Revisiting aspectualsein Spanish: telicity, statives, and maximization

Abstract

This paper addresses aspectual se in Spanish. Building on the previous analyses that have been proposed in the literature to account for constructions with aspectual se that mainly focus on the syntax of these (see, e.g., MacDonald, Jonathan E. 2017. Spanish aspectual se as an indirect object reflexive: The import of atelicity, bare nouns, and leísta PCC repairs. Probus. International Journal of Romance Linguistics 29(1). 73–118), this paper provides a semantic account that makes explicit (i) why dynamic predicates must be telic in the presence of se, and (ii) why the very same se can appear with a limited number of stative predicates, which are atelic. The account is implemented in the Figure/Path Relation model in Beavers, John. 2011. On affectedness. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 29(2). 335–370, Figure/Path Relation model. I propose a maximization strategy that captures that dynamic predicates in constructions with se are always telic by indicating the conditions under which the theme has a fixed quantity and the scale/path that may be associated with the verb is bounded. This maximization strategy is then compared to and distinguished from the event maximization strategies proposed for Slavic languages (Filip, Hana. 2008. Events and maximalization: The case of telicity and perfectivity. In Susan Rothstein (ed.), Theoretical and crosslinguistic approaches to the semantics of aspect, 217–256. Amsterdam: John Benjamins) and Hungarian (Kardos, Éva. 2016. Telicity marking in Hungarian. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 1(1). 1–37), and to the scale/path maximization strategy proposed for Southern Aymara (Martínez Vera, Gabriel. 2021a. Degree achievements and degree morphemes in competition in Southern Aymara. Linguistics and Philosophy 44. 695–735).

Aspectual se and Telicity in Heritage Spanish Bilinguals: The Effects of Lexical Access, Dominance, Age of Acquisition, and Patterns of Language Use

“…This is particularly necessary with regard to the variability that is found across English and Spanish. We do find confirmation with regard to the strong preference for telic interpretations in the presence of se in Spanish and consumption predicates, such as comer 'eat' and tomar 'drink', which is consistent with reports in the theoretical literature (see Martínez Vera 2022). As for leer 'read' (where there is an open scale and an incremental theme is present), it behaves differently when compared to consumption predicates in that the presence of se does not yield the same results.…”

“…The notion of (non-)maximal cover would apply cross-linguistically (it thus applies in English and Spanish in our discussion), but may be instantiated differently. This is the case of aspectual se in Spanish for Martínez Vera (2022), because it morphologically instantiates the need for a maximal interpretation. Predicates such as comerse la manzana 'eat up the apple' (1) are telic (Sanz 2000;Basilico 2010;Campanini and Schäfer 2011;MacDonald 2017).…”

“…Martínez Vera (2022) enriches this setup by incorporating the mereological notion of cover, which allows one to be explicit about the whole theme participating in the event.…”

“…We further selected verbs frequently used in the discussion of scalar meaning (i.e., indicating change), such as eat, drink, etc. (see Kennedy and Levin 2008;Beavers 2011;Pedersen 2015;Martínez Vera 2022). Based on the notion of telicity/maximization, the English items manipulated the scalar verbs varying in whether they were bounded or unbounded.…”

“…See Martínez Vera (2022) and references therein for discussion of particles in English, which, crucially, are not maximizing means. Specfically, maximizers such as aspectual se (or its counterparts in Slavic languages or Hungarian, as Martínez Vera 2022 discusses) have an overarching effect on the whole event, i.e., on how the relevant scale and the theme are mapped into the event.…”