Abstract

BOGARD, Sergio. TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE SUBJECTS WITH NOMINAL COMMON HEAD IN SPANISH. STRUCTURE AND EVOLUTION (13TH, 16TH AND 19TH CENTURIES). Anu. let. lingüíst. filol. [online]. 2019, vol.7, n.1, pp.5-59.  Epub Dec 06, 2021. ISSN 2448-8224.  https://doi.org/10.19130/iifl.adel.7.1.2019.1529.

This paper offers a description of the syntactic and semantic evolution of Spanish transitive and intransitive subjects with common noun head. Drawing on data from the 13th century as well as from the 16th through the 19th centuries from Peninsular and Mexican Spanish, and based on the fact that the most frequent order for both transitive and intransitive subjects at 13th century is VS, I will argue the following: first, in the 16th century the transitive subject already exhibits a predominant SV order, whereas the intransitive subject maintains the VS order as dominant, although with a drastically diminished productivity; second, the 19th century shows the beginning of the consolidation of the SV order for both types of subjects, given that at that moment it has become the rule for transitive subjects, and it already exceedes 60% of appearance for intransitive subjects. Furthermore, this last behavior provides us with additional support in favor of the claim that the 19th century establishes the starting point of a third evolutionary period in the Spanish language history, a hypothesis put forth by Melis, Flores and Bogard, 2003.

Keywords : constituent order; VS and SV orders; noun phrase with common noun head; transitive and intransitive subjects.