Predicación, gramaticalización y perífrasis verbales

Abstract

This dissertation adresses the differences between an auxiliary verb and a (pseudo)copula in the gerund Spanish periphrases domain. Here we defend that there is no difference between both verbs.Dealing with this question entails taking in account another question that is impossible to assume completely in this work: are verbal periphrases an independent grammatical structure? Although this dissertation does not try to deal with all verbal periphrases in Spanish, it belongs to the debate about the distinction between verbal periphrases and attributive structures. The boundaries between these structures have been described, mainly, in the case of participle periphrases:(1) a. La tirada fue reducida por el editor. The edition to be.3sg.past. reduce.participle by the publisher.‘The edition was reduced by the publisher’.b. La tirada fue reducida por el carácter The print run to be.3sg.past. reduce.participle by the natureminoritario de la ediciónminority of the edition.‘The print run was limited because of the minority nature of the edition." The contrast between (1a) and (1b) (that appears in Lázaro Carreter 1980) shows the debate regarding the passive voice and the semantic content of the past participle in Spanish and, in this case, Lázaro Carreter defended two different structures in each example: a verbal periphrasis in (1a) and an attributive construction in (1b). In the examples of (1) the question is if the element that follows the verb to be is a past participle or an adjective (Bosque 1990, Brucart 1989)...