Deconstructing Voice. The syntax and semantics of <i>u</i>-syncretism in Spanish

Abstract

This paper focuses on a well-known pattern of systematic syncretism in Spanish se constructions. Detailed syntactic and semantic analyses are provided with the aim of sustaining two main theses. First, I conceive of se as a probe for A-movement. This probe is merged with Voice in order to satisfy a subcategorization restriction. Yet, being defective, it cannot receive a θ-role from Voice. As a probe it looks for a goal in its complement domain. If there is such a goal, then it A-moves to Spec,VoiceP, position in which it agrees with se and receives an additional agent θ-role from Voice, if there is one. This results in most, if not all, instances of the so-called “paradigmatic” se (se reflexives, inherent se, benefactive se and so on). There are cases in which there is no such a goal for se. In those scenarios, Agree fails and the clitic receives third person singular by default. This results in the so-called “non-paradigmatic” se (essentially, passive/impersonal se). Second, at LF, these two syntactic scenarios feed two different LF realizations. Whenever se has a goal with which it agrees, se itself is realized as a λ-abstractor, but as an indefinite variable whenever Agree fails, as in the case of passive/impersonal se. This theory dispenses, then, with particular Voice features (e.g., Active vs. Non-active) and with different types of se (paradigmatic vs. non-paradigmatic) but, more importantly, it does so by appealing to well-motivated restrictions on A-dependencies, namely, Activity and Miminality.

Se out of control

“…If the theory is correct, any occurrence of se in the clause (modulo the so-called "spurious se", e.g., Se lo dijo 'SE CL.ACC said') univocally indicates the presence of a syntactic expletive merged with the Voice head. As I have shown in Saab (2020), the theory extends successfully to other cases of paradigmatic and non-paradigmatic se. Let me just briefly consider the case of 8 Existential closure (or whatever other mechanism for getting the impersonal reading is relevant) must, of course, be sensitive to the intervention of other possible operators present in the Syntax-LF.…”

“…( It is important to make clear one's reaction to such a question from the beginning, since that any stance one takes with respect to it will affect particular analyses for the particular distribution of any occurrence of the clitic se and it's agreeing variants. In this sense, my answer can be stated in the following form: 3 (A) In Spanish, there is just one se, serving always the same purpose: deleting unsatisfied subcategorization features encoded on particular functional heads; i.e., the clitic se is a pure syntactic expletive (see Saab 2020).…”

“…The uniform theory for se I favor has as a first crucial ingredient a difference in the formal makeup of a subset of clitics and of regular lexical phrases. Concretely, I assume that certain clitics, and se in particular, are probes for A-movement (see Saab 2020Saab , 2021):…”

“…Ling., Campinas, v.63, p. 1-17, e021042, 2021 12 Now, when matrix se is merged with matrix Voice, it probes for a suitable goal, but it does not find any. This is because, as discussed in Saab (2020), se cannot probe beyond its eventive core or, put differently, the embedded CP works as a barrier for Aextraction. 11 We already know what the LF consequences of this Agree failure are for matrix se: the clitic itself is interpreted as the indefinite agent argument of Voice.…”

“…(36) [VoiceP Juan[agent, benefactive, Case: unv., iϕ:val. ] Now, when we try to embed this type of structure into a subject control configuration in which impersonal se occupies the external argument position, PRO and embedded se are both interpreted as the agent of the subordinate event without forming a referential chain: For those that believe that impersonal se requires valuing nominative with a functional head like, say, finite T (see Cinque 1988, Saab 2002, Ormazabal and Romero 2019, 2020, this is of course ruled out for reasons not related to the type of Agree failures we are exploring here, but because the embedded se is in a clause in which nominative is not available. However, this correlation has at least two important gaps.…”