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Concretization of a construction: Conditioning the Progressive in 20 th -century Spain

Concretization of a construction: Conditioning the Progressive in 20 th -century Spain. Grant M. Berry The Pennsylvania State University GURT 2014.

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Concretization of a construction: Conditioning the Progressive in 20 th -century Spain

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  1. Concretization of a construction: Conditioning the Progressive in 20th-century Spain Grant M. Berry The Pennsylvania State University GURT 2014

  2. “…thou mayest send for thy wife and children to thee to this village, where there are houses now stand empty, one of which thou mayest have at reasonable rates...” • “Now I begin to reap the benefits of my hazards.” • Pilgrim’s Progress (John Bunyan, 1678).

  3. The English Progressive • Composed of ‘to be’+Gerund • It used to compete with the simple present to convey present temporal reference • Now however, it is used in contexts with well-defined temporal constraints • Indicate continuity or an action circumscribed to speech time • Due to changes in frequency and relative distribution in these temporally-bounded contexts, the Progressive became the norm in those contexts • This left the simple Present to convey other imperfective aspects, and it became zero marked for habitual actions (Bybee, Pagliuca, and Perkins 1994)

  4. ESTAR+Gerund: The Spanish Progressive • Composed of an auxiliary verb (estar, ‘to be’) and a gerund • Originates from a locative construction • Through gradual changes in conditioning and frequency, the following reanalysis has occurred over the last 700 years:(cf. Torres Cacoullos 2011; Torres Cacoullos 2012:78; Bybee2010:148) • However, it is still not as grammaticalized as the English Progressive. • The Spanish Progressive can be a useful tool to determine how progressives arise cross-linguistically. [ESTAR]LOC + [VERB(GERUND)]COMPLEMENT[ESTARAUX+VERB(GERUND)]PROG

  5. Current State of Variation: • Simple Present:¿Y por qué hablas como cortado? (CORLEC ACON023A:148) and for what speak-PRS.2S like cut-PTCPWhy are you cutting out? • Progressive:Es que estoyhablando por fuera, sí. be-PRS.3SG that be-PRS.1SG speak-GER by outside yes(CORLEC ACON023A:149)I’m just talking outside. Yeah. • Both in the same utterance:Estáhaciendo un doctoradobe-PRES.3SG do-GER DET-INDF-MASC.SG doctorate y trabaja en el CIEMAT. and work-PRES.3SG in DET-DEF-MASC.SG CIEMAT The Spanish Progressive currently exhibits variability with the simple Present when conveying present temporal reference However, the simple Present is not yet zero-marked for habitual like it is in English, because it can still convey progressive meaning In fact, both can still be used within the exact same utterance and temporal context

  6. Grammaticalization of progressives • Locative (15th-century)Lucrecia e Melibea están cabelapuertaLucrecia and Melibea be-PRS-3PL beside DET-DEF-FEM-SG door aguardando a Calisto. (La Celestina: Act XII)watch-GER Calisto Lucrecia and Melibea are beside the door watching Calisto. • Locatives often grammaticalize to become progressive • Locatives also have a strong connection to progressive constructions (Comrie 1976:98-103) • Like many other constructions, they tend to follow a unidirectional grammaticalization path. • Eventually, many progressives further grammaticalize to become continuous or imperfectives(Bybee et al.1994:138-144; Bybee 2010: 107) • Progressive (20th-century)Ya te estáshaciendo mayor. Ya teAlready REFL-be.PRS.2SG do-GER olderalreadyPro-REFL.2SG estáshaciendo mayor, ¿no, Bicho? (BCON048B:35)be.PRS.2SG do-GER older no sweetie/bug You’re getting older. You’re getting older, aren’t you sweetie? [ESTAR]LOC + [VERB(GERUND)]COMPLEMENT [ESTARAUX+VERB(GERUND)]PROG

  7. Progressives and grammatical aspect • Indeterminate:Porque yo meacuerdo de cuando Because PRO-1S REFL-1S agree-PRS.1S of-PREP whenyo era jovencito (ECON023A:85).PRO-1S be-IMP.1S Young-DIM-MASC.SGBecause I remember when I was young. • Aspect can be defined broadly at the level of the phrase or in terms of lexical types (Aktionsartproperties) • Phrase level: • Limited Duration • Extended Duration • Lexical level: • Dynamic verbs • Statives • DynamicVerb:Si me lo estácontagiandoa If DAT-1S ACC-MASC.SG be-PRS.3S infect-GER to-PREPmí, es horrible. (ACON112C:168)me-PREP.Obj be-PRES.es horribleIf it’s infecting me, it’s horrible. • LimitedDuration: Como si alguien eh - estámetiendo maraña por aquí. as if someone be-PRS.3SG insert-GER tangle by here(ACON007A:3)Like someone is getting tangled up around here. • Extended Duration:Lo cual la hace bastante odiosa. It which ACC-FEM.SG make-PRS.3S enough hated(CCON002A:104)Which makes her pretty hated. • Stative Verb:Tenemosaquí a César Rojo – (ECON006B:62)have-PRS-1PL here César RojoHere we have César Rojo.

  8. Syntactic priming: A tool to autonomy • Recycling/Repetition of syntactic structures in discourse • Frequently studied in psycholinguistic literature as an automatic process which facilitates syntactic access during production (Ferreira and Bock 2006; Bock 1986) • ESTAR+Gerund: Which component pieces are susceptible to priming? • Entire constructionautonomy • ESTARor Gerundsome degree of analyzability • Simple Present or other high analyzability, weak construction

  9. Where does the Spanish Progressive stand? Since the Spanish Progressive still varies with the simple Present, the simple Present has not formed a zero marker for habitual in Spanish like it has in English (Bybee 1994). How has its aspectual distinction, as reflected through its presence in limited duration vs extended duration contexts, changed over the last century? Has the construction maintained a strong affinity for dynamic verbs, or has it generalized to statives as well? (Walker 2010:96) Does the construction demonstrate a degree of analyzability, or has it become autonomous?

  10. The current study • Corpus: Conversational portion of CORLEC (Corpus Oral de Referencia de la Lengua Española Contémporanea)(Marcos-Marín 1992) • Conversational Corpus compiledaround Madrid between 1991-1992 • Tokens: • Progressivetokensof present temporal referencewereexhaustivelyextracted • 340 tokens, 134 unique lexical types • Usingthese lexical types, simple Presenttokenswereextractedfromsurrounding files algorithmically, with a maximumextraction of 10 per type. • 677 simple Presenttokens; 74 unique lexical types • Total count: 1017 tokens

  11. Progressive predictors and variable context • Variable Context: Present temporal reference (see Walker 2010) • Predictors: (see Torres Cacoullos 2012) • Aspect (Phrase) • Syntactic priming • Polarity of the clause • Presence of a co-occurring locative • Presence of a co-occurring temporal adverbial • Lexical aspect

  12. Exclusions Se dice el gerundio, estoyREFL say-PRES.3SG DET-DEF-MASC.SG gerund be-PRS-1SG pariendo. (CCON034A:309) birth-GERYou say the gerund: I’m giving birth. Está la vidapara ‑ No, estoy ‑ eso, presenciando Be-3.PRS.3SG the life for no be-PRS.1SG that witness-GER en España cómo hemos pasado… (ACON033A:190)in Spain how have-PERF.1PL pass-PTCPLife is for—no, I’m—yes, witnessing in Spain how we’ve passed… Yateestáshaciendo mayor. Ya teAlready REFL-be.PRS.2SG do-GER olderAlready Pro-REFL.2SG estáshaciendo mayor, ¿no, Bicho? (BCON048B:35)be.PRS.2SG do-GER older no sweetie/bug You’re getting older. You’re getting older, aren’t you sweetie? Yaves. Ha subido la already see-PRS.2SG AUX-PRS.3SG raise-PTCP DET-DEF-FEM.SGvida. (ACON006A:33)life.Yeah. Life’s already gotten better. …la gente que estáescuchando, viendo, DET-DEF-FEM.S people that be-PRS.3SG listen-GER see-GER leyendomedios de comunicación- (ACON009A:25)read-GER means of communicationPeople that are listening to, seeing, and reading means of communication- …ellosestánactuado ‑ actuandodentro de Pro-NOM.MASC.3PL be.PRS.3PL act-PTCP act-GER inside of la burocracia…(ACON026A:62)DET-DEF-FEM.SG bureaucracy They are acted—acting within the bureaucracy Y entonces me dice ‑ él: "Pues noand so Pro-ACC.1SG say-QUOT Pro-MASC.3SG well no sé…” (ACON011A:99)know-PRS.1SGAnd then he tells me: “Well, I don’t know…” • Truncations • Repetitions • Repairs • Multiplegerundswith a single estar • Metalinguisticcontexts • Quotativedecir(‘to say’) • Prefabsyaves’ (‘you see’), ‘digoyo’ (‘I mean’), and ‘lo quepasa’ (‘the issue is…’)

  13. Coding for prime type Priming was determined by looking back three clauses, counting finite verbs. (see Gries 2005, Weiner & Labov 1983) The nearest prime was coded using the following type hierarchy: Progressive (Estar+Gerund) > Estar> Other. If a higher-order type was found within the first three clauses, it was recorded independent of the intervention of other lower-order tokens before it.

  14. Results Factors not selected as significant: Co-occurrence of a locative expression Strong effect for aspect Strong priming effect for Progressives Neg polarity is a conservative environment Stative verbs disfavor the construction

  15. Diachronic Trends (Adapted in part from Torres Cacoullos 2014:11) • Monotonic increase in limited duration contexts since Old Spanish • The construction is continuing its gradual takeover of limited duration contexts • Lower overall increase in the 20th century may be owed to conversational genre • Slight increases in extended duration contexts since 17thc. • Why?

  16. When occurring in extended duration contexts, it is licensed by a co-occurring temporal adverbial. ¿Quécuadroestáshaciendoahora, Irene? (BCON043A:1) What-INT painting be-PRS-2SG do-GER now Irene What painting are you working on now (these days), Irene? Y ha/ ‑hay gente mayor, gente de ‑And the- there are people older people of pueseso, mucho ‑nórdico, queestáwell that, many Nordic, that be-PRS3Sviviendoallítodo el año (ACON023A:18) live-GER there all yearAnd there are older people, people who—well, anyway—many Nordic people who are living (live) there all year. Yo no sé, porejemployoesteañoI no know-PRS-1SG for example I this yearesqueestoyteniendo ‑ (CCON013F:14) it’s that be-PRS-1SG have-GER I don’t know, this year I’ve just been having… The construction has generalized to stative verbs, common with progressives (Walker 2010: 96) X2test p>.1

  17. Conclusion • The last 100 years have engendered changes in distribution and analyzability of ESTAR+Gerund • The construction has further grammaticalized, now showing strong priming effects with itself. This indicates the construction now has a high degree of autonomy • It does maintain a slight priming effect for estar, which indicates that the construction is—in contrast to English—still slightly analyzable. • Though its gradual monopolization of limited duration contexts is still not at English-like levels, it has generalized to stative verbs and is usually licensed in extended duration contexts by a temporal adverbial

  18. THANK YOU to: Rena Torres Cacoullos Members of the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese at Penn State The planning committee of GURT 2014

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