Towards a syntactic understanding of connective particles
The final pero phenomenon in Bahiense Spanish
The contrastive connector pero ‘but’ is rigidly sentence-initial in most Spanish varieties. However, at least three Spanish dialects allow locating it at the end of a sentence. This paper discusses the properties of final pero as attested in the dialect spoken in Bahia Blanca (Argentina), i.e., the so-called pero bahiense. First, I demonstrate that pero bahiense cannot be reduced to superficially similar phenomena in Spanish. Then, I offer a comparison between pero bahiense and its sentence-initial counterpart showing that they share a number of non-trivial characteristics but also differ in relevant regards. Based on these properties, I advance an account of the pero bahiense phenomenon according to which instances of pero that express concessivity may optionally attract the CP projection to their left. While the analysis does not cover all properties of pero bahiense, it highlights aspects of the syntax of connective particles that require further investigation.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: The landscape of final pero
- 2.What pero bahiense is not
- 3.Comparing initial pero and pero bahiense
- 4.Towards an understanding of the syntax of connective particles
- 5.Concluding remarks
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
References (61)
References
Abels, Klaus. 2003. Successive cyclicity, anti locality and adposition stranding. Storrs: University of Connecticut dissertation.
Alexiadou, Artemis. 2006. Left dislocation (including CLLD). In Martin Everaert & Henk van Riemsdijk (eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax, Volume I, 668–699. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 

Astruc, Lluïsa. 2004. Right-dislocations: Influence of information structure on prosodic phrasing and intonation. Cambridge Occasional Papers in Linguistics 11. 1–14.
Biberauer, Theresa. 2010. Semi null-subject languages, expletives and expletive pro reconsidered. In Theresa Biberauer, Anders Holmberg, Ian Roberts & Michelle Sheehan (eds.), Parametric variation: Null subjects in minimalist theory, 153–199. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blakemore, Diane. 1987. Semantic constraints on relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.
Blanco, Isabel, Silvia Rigatuso & Silvia Suardíaz de Antollini. 1982. Asimilación lingüística de los inmigrantes italianos en Aldea Romana. Cuadernos del Sur 151. 99–115.
Bosque, Ignacio & Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach. 2009. Fundamentos de sintaxis formal. Madrid: Akal.
Calvo Pérez, Julio. 2000. Partículas en castellano andino. In Julio Calvo Pérez (ed.), Teoría y práctica del contacto: el español de América en el candelero, 73–111. Madrid & Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana & Vervuert. 

Cardinaletti, Anna. 2011. German and Italian modal particles and clause structure. The Linguistic Review 28(4). 493–531. 

Carrilho, Ernestina. 2005. Expletive ele in European Portuguese dialects. Lisbon: Universidade de Lisboa dissertation.
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1977. The movement nature of left dislocation. Linguistic Inquiry 8(2). 397–412.
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads: A cross-linguistic perspective. New York: Oxford University Press. 

Coromines, Joan. 1995. Diccionari etimológic i complementari de la llengua catalana. Vol VI. Barcelona: Curial Edicions Catalanes.
Cusihuamán, Antonio. 2001. Gramática Quechua, Cuzco Collao. Cuzco: Centro de Estudios Regionales Bartolomé de las Casas.
Emonds, Joseph. 1970. Root and structure-preserving transformations. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.
Estrella-Santos, Ana. 2018. ¿Te gustó pero?: posposición de ‘pero’ en el habla del Ecuador. Ianua. Revista Philologica Romanica 181. 1–22.
Fontanella de Weinberg, María Beatriz. 1979. La asimilación lingüística de los inmigrantes. Mantenimiento y cambio de lengua en el sudoeste bonaerense. Bahía Blanca: Universidad Nacional del Sur.
Frascarelli, Mara. 2000. The syntax-phonology interface in focus and topic constructions in Italian. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 

Haegeman, Liliane. 2002. Anchoring to speaker, adverbial clauses and the structure of cp. Georgetown University Working Papers in Theoretical Linguistics 21. 117–180.
Haegeman, Liliane. 2004. Topicalization, CLLD and the left periphery. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 35(1). 157–192. 

Haegeman, Liliane. 2006. Conditionals, factives and the left periphery. Lingua 116(10). 1651–1669. 

Haegeman, Liliane. 2014. West Flemish verb-based discourse markers and the articulation of the speech act layer. Studia Linguistica 68(1). 116–139. 

Hardman, Martha James, Juana Vásquez, Juan de Dios Yapita, Lucy Therina Briggs, Nora Clearman England & Laura Martin. 1988. Aymara: compendio de estructura fonológica y gramatical. La Paz: ILCA.
Haselow, Alexander. 2013. Arguing for a wide conception of grammar: The case of final particles in spoken discourse. Folia Linguistica 47(2). 

Hernanz, Maria Lluïsa. 2007. Emphatic polarity and C in Spanish. In Laura Brugè (ed.), Studies in Spanish syntax, 104–115. Venice: Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina.
Hill, Virginia. 2007. Vocatives and the pragmatics-syntax interface. Lingua 117(12). 2077–2105. 

Izutsu, Mitsuko Narita. 2008. Contrast, concessive, and corrective: Toward a comprehensive study of opposition relations. Journal of Pragmatics 40(4). 646–675. 

Kany, Charles E. 1947. Some aspects of Bolivian popular speech. Hispanic Review 151. 72–79. 

Kayne, Richard. 1994. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
König, Ekkehard. 1988. Concessive connectives and concessive sentences: cross-linguistic regularities and pragmatic principles. In John A. Hawkins (ed.), Explaining language universals, 145–166. Oxford: Blackwell.
König, Ekkehard. 1994. Concessive clauses. In Ronald E. Asher (ed.), The encyclopedia of language and linguistics, 679–681. Pergamon Press.
Lakoff, Robin. 1971. If’s, and’s and but’s about conjunction. In Charles J. Fillmore & Terence Langendoen (eds.), Studies in linguistic semantics, 114–149. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Wilson.
Laprade, Richard. 1981. Some cases of Aymara influence on La Paz Spanish. In Martha James Hardman (ed.), The Aymara language in its social and cultural context, 207–227. Gainesville: The University Presses of Florida.
Lasnik, Howard. 1981. Restricting the theory of transformations. In Norbert Hornstein & David Lightfoot (eds.), Explanation in linguistics, 152–173. London: Longman.
Levas, Raül. 2018. El marcador contraargumentativo pero en posición no inicial en el castellano de Mallorca. Paper presented at the
II Meeting on Spanish Dialects. Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha.
Lipski, John M. 1994. Latin American Spanish. London: Longman.
López, Luis. 2009. A derivational syntax for informational structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Maiden, Martin & Cecilia Robustelli. 2013. A reference grammar of modern italian. New York: Routledge 2nd edn.
Malchukov, Andrej L. 2004. Towards a semantic typology of adversative and contrast marking. Journal of Semantics 21(2). 177–198. 

Martín zorraquino, María Antonia & José Portolés. 1999. Los marcadores del discurso. In Ignacio Bosque & Violeta Demonte (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española. Volumen 3: Entre la oración y el discurso. Morfología, chap. 63, 4051–4213. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
Munaro, Nicola & Cecilia Poletto. 2003. Ways of clause typing. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 271. 87–105.
Munaro, Nicola & Cecilia Poletto. 2009. Sentential particles and clausal typing in venetan dialects. In Benjamin Shaer, Philippa Cook, Werner Frey & Claudia Maienborn (eds.), Dislocated elements in discourse, 173–199. New York: Routledge.
Portolés, José. 2001. Marcadores del discurso. Barcelona: Ariel.
Real Academia Española. 2009. Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa.
Rigatuso, Elizabeth & Yolanda H. Hipperdinger. 1998. Factores convergentes en procesos de mantenimiento y cambio de lengua. Lengua e inmigración en el sudoeste bonaerense. In Dinko Cvitanovic & Nilsa M. Alzola de Cvitanovic (eds.), La Argentina y el mundo del siglo XX. Actas de las jornadas internacionales, 702–714. Bahía Blanca: Universidad Nacional del Sur.
Rivarola, José Luis. 1976. Las conjunciones concesivas en español medieval y clásico. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. 

Schutze, Carson T. 2014. Judgement data. In Robert J. Podesva & Devyani Sharma (eds.), Research methods in linguistics, 27–50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Selkirk, Elisabeth. 2011. The syntax-phonology interface. In John Goldsmith, Jason Riggle & Alan Yu (eds.), The handbook of phonological theory, vol. 21, 435–483. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Malden. 

Sosa, Juan Manuel. 1991. Fonética y fonología de la entonación del Español Hispanomericano. Amherst: University of Massachussets dissertation.
Stratford, Billie Dale. 1989. Structure and use of Altiplano Spanish. Gainesville: University of Florida dissertation.
Toscano Mateus, Humberto. 1953. El español en el Ecuador. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.
Vallduví, Enric. 1992. The informational component. New York: Garland.
Vann, Robert. 2001. El castellà catalanitzat a Barcelona: perspectives linguistiques i culturals. Catalan Review XV(1). 117–131. 

Zubizarreta, María Luisa. 1998. Prosody, focus and word order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Zwart, Jan-Wouter. 2009. Relevance of typology to minimalist inquiry. Lingua 119(11). 1589–1606. 
