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Predicate doubling in Spanish: On how discourse may mimic syntactic movement

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Abstract

Predicate doubling in Spanish is usually taken to involve multiple copy spell-out. This approach is mainly motivated by the fact that two instances of the same lexical verb appear in the construction, and by the observation that the pattern is sensitive to island restrictions. In contrast, we contend in this paper that predicate doubling is a phenomenon for which an analysis based on multiple copy spell-out cannot be empirically substantiated. We argue that the construction is better understood as involving a base-generated predicate in the left periphery that functions as a contrastive topic. We show that a number of properties of predicate doubling follow from this analysis, including lexical identity between the verbs and sensitivity to islands. Furthermore, our proposal provides a rationale for genus-species splits in the construction, and also offers a straightforward account for otherwise mysterious asymmetries arising with factive verbs.

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Notes

  1. This type of construction has received many names over the years, e.g., predicate cleft, VP-cleft, vP-topicalization, etc. We follow Aboh and Dyakonova (2009) and many others in calling it predicate doubling simply because we find that this terminology describes the phenomenon in a more transparent way.

  2. All Spanish grammaticality judgments reported in this article are provided by the authors and were confirmed by native speaker colleagues. Spanish examples correspond to the Rioplatense variety, in which predicate doubling is a productive pattern.

  3. The landscape of island restrictions in Spanish does not differ significantly from other well-studied Romance languages. There are two topicalization constructions involving leftward dislocation: clitic left dislocation and hanging topics. From these, only the former obeys island restrictions (Zubizarreta 1999; López 2009; Olarrea 2012), the latter being unanimously analyzed as base-generated constituents above the CP level (Cinque 1977; Alexiadou 2006; López 2009); however, see Muñoz Pérez (2021) for the observation that infinitival hanging topics might be island-sensitive. Wh-movement and focus fronting are both subject to canonical island restrictions (Francom 2012; Olarrea 2012).

  4. A similar conclusion can be drawn from doubling patterns with finite verbs, which seemingly involve a base-generated CP in the left periphery.

    1. (i)
      figure t

    These constructions display island effects just like standard instances of predicate doubling.

    1. (ii)
      figure u

    We leave the argument based on these constructions for another time, as the topic deserves separate discussion.

  5. Cable (2004) also arrives at the conclusion that island sensitivity is not a proper argument for movement in predicate doubling, although he does it on different grounds.

  6. The lack of patterns like (22a) may be taken to follow from Vicente’s (2009) account. He follows Abels (2001) and Landau (2006) in assuming that multiple copy spell-out is a means to save a morphologically deviant structure. In a sentence like (i), the chain C = {υ0, υ0} requires its highest link to be overt. Pronunciation of the lower link is enforced to prevent a violation of the Stranded Affix Filter, since the inflectional morphology of the verb (–e) cannot be spelled-out by itself.

    1. (i)
      figure v

    This explanation does not extend straightforwardly to the pattern in (22b), as it predicts that the head υ0 should be the only element within υP that is spelled-out twice. In other words, there is no principled reason for the occurrence of un auto ‘a car’ within the clause to require pronunciation in (ii).

    1. (ii)
      figure w

    Even ignoring this technical issue and assuming that Vicente predicts that there are no constructions like (22b) in Spanish, the fact remains that there is no independent motivation for the claim that υ0 or υP undergoes topicalization.

  7. Importantly, note that υPs in Spanish cannot be topicalized via CLLD.

    1. (i)
      figure y

  8. As Martin Salzmann (p.c.) and an anonymous reviewer point out, the reconstruction and base-generation analyses make different predictions regarding Condition C in sentences involving embedding (Takano 1995). According to the reconstruction account, the sentence in (ib) should lead to a Condition C violation, given that the dislocated υP would be interpreted within the clause. As can be seen, this prediction is not borne out. The pattern in (ib) is acceptable, as predicted by the base-generation approach.

    1. (i)
      figure ac

  9. According to Vicente (2007), this sentence is acceptable. However, we and our informants find it, at least, deviant. In any case, we find no contrast between this example and the one in (29d), which is taken to involve base-generation.

  10. As an anonymous reviewer points out, predicate doubling in Spanish is also acceptable if the doubled predicate is a modal.

    1. (i)
      figure av

    This is expected under the present account. In this example, Predicate 1 signals the presence of alternative questions involving other modal auxiliaries, with which the dislocated verb contrasts, e.g., should I go to the cinema?, must I go to the cinema?, etc. This analysis can also account for the fact that not all auxiliaries can be doubled. As Vicente (2007:63) observes, ser ‘be’ (passives) and haber ‘have’ (perfect tenses) cannot be dislocated in predicate doubling constructions. Given that these verbs lack lexical content, they cannot be used contrastively. In consequence, they cannot function as contrastive topics.

    1. (ii)
      figure aw

  11. For the sake of simplicity, we only consider predicate doubling constructions involving bare infinitives and not infinitival phrases. The analysis extends straightforwardly to the latter.

  12. Since these sentences are unacceptable, it becomes difficult to identify where the focus is supposed to be. The location of the F-marking in (62), (65), (68) and (71) is in attempt to comply with the congruence condition and is for expository purposes only. In any case, there is no focus structure that can make these examples congruent.

  13. Vicente (2007:80) points out that predicate doubling improves if the DP that contains the relative clause is indefinite. Note that this contrast is unexpected under a movement-based approach.

    1. (i)
      figure bd
    1. (ii)
      figure be

    A potential explanation in terms of the analysis developed here can be sketched as follows. First, the clause in (i) constitutes an acceptable answer to the QUD did any person win? In this case, the matrix predicate he visto ‘have seen’ seems to receive a parenthetical interpretation (see discussion below), as the embedded clause constitutes the “main point” of the utterance. Thus, the clause does answer a question with ganar ‘to win’ as its main predicate, and thus satisfies the congruence condition. As for (ii), the embedded proposition cannot be taken to answer the QUD did any person win? as the definite determiner already presupposes that someone won. Since the clause in (ii) does not answer a question with ganar ‘to win’ as its main predicate, this predicate doubling sentence is predicted to be ill-formed.

  14. There is a growing consensus that the Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC) is not a syntactic restriction on movement, but a symmetry requirement that should be understood in semantic terms (Salzmann 2012; de Vries 2017). This approach offers an alternative line of analysis for (70), as the dislocation pattern in this sentence is asymmetric in the relevant sense. Thus, even if our approach is not on the right track, the argument remains that the unacceptability of (70) no longer supports a movement-based analysis of predicate doubling.

  15. As noticed by an anonymous reviewer, this predicts that the pattern must become acceptable if the contrastive topic is clearly restricted to only one of the assertions. This can be done by replacing the conjunction y ‘and’ for the adversative pero ‘but’ (i) or by introducing some kind of phonological pause between the first coordinate and the second one (ii). As can be seen, the prediction is borne out.

    1. (i)
      figure bj
    1. (ii)
      figure bk

  16. See also Ambridge and Goldberg (2008) for the claim that islands encode presupposed, i.e., non asserted, information.

  17. A prediction that arises from this analysis is that nominals within these domains cannot function as constrastive topics either. As the following dialogue shows, this seems to be borne out. The reply in B′ is particularly telling, as the proper noun Cosmo is generated as part of a hanging topic and is only connected through anaphora to the temporal adjunct.

    1. (i)
      figure bl

    For completeness, notice that a very similar sentence is acceptable if the hanging topic Cosmo is interpreted as a familiar topic (Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl 2007).

    1. (ii)
      figure bm

  18. According to Vicente (2007, 2009), this type of doubling is deviant. However, we find sentences like (75B) perfectly acceptable. This is also the judgement of our informants.

  19. Doubling patterns introduced by prepositional markers such as con respecto a ‘with respect to,’ e.g., (18), are also acceptable if Predicate 2 is within a Complex NP island and the matrix predicate receives a parenthetical interpretation, e.g., (i). This further supports our conclusion in Sect. 2.2 that these constructions do not involve movement.

    1. (i)
      figure bp

  20. For instance, complex NPs in Spanish are opaque for wh-extraction no matter whether they are at-issue or not. This suggests that there is a structural restriction at play.

  21. This sort of mismatch is acceptable if Predicate 1 is introduced within a prepositional expression like con respecto a ‘with respect to.’

    1. (i)

      Con respecto a viajar, Juan ha volado a Amsterdam.

      with respect to to.travel Juan has.3sg flown to Amsterdam

      ‘As for travelling, Juan has flown to Amsterdam.’

    In this context, Predicate 1 has a non-contrastive topic interpretation. We conjecture that this follows from prepositional expressions like con respecto a ‘with respect to’ being able to point to a non-immediate QUD. This hypothesis is further supported by the acceptability of sentences like (ii), in which the hanging topic introduces a non-contrastive topic that is merely thematically related to the QUD determining the focus structure of the sentence.

    1. (ii)
      figure bt

    If our conjecture is on the right track, the unacceptability of the examples in (21) should be explained as the impossibility to accommodate a (non-immediate) QUD relating Predicate 1 and the main assertion within each sentence. For instance, in (21a) there is no question about an event of buying (e.g., what did Eliana buy?) that might be addressed by a question about going to the cinema (e.g., when did Eliana go to the cinema?).

  22. An informal explanation for this effect can be posited in terms of the Manner Maxim (Grice 1975); see Murphy (2003) and Horn (2006) for similar treatments of synonymy avoidance. According to this maxim, utterances should be as transparent as possible. In this sense, one would expect that if a single meaning needs to be expressed twice, a speaker should employ the same form twice rather than using two distinct forms. When the latter happens, an inference arises that both terms have distinct meanings.

  23. Vicente (2009:170) argues that Spanish predicate doubling does not exhibit genus-species effects. To support this claim, he offers the following example.

    1. (i)
      figure cc

    We find that this pattern improves significantly if the proper noun is a well-known representative of a certain class, and the nominal within Predicate 1 is a bare noun.

    1. (ii)
      figure cd

  24. This explains why genus-species splits are attested with nouns only. Bare nouns, both as mass nouns like pescado ‘fish’ in (88a) or as bare plurals like libros ‘books’ in (88b), have been observed to denote kinds (Carlson 1977; Chierchia 1998), a property that other lexical classes, e.g., verbs, simply do not share. Therefore, it is rather unsurprising that a syntactic pattern expressing inclusion relations between kinds is restricted to bare nouns.

  25. These questions can be obtained by applying Büring’s (2003) CT-Value Formation algorithm in (36) to the abstract representation in (92). As a first step, the QUD of this representation would be formed by replacing the focused feature [+C] for the wh-element what. Assuming that the lexical verb is to eat, and that the features [+A][+B] correspond to the noun fish, the resulting question would be equivalent to what fish do you eat? From this question, a set of alternative questions can be formed by replacing the CT-marked segment (i.e., the predicate eat fish) for contextually relevant alternatives.

  26. This is a simplification for expository purposes, as weak islands cannot be reduced to the argument-adjunct distinction. See Szabolcsi and Lohndal (2017) for a complete overview.

  27. While this is a widely accepted claim, the literature has observed some exceptions. Particularly, it has been noticed that emotive factives can embed announcements in certain contexts. In these uses, the complement clause is not presupposed, but it is taken as new information, i.e., the regret is what is asserted (Abbott 2000).

    1. (i)
      1. a.

        We regret that children cannot accompany their parents to commencement exercises. (Karttunen 1974:191)

      2. b.

        We regret to inform you that your insurance policy is hereby canceled. (Simons 2007:1051)

    As expected, predicate doubling is acceptable in these contexts (Verdecchia 2021).

    1. (ii)
      figure cm

    Given that in these cases the embedded clause constitutes the main point of the utterance, the congruence condition for predicate doubling is met (i.e., the sentence can function as an answer for an immediate QUD with Predicate 1 as its main predicate).

    1. (iii)

      〚Did Federer lose?〛 ⊆ 〚 (...)ΣF Federer did lose〛f

    Importantly, it should be noted that these uses of emotive factives trigger mood alternation: they embed an indicative clause rather than a subjunctive one (Real Academia Española y Asociación de Academias de la Lengua 2009:Sect. 25). This explains why the answer in (104) can only be interpreted presuppositionally.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the editor, Martin Salzmann, and to three anonymous NLLT reviewers for their valuable observations and suggestions. Special thanks go to Andrés Saab and Jenneke van der Wal for their comments on the original manuscript. We would also like to thank the audiences of Romania Nova VIII, Going Romance 31, Newcastle University, Leiden University Center for Linguistics, and to the members of the BA-LingPhil group for their feedback on previous versions of (parts of) this research. Carlos Muñoz Pérez acknowledges financial support by the ANID/FONDECYT project 3190813.

Funding

This research is supported by the ANID/FONDECYT research project number 3190813 (Muñoz Pérez), and a doctoral scholarship granted by CONICET (Verdecchia).

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  1. Faculty of Language and Literature, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Santiago, Chile

    Carlos Muñoz Pérez

  2. Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, SADAF-CONICET, 642 Bulnes St., C1176ABL, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Matías Verdecchia

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Muñoz Pérez, C., Verdecchia, M. Predicate doubling in Spanish: On how discourse may mimic syntactic movement. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 40, 1159–1200 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-022-09536-3

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