is analyzed by addition of two suffixes subsequently to a base. In this regard, it is considered that the suffixes-wmo and -ista are the most productive derivative suffixes in solidary relationship in Spanish. In this paper, we discuss the most important problems that morpheme-based analysis faces. We propose to explore this kind of formation with the word-based morphology perspective in order to make an relational and schematic analysis. It will be shown that our type of analysis, based on word-schemes, captures better and in an intuitive way all the linguistic dimensions interrelated in the tripartite formation of the kind Marx, marxismo, marxista. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linguistic communication goes from the reality and the semantics to the syntactic expression (perspective of the sender) and from the syntactic expression to the semantics and the reality (perspective from the recipient). It is the task of linguists to place at the disposal of the scientific community and therefore of teachers and students instruments of description and interpretation that allow them to understand and retrace mentally the processes of phrase formation and accordingly to produce well-formed sentences in an explicit way. Traditional and modern formalistic grammars offer ways and methods of analysis that are insufficient in order to master communication semantically and pragmatically. In this paper we offer a propositional method that allows to make analytically explicit the triad syntax - pragmatics -semantics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional grammarians have pointed out a co reference relation between the constituents in apposition. They argue that this semantic equivalence allows the two component structures to be easily reversible. Some authors tend to associate apposition with paraphrase, which is usually defined as a restatement of the meaning of a text or passage using other words. Within the framework of the Cognitive- Prototype Theory, we have stated in previous studies (Barbeito, 1999 and 2007a) that speakers use apposition to (re)conceptualize in a different way an entity already mentioned. Also that apposition shows a great degree of coherence between its component structures. This paper deals with a qualitative description of semantic, pragmatic and syntactic features of apposition in order to establish the relation between apposition and paraphrase. We argue that apposition is a grammaticalization of prototypical paraphrasing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the most important problems about the semantic role called experiencer in intransitive constructions, mainly. The study is based on a research into semantic-syntactic schemes and on the making of a analytical dictionary. Through the research carried out and the examination of the bibliography on the subject under study, we have observed that the semantic role experiencer interacts with other nuclear roles in the clause. In this work, we try to delimit the place of this semantic role, pinpoint and centre on the use and application by contrasting it with those interrelating construction properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyse the treatment of regular lexical polysemy and facets from a metalexicographic perspective in a sample of eight monolingual, general-purpose and semasiological dictionaries of Spanish. We analyse 82 nouns, belonging to general Spanish, which present the semantic phenomena in question, as they appear in 656 lexicographical articles. Our main goal is to set foundations for the elaboration of a lexicographical treatment that synthesizes the good practices of the Hispanic lexicographical tradition and, at the same time, overcomes its problems. Our investigation reveals that these dictionaries show, to a larger or smaller extent, considerable defects in the treatment of lexical units showing regular lexical polysemy or facets. We propose that these defects can be rectified through five specific principles for the treatment of these kinds of lexical units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The definition of morphosyntactic variables is generally grounded on the sameness of their variants at the descriptive semantic level; however, differences usually exist as to their discursive and cognitive values. Thus reflexive forms in the Spanish clitic paradigm can be seen as devices used to reinforce subject-verb agreement and generate certain meanings in discourse. Third-person se stands out among them due to its contextual versatility and the variety of uses attributed to it by descriptive grammar. However, from a functional-cognitive viewpoint it should be assumed that all such uses share a single semantic core, namely the notion that the subject becomes the endpoint of the action or process described by the verb. In this paper we will analyze syntactic and semantic variability of the position of se when adjoined to periphrases and other verbal compounds (e.g. Se puede hacer / Puede hacerse 'It can be done'). Quantitative and qualitative analysis will show that formal variation is closely related to the interpretation speakers make of the scene described in a clause, and particularly to aspects such as the salience and agentivity of the main entity in that scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and discusses the elaboration and application of an analytical matrix on a corpus of cases of spatial movement of the English prepositions along, across and through. This tool is a further development of another matrix previously applied for the semantic analysis of stationary prepositions. This development required the introduction of dynamic features absent from the original version. The results point to the subordination of fictive representations to factive prototypical schemata as a shared feature of the spatial representations of the three prepositions and dimensionality as the differential feature. Finally, it is suggested that the matrix is an appropriate tool for the analysis of any spatial representation projected by means of a preposition and that the degree of detail of the spatial prototypical representations of English may account for the cognitive difficulty that speakers of Spanish experience in the acquisition of the prepositional system of that language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we deal with the notion of contour from a lexico-syntactic perspective. It is our contention here that, in the lexicographic definition of the predicative lexical units of monolingual semasiological dictionaries, contour states the 'arguments' (subject, objects, etc.) that they themselves select in virtue of their semantic-syntactic properties. Thus we hypothesize that the information provided by the contour is a constituent part of lexical items. Specifcally, we argue that, contrary to what is often believed, in the dictionary the lexicographic definition contains grammatical information in its own right, as the contour is a 'projection' of the syntactic nature of the concerned entries. Besides, we have verified that procedures used in current lexicography to formally define the contour (restrictive formulas of the type Dicho de .... Referido a .... and square, round or angle brackets) are applied in current general Spanish dictionaries, on an asystematic and barely exhaustive way, failing to describe the argument structure of the entries of their macrostructures. The use of bracketing, in particular, not only hinders the right comprehension of the senses provided by the definition, but it also baffles the reader. We therefore maintain that for a lexicographic definition to be considered well stated, all the arguments required by the entry must be explicitly stated regardless whether they are actualized in discourse or not. Finally, we subscribe to Bosque's (2001, a, b; 2004) idea that the contour implies the 'selectional restrictions' that the entries themselves (when they are predicate) impose on their arguments and, in line with this notion, we propose a tentative typology of such restrictions based on the content (categorical, semantic and lexical) of the chosen elements. It is the author's conviction that a lexicographic approach of the kind discussed in this paper will certainly provide key insights into the syntactic structure of natural languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]