El papel del aspecto gramatical en las construcciones con estar y adjetivos de propiedades
- Manuel Leonetti 1
- Gonzalo Escribano 1
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1
Universidad de Alcalá
info
- Leonetti Jungl, Manuel (coord.)
ISSN: 2254-8769
Year of publication: 2018
Issue Title: Nuevas aportaciones sobre "ser" y "estar"
Volume: 48
Fascicle: 1
Pages: 115-152
Type: Article
More publications in: Revista Española de Lingüística
Abstract
This paper investigates the interaction between viewpoint aspect and the semantics of adjectives in combinations of the Spanish copula estar with various classes of individual-level adjectives. The basic data are subtle contrasts in the use of perfective and imperfective past tenses, like the one in Estuvo inteligente vs #Estaba inteligente. The analysis we put forward assumes that a mismatch arises between the copula and the adjective that must be solved in interpreting the construction; we claim that the effects of viewpoint aspect are due to its role in the inferential process of mismatch resolution. The peculiar properties of evaluative adjectives make perfective aspect favour such processes, whereas with other lexical classes of individual-level adjectives, the preferred option is imperfective aspect.