On quotative constructions in Iberian Spanish

Abstract

In colloquial speech, main clauses in Iberian Spanish can be headed by an overt complementizer. This paper develops the idea that such structures in Spanish involve an extra speech eventuality, and that this speech eventuality is syntactically mapped as a complex verbal predicate. This complex predicate is composed by a light verb and a quotative dependent. It is thus akin to what in other languages are called “Quotative Verbs” framing direct or semi-direct speech (Güldemann 2001). Several types of evidence are brought to bear on issues such as the semantic primitives involved in the quotative predication, and the syntactic configurations giving rise to the complex predicate.

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