A sublexical analysis of the passive in Spanish: closing the circle
Abstract
This paper studies the factors involved in the formation and interpretation of the Spanish periphrastic passive with ser. The restrictions examined derive both from the lexical and inflectional aspect of the verb and from the content of its subject and object arguments. The work assumes the assumptions of the Generative Lexicon theory and postulates that the passive is a syntactic operation licensed by agreement of the sublexical features encoded in the eventive structure of the verbs and in the qualia structure of their arguments. The sub-lexical analysis defended allows to explain the heterogeneous behavior of the by-phrase of the passive, obligatory in some contexts and optional in others. The proposal is extended to explain the intervention of adjuncts in the construction of the event denoted by a predicate and their essential contribution in the rescue of certain informatively irrelevant passives.
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